Finance committee  A lot of it was. You couldn't and you still can't. If you're going to put this program in place, I would recommend getting your metrics to see where it follows through, rather than just finding people who know how to leverage getting dollars for training. Make sure we can see whe

Finance committee  Absolutely. Pay higher wages. They can't get them, period. They just can't get them in certain spots. You know what? Surprisingly, that's happening in St. John's. It's happening in certain pockets. You also asked about the Canadian jobs strategy.

Finance committee  The goal is good. The devil is in the details. The federal government and provinces still aren't getting their act together, which is confusing for us. You asked what you can do. I think in the LMA, labour market agreement, the problem has been that the only measure was on take u

Finance committee  If I can clarify, the minimum wage staff I'm talking about are making incredible money in tips.

Finance committee  We do need to deal with this, but the devil is in the details. Canada is blessed with a great debit card program and depending on the type of regulation we do, we could undermine that. We really have to figure this out.

Finance committee  We pay $40 million in fees, just on the tax portion of the bill.

Finance committee  That's $40 million, so can we not do something about that? It was punted back. The Competition Bureau went forward with it, did great presentations, and they basically said we could appeal all we wanted to, but they had to make a decision. There has to be a decision. It absolutel

Finance committee  I think the answer is yes. We need to corral all of us here. It's provincial and federal. It's education, training. It's EI. It's immigration. We have to look at a whole menu of strategies. As far as youth employment is concerned, it is double. The 15-to-24 cohort unemployment r

Finance committee  It helps to a significant amount. Many times our members feel like it's death by a thousand cuts, and nothing is more frustrating than to have a tax on payroll. That's what EI can turn into. I'll digress a bit. I came prepared to talk about employment, and I could talk about def

Finance committee  We have a lot of minimum wage workers who are making more than their employers.

Finance committee  Yes and no. Yesterday we had a meeting with the employment commissioner, and we had 24 groups, associations, around the table. All of them said that they feel the crisis coming. Then we talked about measurement of training. They were using the Conference Board and the OECD study

Finance committee  It's critically important. We're critically important in every community. If you compare Detroit versus another city, Detroit is gutted. They need a restaurant sector. We are the number one employer of first-time jobs, and we're number two for youth employment. A lot of those peo

Finance committee  Thirty thousand.

Finance committee  Employing 1.1 million.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the committee for inviting us to speak to you today. We note that this committee is looking at six issues: economic growth, vulnerable Canadians, R and D, rural issues, urban issues, and red tape. We could be in every one of those committe