Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I believe earlier you had indication that David Ganong, the president of Ganong Chocolates, would be presenting. David has just become past chairman of the New Brunswick Business Council, and he's been replaced by Gerry Pond. Gerry had some previous commitments and was unable to be here today, so it's my pleasure to share some thoughts with you.
We have circulated our brief well in advance, and I won't read it here. I'll simply go through some points that might help you understand what the business council is and why it wants to talk to you today about competitiveness.
The members of the business council are eighteen CEOs of some of the leading enterprises in New Brunswick, and you would recognize the names of companies like J.D. Irving and McCain Foods, Moosehead Breweries, Ganong, Armour Transport, and so on. As well, we have the presidents of the two largest universities, the University of Moncton and the University of New Brunswick.
The business council is, in a sense, more than a business council, and I think the closest parallel organization that's going to be appearing before you is probably the Toronto City Summit Alliance. I say it's parallel in the sense that the Toronto City Summit really represents an effort to bring together the various parts of the greater Toronto community, and the New Brunswick Business Council very much wants to be a catalyst in bringing together various voices in New Brunswick that have aspirations for the future of our province and our country.
The business council is keenly interested in competitiveness, as you might imagine, and I'm going to speak to you today principally about equalization. Of course, equalization is, we believe, a very fundamental tenet or a key building block in our Canadian competitiveness.
The business council sees equalization as a bridge. It is not an end in itself. The council's objective is not simply to see a robust equalization program. Rather it sees equalization as the bridge to a more prosperous future for New Brunswickers. That comes through investment in people and investment in education and training. Equalization is a fundamental tool to enable all provinces to be in the game of providing that necessary training and investment in people. The committee will be hearing from some that Canada has seen too much equalization, that we need to put more resources into more productive areas of the country.
The business council believes that placing limits on equalization is, in effect, a recipe for a two-tier Canada. All Canadians should have access to equal opportunity, and they need access to roughly equal services, particularly education and training. Because of equalization, a province like New Brunswick is able to spend about the same proportion of its budget on education and training as is Ontario. Some people in Ontario--and indeed I think the Premier of Ontario--would have you believe that there's something wrong with this picture. We think there's something right with this picture. Equalization does work. It is working. It has reduced the levels of disparity between provinces, and it should remain in place.
Canadians have always understood the need for a balance in economic activity across the country. If we fail to maintain that balance, there will be a hollowing out of what we have seen as a fairly good distribution of activity. We've seen a lot of narrowing, in terms of GDP income per capita, and if we don't maintain our support services across the country, there will be this hollowing out. The concern is not that we are against people moving to where economic opportunities are. What we don't want to see is that when circumstances change, there's no future for people who've left parts of the country to be able to go back there.
So it's important that your committee, which has undertaken these pre-budgetary consultations, understand that equalization is something that needs to be put on a solid footing, and avoid the tendency or the attractiveness of year-to-year tinkering with a formula. This is a core federal responsibility. In fact, if you look at the Constitution of Canada, there are many responsibilities assigned to federal and provincial governments, but the only obligation that the Constitution speaks of is the obligation to make payments for purposes of equalization. We hope the committee takes this responsibility very seriously indeed.
Thank you.