Thank you very much.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.
My name is Peter Hrastovec. I'm chair of the board of directors for the Windsor and District Chamber of Commerce. I'm accompanied today by our president and CEO, Linda Smith; board member Jim Drummond; and policy advisor Igor Siljanoski. Our industry and manufacturing spokesman, Guy Diponio, had to leave on business. He was here earlier today.
The Chamber of Commerce is pleased that the industry, science, and technology committee has taken the time to examine the challenges to our manufacturing sector. We represent 1,400 businesses and employers and over 80,000 employees in this region. Our members expect the government to send a positive signal to investors that Canada is open for business in order to encourage investment in manufacturing in our region.
In order to maintain its place among the G-7 countries, Canada must not take our manufacturing sector for granted and must focus on keeping the industry alive and well. The manufacturing sector in Windsor and Essex County is currently facing a number of challenges, including the high value of the Canadian dollar; competition from low-cost producers like China and India, as you've heard; rising global input costs; skilled-labour shortages; and this, most importantly: inadequate border infrastructure in our region.
In Windsor alone, the manufacturing sector represents 37% of our GDP, compared to 17% nationally. It represents 35% of our total employment, compared to 15% nationally. The unemployment rate in Windsor and Essex County reached 8.8% in October--I suspect it's somewhat higher these days--compared to 6.9% for Ontario and 6.5% for all of Canada.
To improve the conditions for manufacturers in our region, the chamber and its members would like to recommend measures in a number of areas. In the area of corporate taxation, the government must shorten the implementation period for providing tax relief to businesses. The government can allocate funding for corporate tax reduction by using the federal budget surplus.
The government must address personal income taxation. The chamber believes that the top marginal income tax threshold should be raised from the current $118,285 range to $150,000 to attract and retain highly skilled and productive human capital. Lower personal tax rates also attract and keep entrepreneurs in Canada.
The government can boost productivity by promoting incentives to work, save, and invest. The focus should be placed on investing in productivity-enhancing areas such as education, skills training, and research. It is our recommendation that the government commit to their plan, lower the federal corporate tax rate, and improve the SR&ED tax credit system, expanding the same to include international research.
The chamber also urges the federal government to permit the writeoff of investment in new manufacturing, processing, and associated technologies over a period of over two years.
To save manufacturing jobs, the federal government should develop a formal system for transferring losses between members of the same corporate group within common ownership.
The chamber has also been the voice for expanding free and fair trade. Non-tariff trade barriers must be addressed when entering into any free trade negotiations with any country, especially if our treaty relationship is not on an equal footing. We've seen and heard examples of that today. Because we increasingly operate in a global marketplace, the government should examine transfer pricing to ensure goods are not being dumped into Canada.
The government can do more to ensure that Canada continues to be competitive and has a skilled and qualified workforce. Our main recommendation is to facilitate further reductions in EI premium rates and reform our EI system.
One of the biggest challenges we face in our region is inadequate border infrastructure. Only the government can provide the necessary funding to improve and enhance capacity—