Finance Committee on Oct. 6th, 2011

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

All right. Do you know what percentage of membership you have in Quebec?

[Howard Sellick]

I'll refer that one to Howard.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Well, I don't want to spend a lot of time on it because I don't have a lot of time.

[Howard Sellick]

We can get back to you on that.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Okay. That's great.

[Howard Sellick]

We can get those figures for you.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

It's fair to say, though, that you have a lot of equipment manufacturers in Quebec.

[Howard Sellick]

Yes, we do.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Okay. Now, you know Fort McMurray is an anomaly by itself. In 1967, 1,500 people lived there and I was one of those people. In 1999, 30,000 people lived there, and today we have 100,000 full-time residents and probably another 45,000 people working there, Canadians working there. So about 140,000 people work in the oil sands or live in the oil sands area, and it's a very impressive story.

The story you've given me—and we talked just briefly beforehand—is a story I hear all the time. Whether they're in Quebec or Ontario or the Maritimes, people have companies that produce things for the oil sands. You've mentioned that three-quarters of your equipment currently goes to the oil sands or the potash companies in Saskatchewan. I think people don't recognize that there are 40,000 jobs, notwithstanding the oil sands, 40,000 people who work for oil sands companies or related manufacturing in Ontario. There are 40,000 people, of whom you have some, who say they are directly or indirectly working for the oil sands companies.

[Howard Sellick]

Yes. I think in answer to your question, the equipment that we manufacture is for some of the industries that cater to the tar sands. The rental companies use a lot of our equipment up in Fort McMurray.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Yes, and I understand that.

Now, I have about 500 questions, but of the ones I can get in, I'll ask this. If the oil sands shut down today, what would happen to your business?

[Howard Sellick]

That wouldn't be good. I'll tell you that.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

In fact, I see that among your equipment manufacturers you have agricultural, construction, forestry, mining, and utility. In fact, three of those areas—the construction, the forestry, and the mining—are directly related to the oil sands because they all work in that area and they work together with oil sands companies. Would that be fair to say?

[Howard Sellick]

That's correct.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I'm sorry, you're out of time, Mr. Jean.

We're going to go to Ms. Glover, please.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to ask if the other Howard could come forward, because some of these questions of Mr. Sellick are going to....

[Howard Sellick]

We both work together.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Yes, I'm probably going to have a question for him shortly.

I'm going to focus a little bit on Mr. Sellick to begin with. We didn't talk much about tariff-free zones, and for manufacturers of course eliminating some of these tariffs I would think is a good thing. Can you tell us how this benefited your company, our government's push to eliminate tariffs?

[Howard Sellick]

It has definitely benefited. We manufacture a product and there isn't any tariff.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Okay. So in which areas did it benefit you?

[Howard Sellick]

On anything we export to the U.S., like the forklift that we manufacture, we no longer pay any tariffs at all.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Do you want to see us keep these things?

[Howard Sellick]

What's that?

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Do you want to see us keep these things?

[Howard Sellick]

Yes.