Do you have a sense of the cost of one unit?
Evidence of meeting #15 for Finance in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was transit.
Evidence of meeting #15 for Finance in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was transit.
9:50 a.m.
NDP
9:50 a.m.
President, Canadian Shipowners Association
It's quite a range of cost. If we look at the icebreaker that's being built for the Arctic, it ranges up to $1 billion for something with that capability.
For something in the south that doesn't have the kind of requirement as is needed for arctic ice, I would say it's somewhere in the range of $150 million to $200 million.
9:50 a.m.
NDP
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
So if we dropped 15 F-35s we might have a shot at one then.
Thank you very much. I'll move on without being too facetious.
Mr. Sellick, I'd like to ask you a question.
On our very first panel we had a kind of consensus that now wasn't the time for the government to be particularly austere, but to invest. Canadians are highly indebted. There's $500 billion of business money being held back because of fear of a bank credit crunch. Would you agree that now's the time for the federal government to start to address the $130 billion deficit in infrastructure? Because you mentioned infrastructure that the Federation of Canadian Municipalities has said is out there and needs to be addressed.
9:50 a.m.
President, Sellick Equipment Limited, Association of Equipment Manufacturers
Yes, I would agree with that.
9:50 a.m.
NDP
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
That was simple.
Do I have two minutes left? My goodness.
When we're talking infrastructure, there are social infrastructure problems as well. I was a school board trustee, and we had 28% dropout in our schools. That was because people were being streamed toward college and university. When I look at the array of people here right now, if the 28% that dropped out got into technical trades they could probably fit into the businesses that you have. What I'm concerned about is, is your business working with the community colleges and such places to try to stream some of the people who...? Well, if you drop out of high school you're going to live in poverty. That's the fundamental of my question.
9:50 a.m.
President, Sellick Equipment Limited, Association of Equipment Manufacturers
Actually, our association has a program where we're working with students. There is a shortage of technicians in our industry. We have a program, working with the local colleges, to try to get these people into our industry.
9:50 a.m.
NDP
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Good. Thank you.
That must be two minutes. I've one minute left. I'll have to scratch my head.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
9:50 a.m.
Vice-President, Natural Gas Policy Development, Encana Corporation
I would like to comment. As the former president of the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, I want to say that over the last ten years more and more people, both women and men, have gone into the trades and we've worked hard at promoting that as a great career option.
9:50 a.m.
NDP
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
They also can make $100,000 per year. This is a decent career option for most people who don't have other options. It's a fine place to go.
9:50 a.m.
Vice-President, Natural Gas Policy Development, Encana Corporation
Certainly the apprenticeship grants and so forth that have come on recently have been very good.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Mark Adler Conservative York Centre, ON
Thank you, Chair, and thank you all for being here today.
My first question is to Mr. Shaw.
Canada's Minister of Natural Resources recently made a speech in Ottawa, at the Economic Club of Canada, in which he mentioned two words—natural gas. What do those two words mean to you?
9:50 a.m.
Vice-President, Natural Gas Policy Development, Encana Corporation
Certainly we heard a tremendous commitment by our minister in regard to looking at Canada's secure natural gas resource. I think his speech was also looking at how we might use that in better ways, such as transportation, power generation, and so forth. For me, it was really good recognizing that we do have a key asset that is secure that we need to extrapolate into other marketplaces. I thought he did an excellent job on that.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
Mark Adler Conservative York Centre, ON
Mr. Sellick, I suspect you would be in favour of creating a North American perimeter and pushing the borders out as far possible.
9:50 a.m.
President, Sellick Equipment Limited, Association of Equipment Manufacturers
Well, yes, I would have to say. Living 20 kilometres from the border, we've got truck traffic back and forth. We have personnel who are moving back and forth.
I'll quickly give you a perfect example of what we face. We have 75 dealers with 250 locations across the U.S. For product support, we have a truck that goes to FEDEX and UPS every day, five days a week. We have a cutoff time to get to UPS or FEDEX. We have to be there at a certain time. The truck actually leaves our little town of Harrow at four o'clock in the afternoon, and if we miss that cutoff time, we miss the guaranteed service the next day to our customer. That happens about three or four times a month. That's just due to the congestion at the border, and U.S. customs plays a part in it too.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
9:55 a.m.
President, Sellick Equipment Limited, Association of Equipment Manufacturers
Oh yes, by all means.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
Mark Adler Conservative York Centre, ON
Okay.
Mr. Westcott, how have the trade agreements that our government has negotiated since 2006 helped spirits? I believe there have been nine of them.
9:55 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Spirits Canada / Association of Canadian Distillers
Very well. We're strong supporters of enhanced international trade. Some 75% of what we make in spirits in Canada is exported. We are significantly an export business. It's a pretty simple business. We convert Canadian agriculture produce into higher-value products that we sell around the world.
We have been active supporters. I think some of the members around the table here would have had visits from us on deals like that with Colombia. We were the only national industry that stood up publicly and said we should do the Colombia deal.
In our particular business, because there are phase-outs, a lot of it has to do with tax treatment and access to the consumer. In fairness, I have a phase-in period, so there's a working-in period. But we see a tremendous opportunity. The trick is having enough capital to be able to go and exploit those markets for Canadian whiskey and some of our other spirits products. But we are very strong supporters and encourage more; we encourage a strong push on that.
9:55 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Spirits Canada / Association of Canadian Distillers
Absolutely.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
Mark Adler Conservative York Centre, ON
I'll go back to you, Mr. Sellick.
It was mentioned earlier about Forbes rating Canada as number one in terms of economic performance and investment. To a large extent, that's due to Canada's low tax plan to create jobs and boost the economy.
How would your members feel about an increase in corporate taxes, and how would that affect their business?
