Industry committee  That's a thoughtful and interesting question. We are starting some work on a centre for business innovation. One of the issues tied to this propensity to invest is access to capital. Another is the expertise and attitude about investment that Canadians have. We seem to be more co

Industry committee  Yes, I think there are some sectors where there is a great sensitivity in the provinces, in the resource sector, for example, where some provinces feel very deeply about this. Currently, depending on the particular industry, the province has no role officially, but it has a polit

Industry committee  I can give you some examples of branch plants in Canada that are world leaders in their area. Some of our biggest R and D operations are foreign-owned enterprises. If you go to Xerox or IBM you'll see major investment, and in some of the pharmaceutical firms that are foreign-owne

Industry committee  First of all, it's the fact that we have an open economy and we have a willingness to bring capital in and let capital go out. Our gold companies, our banks now, and a number of our other firms are engaged in a very busy buying spree around the world. For the most part they're be

Industry committee  I think if there are concerns.... For example, our analysis of 540 mergers and acquisitions between 1994 and 2007 found that the average premium paid to shareholders was 28%. This was the case of the surge in the resource sector that brought in an extra $50 billion or so to Canad

Industry committee  It does indeed. It was pretty clear, for example, in Saskatchewan, that the government there clearly had authority through the royalty regime and its taxation structure to ask for and get a structure that would satisfy it in many ways.

Industry committee  I'll take the example of the potash deal, which I've spent some time thinking about. It was an opportunity to bring capital into the country. It may turn out, as it does in so many deals, that the capital comes anyway, because BHP is still considering the Jansen Lake mine and the

Industry committee  Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I think it's important, as we reflect on the Investment Canada Act, to consider that there are several strategic concerns here. One is that it's important to provide a positive investment environment to sustain capital flow into Canada. Second, it's impor