Finance Committee on Oct. 18th, 2012

[Michael Conway]

We're certainly moving in the right direction, and we'd encourage...to continue to do so, because the next recession will happen sooner or later. It's better to get the books in order to be well prepared again.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Of course, our competition is the rest of the world, so if we're doing better relative to anybody in the world, then we are doing better in fulfilling that mandate.

Now, I know there are some economies that some people question—

[Michael Conway]

Yes, but we also can't be complacent.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Of course not.

[Michael Conway]

We were quite pleased with ourselves coming into the last recession, but you know, when our neighbour to the south sneezes, we catch cold. When European economies are weak, it impacts us. So we have to be prepared.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Of course, they caught a case of the measles, and we're still doing very well, so I would suggest we're doing well.

I want to talk to you about suggestions relating to tax credits and mobility of workforce. You talked about productivity in your answers, and I'd like you to explain some of those ideas.

Are you familiar with your answers in relation to this?

[Michael Conway]

Definitely.

In our discussions concerning productivity, one of the first things we talked about was a review of the tax act and the tax simplification issues, which we've already talked about.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

And we understand that.

[Michael Conway]

That would include consolidated tax reporting, etc.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

I don't want to talk about that, if you don't mind. I understand, and I agree with you, but I want to talk about the question I have relating to mobility of workforce.

You know that most of your executives run companies from one part of the country to another. Do you have any suggestions regarding mobility of workforce and getting people from one part of the country to another to fill all the jobs that we need to fill? A huge portion of the population is retiring.

Mr. Knight, could you make some suggestions in relation to that?

[James Knight]

Well, in our brief we did reference some opportunities to improve apprenticeship outcomes, with tax measures specifically described in our brief, that would be quite helpful.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

One suggestion I received from a community college in my riding was that the community colleges should actually participate in the mobility factor from right across the country. Community colleges should work together, from Newfoundland to Cape Breton, with Alberta colleges, for instance, or other places where there is either high employment or high unemployment to facilitate the move of these students to get jobs.

[James Knight]

Absolutely. And I would say we do that.

We referenced earlier the reality that many eastern Canadians fly to your part of the world: 30,000 every two weeks commute. If we can train up in Nova Scotia and other eastern provinces the skills that you need in Alberta for the oil patch, that's a great thing. And we are doing that. That's one of the reasons why we send 30,000 people from eastern Canada to western Canada.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Do you have any other suggestion for how the colleges could work together in a formal atmosphere to do so?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

You'll have to make just a brief response, please.

[James Knight]

I think we do this very well. We get together all the time. We talk about these things.

An important need is to improve pathways for students, not just between or among colleges but between universities and colleges. That's a big need in Canada. We have all sorts of blockages for learners.

Germany has a laddering system where you can always move ahead. In Canada we have issues that make that difficult, especially with the universities. We're working at that. But among colleges, I think we're quite good at integrating.

Of course, the Red Seal program is a tremendous federal contribution to this. It would be good to grow that. We have a certain number of apprenticeships in that area, but we could have more.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Jean.

Mr. Marston, please.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Knight, it's good to see you again.

Welcome to everyone.

You'll probably know a bit of this, because we've chatted about it before.

My own experience is coming out of the Hamilton labour movement. Of course, we've seen a great deal of devastation to our manufacturing over the last 20 years. Amazingly, I'm not going to blame anybody. It's one of those things that's happened. It's history. We have to figure out what to do about it.

I've said here that the expectation of Canadians is for government intervention in a variety of areas. Sometimes that's not about giving dollars. Sometimes it's a facilitating role.

Coming out of labour, I'm a great believer in trades apprenticeship. You've spoken to that to some degree. I took from your comments that you feel today we're lacking that national vision, that strategy or plan, that prepares the workers for these job increases.

Mr. Van Kesteren raised in his remarks about Germany, and I would agree with him, that Germany is one of the best models we can have. They learned a long time ago to work hand in hand with their unions and the educational system. That's why they have been successful at keeping the highly skilled workers in that country and developing them.

But I want to take Mr. Brison's point a little further. In Ontario in the 1990s...and I expect you will recall when the NDP government of the day started the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board. Part of that plan was to put into the local communities an LTAB, which would allow them to spend the provincial dollars and some federal dollars in retraining and that. We had a Conservative government of the day, of course, that cancelled the top end of that and left it in place.

Do you think the government today should reconsider that, and consider reviving the OTAB as maybe a way of coming together with the various groups? That had a labour, business, and educational component.

[James Knight]

I absolutely support the notion that we must collaborate, as Mr. Van Kesteren suggested. If this modality or this format—I'm not intimately familiar with it—is a way of engaging labour, educational institutions, employers, and related interests, I think we need to do that.

We have a big problem. If we can find ways to work together, that could be an inducement.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

We have a problem, too, of moving workers across the country. We have the Red Seal for the trades to make sure they're trained to the various levels to meet the needs across the country. Again, that's a place for education, government, and the unions to work together.

Mr. Conway, in your presentation—I'm sure you're probably just waiting for this one—I heard the little tinkle that the GST was a progressive tax. I have a little bit of a problem with that, because a consumption tax, in my view....

I should tell the tale that when Sheila Copps resigned over the GST, I was the guy who came second to her in the race. So you know my opinion on the GST from that.

From our view, a consumption tax affects the middle class and lower class disproportionately from the people who are well off. To my mind, income tax is the fairest way to address the needs of government, the needs of our society, to deliver.

We can debate the fairness of where you place that taxation, but over the last two years in this place, on this committee in pre-budget hearings, we've heard a lot of talk about the need for the government to take a lead on infrastructure. With your CEOs, you're going to be dealing very much with the municipalities, the federation of municipalities and that, with the $124 billion deficit they have.

I'm wondering what you think about at a macro level the federal government directly investing to lever some of the business dollars into infrastructure.

[Michael Conway]

Sorry, for clarification, is the question about commodity taxes or about infrastructure?

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

No. Today, with interest rates so low, the government can take out 10-year bonds and use that money to lever...well, we're told there's $500 billion of capital sitting in the business community that's inactive right now. That would be a method of levering some of that into action, allow people from the group you represent to work with the government and to deliver some of the needs that have been identified by the Federation of Municipalities.

[Michael Conway]

A lot of things can be done. In terms of using cash, normally businesses will spend money when they feel the business environment is safe and they tend to delay investment decisions in times of uncertainty.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

I agree, and that was my point. The money's sitting there. There's a certain reservation today after what happened in 2009. That's understandable.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

Please respond briefly, Mr. Conway.