Finance committee  Putting that decision into an independent, arm's-length body is going to lead to better decisions. They are likely to be more counter-cyclical, because they're going to be made by the people who are affected by them.

Finance committee  I have just a quick point, if I may, on this issue of temporary workers. I think some of the criticism of the bill is that this will lead to more temporary workers. In my view, one of the reasons we've had such a surge in temporary workers is that we can't get permanent migrants

Finance committee  If I may, I think it provides some discretion to enable us to react to labour market conditions, but I agree with my colleagues here that Canada should be trying to attract more people. On the other hand, I also agree with you that as we bring people into the country, we do need

Finance committee  —of public policy over the past years, that we're not doing a good enough job. If you look at the income results for immigrants and what's happened over the past 10 or 20 years, we're seeing those results deteriorate rather than improve. So yes, there are issues that need to be

Finance committee  You're right. First of all, the fact that you can only go up and down by a certain amount provides some welcome certainty and limits any kind of pro-cyclical damage. At the same time, as Andrew Jackson mentioned earlier, as we were going through a period of extended economic grow

Finance committee  One of the things we agree on here is that this is one step in the right direction. Lots more could be done, and there's a whole other policy debate about the purpose of the employment insurance fund. I think some of the other witnesses have spoken to that. There's a whole variet

Finance committee  I agree. It's important for everyone that the process be transparent. In spite of what Mr. Jackson said, I think it would be important for the board to have the capability to conduct its own analyses in a transparent manner. We all hope to be consulted. Transparency is very impor

Human Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm sorry we were not able to be with you last week. We were holding our own members' meeting in Calgary at the time, so all of us were occupied with that. I'm delighted to join you this morning. I don't think I'll take up too much time with initial comments

Human Resources committee  The Canadian Council of Chief Executives is on the other end of the spectrum of the business community. We limit our membership to 150 people. Each of these individuals is either the chief executive officer or a major shareholder of a large Canadian enterprise. I think our averag

Human Resources committee  Perhaps I can just follow up on some of the comments, because I think we end up in the same place, but our members would come at it from a somewhat different perspective. Certainly our members have been increasingly concerned in recent years about what is developing into a seri

Human Resources committee  Our expectation is that the board would be composed of people who have expertise in the relevant issues. Good corporate governance rules would apply to this, as they would to any crown corporation, so I would expect to see that the Governor in Council, in making appointments to t

Human Resources committee  As I said in my initial remarks, we certainly argued in favour of bringing employment insurance premiums into line with costs, all the way through that period. On the other hand, we were arguing about the importance of reductions in other tax rates as well. EI premiums act as a t

Human Resources committee  You've asked several questions there, which are very interesting ones. In terms of repatriating the past surpluses, again, I think my attitude is that what is past is past. On the notion of adding a bit more into the account in the transitional years—if there's a consensus that

Human Resources committee  Yes, and frankly, as you say, employment insurance premiums are a tax on jobs. But what matters I think to Canadians is not just how many jobs we have; it's how well-paid those jobs are, how highly skilled those jobs are. Going forward, as more and more we face a shortage of qu

International Trade committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm probably going to repeat some of the same sentiments that my colleague here has expressed, but I do appreciate the opportunity to appear and talk about this bill and the free trade deal with the European Free Trade Association. I know that a lot of pe