Thank you. Good morning, everybody.
It's an interesting time to have this committee hearing. We've gone through what has been the most difficult recession in two generations, and now we're sitting at the brink, asking ourselves whether we're coming out of it or facing another bubble. The response of government to our present situation will have a large influence on the answer to that question.
Over the last couple of years, throughout the industrialized world—in the U.S., Europe, Canada—we have seen massive intervention by governments in their economies, the most that has taken place in 30, 40 years. The strategic intelligence of those interventions may well dictate the outcomes for industry.
The two principal feedstocks of an economy are money and energy, and governments are now heavily involved in the supply of money and the supply of energy.
We've made a submission, but I want to take some time to put it in context.
We applaud the government for investing so much to restart the economy. But if the economy doesn't rebound, it's going to be clear that unless we get private sector investment, the whole thing is going to start to fizzle. The question now is not how the government can spend more billions of dollars in stimulus. The real question is how the government can create an incentive structure for private sector stimulus money, that is, private sector investment, to keep the recovery going.
In our submission, we have several ideas about this. They're not new ideas, but they're ideas whose time has clearly come: extending the accelerated write-off for capital investments so that we bring capital investments into Canadian industry; and offering refundable SR and ED credits so that people invest in innovation. These are measures that bring in private sector investment instead of depending on further government stimulus.
There is another thing governments could do as the economy moves perilously closer to the brink. Governments could identify regulations that are imposing unnecessary costs on industry. For example, the monopoly status of the railways imposes a hardship on many of our mills. Adjusting that status would make industry more viable and keep jobs in Canada, without costing the government a penny.
Next, if you look across the border, if you look to Europe, if you look to any industrialized economy, the question of energy policy is becoming a major determinant in competitiveness. Europe and the United States are investing massively, billions upon billions of dollars, in the development of clean energy, energy from biomass, renewable energy, and the reduction of dependence on fossil fuels.
With the world facing the threat of climate change, the countries that make this investment smartest and fastest will have a huge economic advantage in the future. We're hoping to see in the budget not just muscular spending for the transformation to green energy, but also a policy framework that would put Canada ahead of the curve in the move from fossil fuels to green energy. This is the way to be ready for tomorrow's economy.
Thank you.