Thank you very much.
Evidence of meeting #84 for Finance in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was federal.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #84 for Finance in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was federal.
A video is available from Parliament.
6:15 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Thank you, and thank you to the witnesses for coming today.
Something you said, Mr. Turk, struck me. You mentioned technology and GPS, and I'm not sure if you mentioned fax technology and some other things. Most of those things, of course, were invented by the military complex of the United States. I'm wondering, you're not advocating for more military investment are you, sir, so that we get more inventions? That's where most of them came from, so I'm kind of curious.
6:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Association of University Teachers
I want to tell you a quick story. I will answer your question directly.
6:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Association of University Teachers
Noam Chomsky, who is not known as a friend of the military, gave a talk at Carleton University two years ago, where he talked about how he'd been at MIT for the last 35 or 40 years, and during the first half or two-thirds of his time, the bulk of the funding at MIT was from the Pentagon.
More recently, it's been corporate.
6:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Association of University Teachers
Yes.
The military funding funded basic research and allowed the scientists to pursue their research. He said one of the changes is that it's become more corporate research, and there have been more attempts to direct their research. In fact, many of these things did come out of military research, but they came out of military funding for basic research. It's what the military is funding.
6:20 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Are you advocating for more military investment?
6:20 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Association of University Teachers
If it's for basic research, that's okay.
6:20 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
You edited a book called The Corporate Campus: Commercialization and the Dangers to Canadian Colleges and Universities. Do you believe in what was in that book?
6:20 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Association of University Teachers
I edited the book. I take responsibility for what I wrote. I don't necessarily agree with everything that everyone else wrote.
6:20 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Association of University Teachers
I thought it was worth considering.
6:20 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Okay. I was just curious, because it struck me as....
6:20 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Association of University Teachers
We believe in academic freedom and the diversity of voices to generate a discussion.
6:20 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
I noticed there were about 10 authors, and you edited it.
6:20 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Association of University Teachers
That's right.
6:20 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Some of the things that struck me as interesting were some of the comments made in it about the public interest needing to be protected and more or less that universities should be making the choices and those who are educated in the field should be making the choices.
If I could finish—
6:20 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
From my perspective, what I've seen be successful in my area of Fort McMurray, which I think.... Listening to Mr. Audla, it seems that he's 30 years back from where Fort McMurray was, or Fort McMurray 30 years ago was where his community is. I would encourage you to look at Fort McMurray's model.
Hard work, creativity, and results should be rewarded. I think that's ultimately what I take as a difference of opinion from what I read in some of the book's contents. I'm wondering what your comment would be on that. Fort McMurray, for instance, just over the last little while, has the highest employment rate for aboriginals in the country—15% for some plant sites, and some have 10%. They employ literally thousands of aboriginals who have grade 12 or grade 10 educations, and they do a proactive aboriginal training program with the high schools and with the colleges, and in fact it is commercially driven.
The success rate, for instance, of aboriginal populations is tremendous. The highest household income in the country is there in Fort McMurray, and those are people who do not have university educations or jobs. They're adding 7% or 8% to the GDP.
I see Mr. Myers is nodding his head in agreement.
Could you comment on that, Mr. Myers?
October 29th, 2012 / 6:20 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, National Office, Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters
I think we certainly need universities, and we need the highly qualified personnel coming out of universities. But I think we also need to be able to develop the technical and skilled production workers, and we need to be able to connect people who perhaps don't have technical skills to employment opportunities . Over the next 10 years, this country is going to be faced with a tremendous people shortage, not just a skills shortage. Yet we have these mismatches of people who have gone to school in one area and there are job opportunities in other areas. I think we need better mechanisms to connect—
6:20 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
That was going to be my next series of questions, actually. I was wondering if you have any suggestions regarding mobility. Obviously reducing the barriers to mobility, like the Red Seal program, but travel tax credits, living tax credits—tax credits to drive people from one place to another, at least on a temporary basis.
I sit with literally hundreds of people every week, going back and forth to Fort McMurray, who are from all over the country. I talked to one gentleman from southwestern Ontario. He told me he makes $200,000 a year there and he wouldn't make $60,000 employed full time where he is currently located. He can't say enough good things about Fort McMurray, and the mobility, but he would like to have some form of tax credit or encouragement to involve him in different places around the country.
Do you have any comments or suggestions about tax credits, travel tax credits or things like that, that you've heard could be successful?
6:20 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, National Office, Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters
I think whether it's a travel tax credit or a tax credit for mobility, it might be a very interesting measure. One of the problems, of course, is that people flying from the Maritimes to Fort McMurray, or anywhere, are sitting on a house that they can't necessarily sell in the Maritimes. There are all sorts of reasons that we have mobility problems.
We're working in a number of areas, extending Red Seal to basic employability skills; we're doing that with the Canadian Labour Congress. They're trying to identify standards—product standards, work standards—that act as barriers to labour mobility. I think all of these are important.
We do need a concerted national approach to all of these issues.
6:20 p.m.
Liberal
