Evidence of meeting #5 for Finance in the 41st Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was industry.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Is there a best practice to be learned from some of them?
Executive Vice-President, Aerospace Industries Association of Canada
Let's take the entire global example of the DHC-2 Beaver, which was developed because Canada had a north and bush that had to be exploited, on up to the CSeries jet, which is the most advanced modern airliner flying. There is, if you follow it, a direct line from one all the way to the other showing how one led to investment and innovation that led to another—
Executive Vice-President, Aerospace Industries Association of Canada
—with a domino effect.
In that case, it answered an absolutely unique Canadian need that developed the expertise that eventually became the CSeries jet, which as mentioned earlier is an extremely green airliner. It's very fuel-efficient; it's very quiet; it is the epitome of an advanced airliner—and it was built by Canadians.
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
I'm going to change channels here a little.
Mr. Sinclair, from Kitchener Waterloo, how has the communication hub that is funded through the Centre of Excellence impacted the research centre and worked in your region?
Vice-President, Greater Kitchener Waterloo Chamber of Commerce
I'm sorry, what was that?
Conservative
Vice-President, Greater Kitchener Waterloo Chamber of Commerce
The communication hub?
Generally it has been critical for many of the startup companies. That, I think, is where a lot of the—
Conservative
Vice-President, Greater Kitchener Waterloo Chamber of Commerce
Oh, the Communitech Hub, yes. It is funded through the province and the federal government, but I think essentially their focus is on assisting, through peer-to-peers and various other mechanisms, the development of young startup companies.
As I mentioned before, we have a unique relationship between the universities and businesses in Waterloo Region, but we also have a very unique business-to-business relationship. What we have essentially evolved within the IT sector is businesses that help each. The Communitech Hub in downtown Kitchener is in an old warehouse that has been renovated. There are about 100 different companies that are in there for a very short period of time, and then they move out once they expand and get bigger. They are there to collaborate. It's a very informal network, really, whereby you have people who are in the same industry who run into each other in the hall and say, “I have this problem. Do you have any suggestions for how we can solve it?”
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
I was in Taiwan and visited a smart research park. That was much the same idea.
Conservative
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses who appeared today. I certainly have heard some interesting information.
I want to talk first of all about apprenticeship programs.
I'm not sure, Ms. Robinson, whether you are aware of the apprenticeship program in Alberta that has been operating for 20 years. I have three sons, aged 23, 24, and 28 now. They were all born in Fort McMurray. They have all had the opportunity, especially the two youngest ones, to be involved in the apprenticeship program in Alberta, which takes high school students in grades 10, 11, and 12 and integrates them into the workforce.
I see you nodding your head in agreement. It has been a very successful program there. Of course, it was brought in by a conservative government in Alberta. It has been very popular.
Would you like to comment briefly on that program?
Chief Executive Officer, Polytechnics Canada
[Inaudible--Editor]...have one system in the country, so Alberta is leading the way in some of these things and is exceptional. They have also changed ratios, as you probably know.
The biggest thing I see in Alberta, which is very interesting—I'm trying to link back to the research and innovation issues, too—is that in Alberta you can actually have a tradesperson get a business degree; you can have them be entrepreneurs. They are the tinkerers.
This committee is asking why we don't have innovation. It's because we don't have demand-driven innovation; we are not looking at the near-to-market space enough. The balance is needed. We need to fund basic research, but we need to fund people who are part of the “know how” economy, and trades people, as much as technicians and technologists, are all from it. This is the kind of silo discussion that is very unfair to the 21st century that we are in.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
I agree, it's actually amazing. In fact, Alberta and British Columbia have recently signed a pipeline agreement or a mutual memorandum of understanding to move forward.
Of course, as you're aware, that's going to mean a lot of jobs in Canada. I think somewhere around one in thirteen jobs in Alberta is currently directly related to the energy industry, and this is going to improve that a lot. I think there will be somewhere in the neighbourhood of $30 billion in economic activity over the next few years just from that pipeline alone.
I would like to talk just to FPAC. Very quickly, because I don't have a lot of time left, I'd like you to tell me what the forest products industry was like in 2005 as far as future opportunities and ongoing competitiveness with the world are concerned—because we're competing with the world.
Executive Vice-President, Forest Products Association of Canada
In 2005?
Executive Vice-President, Forest Products Association of Canada
Again, it depends on what segment of our industry we look at. In 2005--
November 7th, 2013 / 12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
As far as its future opportunities and competitiveness looked like....
