Industry committee  I will. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think my colleagues have offered you a pretty detailed review of the challenges facing the sector, so I won't go into a long exposition here, but I would, if I may, offer a few comments to lead us into the question period. The first comment I hav

Industry committee  I think the answer is both. There are broad conditions, and what we're suggesting is there are ways that governments can improve competitiveness conditions for doing business across all sectors. But I agree that each sector has its own particular challenges. If you're talking a

Industry committee  I would have to agree on the broad thrust of that. As I say, if you don't get the investment environment right it doesn't matter whether you're a small business person in a small community or an executive in a multinational that's based somewhere else. You make decisions about wh

Industry committee  In what Jay is talking about, it's clear that to date we've seen strong investment by manufacturers. They're saying, “We're doing our best to grow our businesses.” But if we look at the longer-term future, how are we going to handle a situation where the global economy is not as

Industry committee  On the global trade side, we've always seen an advantage for Canada in supporting the strong rule of law multilaterally. The fact is, multilateral agreements help the smaller countries deal with the bigger ones. Obviously we've also seen a huge impact from our bilateral and trila

Industry committee  There are a number of elements to that. As you say, high energy prices are both a blessing and a curse, depending on where you sit. On the one hand, we've got to recognize, as Jay Myers was pointing out, that a lot of the fluctuation, the volatility, that we've seen in energy pri

Industry committee  I wanted to address your question about regulation, because Mr. Fontana raised it as well. I want to come back to the example of the Netherlands, because this is not a matter of deregulation; it's not a matter of taking away, or reducing standards, or anything like that. It's sim

Industry committee  I agree. The rules are there, both multilateral rules and Canadian rules. It's a question of how rigorously we try to enforce them. Another point that flows from Mr. Myers' comments is that it reinforces the importance of our not only protecting, as Canadians, our own borders an

Industry committee  I've lost count of how many inquiries there have been into the competitiveness of gasoline pricing in this country. Not one of them has ever come up with a suggestion that there's a problem, at the end of the day, so I don't see much point.

Industry committee  Mr. Chairman, I have a brief comment in terms of entrepreneurship. I want to make a point that entrepreneurship isn't just a career that's in private sector; I think entrepreneurship is an attitude, and it's just as important for Canada to have creative or innovative entrepreneur

Industry committee  Yes, that's what I'm saying.

Industry committee  Yes, that comes back to social attitudes and the question of whether our communities welcome entrepreneurship as an activity or a calling. Do we welcome creative people, no matter where they work? Do we welcome creative people in our communities, even if they get rich doing it? O

Industry committee  Let me try to deal briefly with Mr. Carrie's question with respect to labour mobility and what we can do to help people who may lose their jobs in one part of the country move to another part. I think there are two paths to it. One is the enabling part, and that tends to be th

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to come and join you today. This is a very complex piece of legislation, but it's one that's very important as well. The members of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, for those who aren't familiar, are basically CEOs of

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  I would say that precisely because the issues are complex, it's important to take the time to get it right. I don't dispute the urgency of addressing the concerns the public has, but again I draw on our experience with the issue of corporate governance. The fact is that legislato