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Canada and SC: Trade Happy

Louise Blais, Canada's Consul General to the U.S.
Mike Switzer/SC Public Radio

According to the latest trade statistics, our state’s exports to Canada total about $3.5 billion dollars a year.  Our imports from Canada come to about $2.9 billion.  All of which leads to about 165,000 jobs in South Carolina that depend on that trade relationship with our northern neighbor.

Mike Switzer interviews Consul General Louise Blais, Canada’s top diplomat in the Southeast United States.

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After almost 20 years, Mike Switzer retired from Wells Fargo Securities in 2001 as Senior Vice President/Investment Officer and Certified Portfolio Manager. In 1999, he and his wife, Maggie, purchased and operated for eight years the Baskin Robbins ice cream store on Forest Drive in Columbia. They grew the store from a bottom-tier operation in the Baskin Robbins franchise system to one in the top 5% nationwide within three years, tripling sales along the way. While operating the ice cream store, Mike and Maggie received patents for a portable ice cream sink and fold-down sneezeguard they invented and in 2002 started Magnolia Carts, an ice cream cart manufacturing company, which they sold in 2013.