Evidence of meeting #105 for Finance in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was rail.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Michael Atkinson  President, Canadian Construction Association
Patrick Leclerc  President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Urban Transit Association
Harriett McLachlan  Acting Deputy Director, Canada Without Poverty
Michèle Biss  Legal Education and Outreach Coordinator, Canada Without Poverty
Timothy Ross  Director, Strategic Affairs, Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada
Douglas Wong  Program Manager, Policy and Government Relations, Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada
Jeffrey Wichtel  President, Dean, Ontario Veterinary College, Association of Canadian Faculties of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine
Jean-Claude Dufour  President Elect, Dean, Laval University, Association of Canadian Faculties of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine
C.J. Helie  Executive Vice-President, Spirits Canada
Geneviève Moineau  President and Chief Executive Officer, Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada
Peter Coleridge  National President and Chief Executive Officer, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada
Stephanie Deschenes  Executive Director, Canadian Association of Science Centres
Hassan Yussuff  President, Canadian Labour Congress
Dennis Prouse  Vice-President, Government Affairs, CropLife Canada
Michael Bourque  President and Chief Executive Officer, Railway Association of Canada
Mike Luff  Senior Economist, Canadian Labour Congress

5:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

Thank you very much.

We'll now turn to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada, with Mr. Coleridge, the president and CEO. The floor is yours.

5:15 p.m.

Peter Coleridge National President and Chief Executive Officer, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada

Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members, on behalf of all young Canadians, for the opportunity to present today.

Investing in Canada's children and youth lays a foundation for a productive and competitive Canada. Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada has been providing mentoring programs to young people in Canada for over 100 years. We're currently serving 1,100 communities across the country, with 108 locations.

Youth mentoring is a dynamic two-way relationship that puts children and youth at the centre, and it plants the seeds for leadership and civic community engagement. Mentoring can take many forms, from natural supports to formal, structured mentoring. The goal or intent can include career development, academic achievement, personal development, cultural or faith-based growth, or life skills development. Mentoring can also occur in a variety of settings: in the community, schools, the workplace, or online. It can be one-on-one, or in some cases, group mentoring. There's no question, though, that mentoring Canada's young people changes the course of their lives, and in turn, changes the future of our communities to create a better society in which children, youth, and adults live, work, play, participate, thrive, and become productive citizens.

Many children and youth in Canada struggle with societal barriers and face adversities in their lives, such as various detrimental living conditions, family violence, risk factors for mental health, identity challenges, or challenges with school. These circumstances have nothing to do with the value of who they are or who they can become. These circumstances or adversities, known in neuroscience research as “toxic stress”, have an impact on children's brain development, and if not checked, they often deprive our Canadian children and youth of the opportunity to live their life to full potential. In many cases, these youth develop behavioural and social problems that cause them not to complete school or move into post-secondary education, find employment, or become contributing members of our society. Even worse, they fall into the cycles of poverty and crime, and develop mental health issues. The cost to the young person and to society is very significant.

However, I'm here with some good news. With the guidance and support of a mentor, these risks can be reduced or even avoided and youth can be anything they dream of being. Neuroscience also tells us that mentoring—two-way, back-and-forth relationships—can repair the damage of toxic stress resulting from these adversities present in the lives of hundreds of thousands of young Canadians, millions of young Canadians.

According to the Center on the Developing Child, at Harvard University, “children who do well despite serious hardship have had at least one stable and committed relationship with a supportive adult.” Today, more than ever, we're seeing young Canadians facing more and more complexity in our society and more adversities such as poverty, unsafe communities, and poor mental health. Statistically we know that more indigenous and ethno-racial youth are facing these adversities, or toxic stressors, as they're known in neuroscience. Ethno-racial youth are the fastest growing youth population in Canada.

Such adversities affect young Canadians in terms of detrimental effects around educational, employment, and quality of life outcomes. For example, indigenous youth and youth who have recently immigrated to our country are more likely to be directed away from academic-level courses, with lower expectations, more limited opportunities to learn, and fewer post-secondary options. However, the ability of mentoring to intervene and redirect these trajectories is well documented.

In 2013, a consulting group's study of youth who participated in our mentoring programs found that they were 17% more likely to be employed as adults, 13% more likely to be involved in charitable giving, and 50% more likely to be involved in volunteering in their communities. Of the study respondents, 63% had post-secondary education, 47% held senior-level positions, 13% had higher earnings than their counterparts, 80% said they pursued healthier lifestyles as a result of their mentoring program, and 96% said they were happy.

When we're talking about industry and competitiveness, if we don't have this foundation, we won't have healthy adults to move into all these industries in the future.

For success in today's global economy, providing young people with mentorship opportunities keeps them in school, enables them to find employment, and it helps them be contributing and productive citizens of our communities. It gives them the confidence to achieve more.

Mentoring helps to close the opportunity gap for underprivileged children, but also encourages kids of every socio-economic background to stay in school and achieve more. It's clear that a critical lever in fostering better educational outcomes and improving Canada's productivity and prosperity is to provide positive mentoring relationships that can transform the trajectory of young Canadian lives.

5:20 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

I'm sorry to interrupt, Mr. Coleridge, but you have a fair bit to go in your submission. I'm wondering if you can tighten it up a little.

5:20 p.m.

National President and Chief Executive Officer, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada

Peter Coleridge

Yes, I just have some highlights from the last page. I'll move quickly.

Youth mentoring provides a cost-effective approach to improving our country's prosperity. The “Social Return on Investment Study” that I also mentioned found that there was an $18 to $23 return for every dollar invested in mentoring, and that's through higher taxes, volunteerism, and charitable donations. Mentoring has many positive impacts.

It's true that young Canadians are facing more and more complexities in today's society, and there are countless number of young Canadians facing societal barriers. It's at a stage where youth mentoring is not a nice-to-have relationship, science tells us that it's a need-to-have intervention to improve Canada's productivity and prosperity.

We're calling for an investment of $20 million over three years for a pan-Canadian mentoring approach that would strengthen our communities and strengthen Canada's prosperity. The investment would enhance youth employability, improve outcomes for indigenous young people, enhance the mental health and well-being of young Canadians, increase connectedness among immigrant and refugee youth and families, and increase the quality and capacity of youth mentoring across the country, including volunteerism and networks of support for Canadian youth.

I'll leave you with this. Just imagine who the millions of Canadians facing toxic stressors can become if we invest, and the impact that could have on Canada's productivity and prosperity.

Thank you. I look forward to your questions.

5:20 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

Thank you very much.

Turning to the Canadian Association of Science Centres, Ms. Deschenes and Ms. Corbeil

September 25th, 2017 / 5:20 p.m.

Stephanie Deschenes Executive Director, Canadian Association of Science Centres

Good evening and thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable members of the finance committee, ladies and gentlemen, for inviting us to provide our thoughts as part of the pre-budget consultations.

The Canadian Association of Science Centres represents over 50 science centres, science museums, aquariums, planetariums, and science outreach organizations across the country. Collectively our members reach more than eight million Canadians each year.

I'm here representing our partners in a women in STEM initiative: Ingenium, Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation; and Research2Reality, an organization that shines a light on world-class scientists engaged in innovative and leading-edge research here in Canada. In this initiative, our goal is to increase the number of women entering and staying in the science, technology, engineering, and math, or STEM-based careers.

You asked two questions of us: what federal measures would help Canadians be more productive; and what federal measures would help Canadian businesses to be more productive and competitive. I won't repeat what's in the brief that we submitted, but I will speak more broadly on how diversity in STEM careers will contribute to a more productive Canada.

To be more productive, Canadians need to be more innovative. To be more innovative, Canada needs more science and engineering graduates. To graduate more science and engineering professionals, we must widen the pool of potential graduates. One of the best ways to do this is to look at who is excluding themselves from the candidate pool in Canada, particularly indigenous peoples and women.

We request that the finance committee encourage the government to adopt the recommendations submitted by the Council of Canadian Academies in 2014 to cultivate a strong science culture in Canada, particularly recommendation two, “Making science inclusive”. Women currently make up over half of all post-secondary graduates, but they represent less than a third of STEM graduates. In 20 years, from 1991 to 2011, the proportion of women in scientific occupations requiring a university degree only rose from 18% to 23%, and only 1% of 2016 undergrads who were enrolled in engineering programs self-identified as indigenous. Meanwhile, editorials are filled with stories about a looming shortage of skilled workers, particularly engineers, in the near future.

There are reasons for that lack of diversity in the fields we need to fill, and it is not a new story. Our culture does not support the diversity Canada desperately needs in these careers to be competitive globally. How can we motivate indigenous peoples to consider a path to STEM careers when the culture around them doesn't support it? How can we encourage women to stay in STEM fields when subtle and not-so-subtle barriers continue to exist?

The good news is that we can shift our culture in ways that aren't just directed at addressing individual issues. We can shift the perceptions of all Canadians to subconsciously expect that there will be diversity in the sciences and welcoming of new perspectives. This shift is rooted in culture change and can happen in homes, schools, post-secondary institutions, in labs and in the field, in governments and in boardrooms.

Currently there are good examples of programs that connect science mentors with the Canadian public. These are funded through granting councils and typically target young girls or indigenous youth with small grants, but they are a patchwork approach that lacks Canada-wide reach and coordination. There are no efficiencies or economies of scale, and they do not address the need to shift the public perspective. I'm here to highlight the exceptional nationwide opportunity we have by supporting our substantial science engagement community, including science centres, in this significant transformation in Canadian culture.

The critical opportunity is upon us now. We urge you to support our recommendation to fund programs such as ours that will shift Canada's culture to embrace diversity in STEM careers, thereby increasing our national productivity and global competitiveness.

Thank you once again for the opportunity to speak with you today. I look forward to answering your questions.

5:25 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

Thank you very much.

On recommendation two, of making science inclusive, if you could put on the record later on what that recommendation says, that might be helpful.

5:25 p.m.

Executive Director, Canadian Association of Science Centres

5:25 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

We'll turn, then, to the Canadian Labour Congress, with Mr. Yussuff, who is the president; and Mr. Luff, a senior economist. Welcome, fellows.

5:25 p.m.

Hassan Yussuff President, Canadian Labour Congress

First, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, good afternoon and, again, thank you for allowing us to appear before the committee.

As you know, I work representing the Canadian Labour Congress, the largest labour central in the country. We represent the voice of 3.3 million workers across the country, representing national and international unions, both provincial and territorial, and 100 district labour councils across the country.

The CLC has made a detailed written submission to the committee's pre-budget consultation. I won't be able to speak to the full range of issues raised in the written submissions today. Instead, I will speak primarily to two issues: tax fairness and child care.

On tax fairness, the tax reform must address two issues: tax fairness and the increasing fiscal capacity to support investments in housing, indigenous communities, and social programs like health care and child care. I welcome the federal government's plan to close some of the loopholes for very high-income earners.

This tax proposal is an important first step towards bringing more fairness to the Canadian tax system. The current tax rules make it possible for someone earning $300,000 to save more on their taxes than the average Canadian worker makes in a year. This is fundamentally unfair.

The labour movement supports the federal government's proposal to address three ways of using CCPCs to avoid higher tax rates. On income sprinkling, high earners who own CCPCs can split or sprinkle their income among family members with lower incomes, paying them salaries or dividends to take advantage of lower tax rates. This is something that other working families can't do.

Regarding exploiting capital gains, high-income earners who own CCPCs can pay themselves capital gains, only 50% of which are taxed at the personal tax rate, instead of dividends that face higher taxes.

On passive investing, CCPCs offer the wealthiest Canadians another tax advantage that others don't have access to, more capital for their investment portfolio. CCPC owners can park income in their businesses so that it's taxed at a lower business rate, leaving them more capital to invest in passive investments like mutual funds. Lower tax rates for businesses are meant to encourage investment and job creation, not to help the wealthiest Canadians make more out of their retirement portfolio.

This kind of tax avoidance is costing the federal government as much as $500 million plus a year. Taxes pay for the vital services that we rely on such as physical security, food safety, health care, education, and disaster relief, and Canadians expect everyone to pay their fair share.

As difficult as this process has been, reforms can't end here. We need to ensure that the top 1% of corporations pay their fair share, too, which means an aggressive clampdown on tax havens and corporate tax dodging. This would include eliminating regressive and ineffective tax loopholes by cancelling stock option deductions, fully including capital gains in taxable income, cancelling the flow-through shares deduction, taxing foreign e-commerce companies at the same level as Canadian providers, increasing taxes on banks and finance that have received windfall profits from corporate income tax cuts over the last decade and a half, introducing wealth taxes, and making income taxes far more progressive.

The government's 2015 platform commitments included generating some $2 billion annually by 2018 through the elimination of unfair tax breaks. Budget 2017 declined to take this step and instead projected that revenues would remain essentially flat between 2016-17 and 2017-18.

We hope the 2018 budget will take on some of those most regressive and wasteful tax breaks that favour tax benefits that go disproportionately to a small group of high-income earners.

The committee has asked that submissions to this process address two very important questions: what federal measures would help Canadians be more productive, and what federal measures will help Canadian businesses be more productive and competitive?

The answer to both of these questions is a national child care strategy that includes the key principles of universality, high quality, and competitiveness.

The CLC supports an expanded public investment in affordable, universal, quality child care as a way of stimulating economic growth and raising private sector labour productivity growth, while improving child development and labour market outcomes for mothers, and of course, for families on the whole.

The 2017 budget allocates some $7 billion over 10 years for early learning and child care, starting next year. A much-needed, ambitious federal commitment to universal, quality, public child care in Canada is both necessary and feasible. Federal child care funding could be increased tenfold, significantly expanding the number of child care spaces available, and reducing fees as rising labour market participation among mothers and associated taxes offset the cost of this program.

The government's commitments to date are far too conservative. Canada's spending on early childhood education and child care at just $82 U.S. per child in 2015 remain the lowest among the advanced economies. The federal government has also failed to comply with the orders of the Parliament and of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to eliminate the gap in child welfare funding for indigenous children.

The CLC joins other civil societies and organizations in insisting that the federal government live up to this obligation and end the discrimination against indigenous children and youth across this country.

I welcome any questions on behalf of the committee.

Thank you so much.

5:35 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

Thank you, Mr. Yussuff.

We now welcome Mr. Prouse from CropLife Canada.

Dennis, the floor is yours.

5:35 p.m.

Dennis Prouse Vice-President, Government Affairs, CropLife Canada

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I really appreciate it.

CropLife Canada is the national trade association representing the manufacturers, developers, and distributors of plant science innovations including pest control products and plant biotechnology for use in agriculture, urban, and public health settings. We are committed to protecting human health and the environment. We believe in driving innovation through continuous research.

CropLife Canada is a member of CropLife International, a global federation representing the plant science industry and a network of regional and national associations in 91 countries.

Our mission is to enable the plant science industry to bring the benefits of its technologies to farmers and to the public.

Mr. Chair, there has never been a better time to strengthen and enhance Canada's competitive advantage in agriculture than right now. In fact, that immense potential of Canadian agriculture was recognized both in budget 2017 and by the advisory council on economic growth chaired by Dominic Barton. Mr. Barton's council has done some tremendous work. The vision he has set out for the Canadian economy is, in our view, the right one, and there's a great excitement amongst agriculture stakeholders to see our industry receive recognition for both being a key economic driver and a source of future growth.

The goals are very lofty. The paper talks of increasing Canada's share of global agriculture exports to 8% from its current 5.7%, thus making us the second-largest agricultural exporter after the United States.

In the agrifood sector, the Barton report goal is to double our share of world exports to 5.6% from the current 2.8%. Obviously, this would require tremendous increases in the productivity and competitiveness of Canadian agriculture and agrifood.

It is our view that these increases in productivity and competitiveness will only stem from bold, meaningful policy initiatives from the federal government. For Canadian agriculture to realize the goals set out in the Barton report, CropLife Canada and its members believe it is imperative for the federal government to take the following actions.

First, revise the mandates of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Pest Management Regulatory Agency to include issues to the promotion of Canadian innovation. Virtually all innovation upon which Canadian agriculture relies as an engine of growth is ultimately regulated by these two agencies. At present, however, their mandates do not include the competitiveness of Canadian farmers and agrifood businesses globally, and the need to promptly commercialize innovations without compromising safety. These two agencies play a critical role in the facilitation and adoption of new technologies, and it's imperative that their respective mandates reflect this fact.

Let us be clear. Without a whole-of-government approach to the Barton report and an integration of its goals into the mandates of the critical regulatory agencies, there is no meaningful prospect of Canada ever hitting the goals outlined. The Barton report would simply be warm words and fond wishes, and that would be a shame given what a forward-looking piece of work it is.

Secondly, Mr. Chair, continue the focus on expanding multilateral and bilateral trade agreements with a strong focus on addressing non-tariff trade barriers. Across Canada nine out of every 10 farms are dependent on exports. This represents 210,000 farms and includes a majority of farms in every province. The fall of tariffs around the globe, however, is often quickly accompanied by a rise in non-tariff trade barriers, which often have a highly detrimental effect on Canada's agricultural exports. Fighting non-tariff trade barriers and insisting upon science-based regulatory standards will be critical to improving the competitive standing of Canadian agriculture globally.

These recommendations are entirely consistent with the Government of Canada's innovation agenda, particularly the commitment to ease of doing business, the goals set out in budget 2017, and the government's trade agenda. CropLife Canada urges the Government of Canada to take the necessary actions so that, in co-operation with industry and farmers, we can continue driving the Canadian advantage and improve productivity and competitiveness throughout Canadian agriculture and agrifood.

Mr. Chair, thank you again for inviting us to be here today. We look forward to the discussion with the committee, and at four minutes and 30 seconds I came in under your five.

5:35 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

You're doing well, and usually you're long-winded. That's pretty good.

5:35 p.m.

Voices

Oh, oh!

5:35 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

With the Railway Association of Canada, we have Mr. Bourque.

5:35 p.m.

Michael Bourque President and Chief Executive Officer, Railway Association of Canada

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

The Railway Association of Canada represents 50 freight and passenger railway operators, consisting of the six class I carriers including CN and CP, 40 local short-line railways, as well as passenger and commuter service providers, including VIA Rail and GO Transit as well as such tourist railways as the famous Rocky Mountaineer.

Although I'm going to focus on the movement of freight and the importance of a robust supply chain infrastructure, I would like to remind the committee that more than 80 million people use passenger rail every year to go to work or take a holiday, reducing emissions and congestion as well as wear and tear on Canada's busiest roads and highways. We hope the government will give the green light to VIA Rail's high-frequency rail plan, which seeks to establish dedicated tracks for rail passenger service between Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto.

For the movement of freight, Canadian railways are an economic enabler, allowing Canadian businesses to compete globally. Last year they carried some $280 billion of Canadian goods across Canada, the United States, and to international markets. Last year alone, Canadian class I railways invested more than $4 billion in their continental networks, representing approximately 22% of their revenues. This is a greater share of revenue reinvested into their physical plant than that of any other industry I can think of.

These investments are critical to maintaining safety, velocity, capacity, and service of the network. More importantly, these investments benefit rail customers. As mentioned in our written pre-budget submission, we recommend that the government introduce an accelerated capital cost measure to encourage railways to invest even more in track and related property as defined under class 1 of the Income Tax Regulations.

Today I would like to draw your attention to a specific part of our sector, and that is the short-line railway. These are railways that typically operate on less than 100 miles of track and whose revenues are less than $250 million. Short-lines are an integral part of Canada's railway network, providing vital services to regional and remote communities. They operate on low-density rail lines, feeding traffic to class I railways. They provide service to many customers, from pulp and paper mills to automotive manufacturers, with a critical link to global markets via class I railways. Moving over relatively short distances, short-lines compete directly against the subsidized trucking sector, which has access to publicly funded infrastructure.

I would ask you to consider short-lines from a public policy perspective. They are largely self-financed, operating on private track and infrastructure, including their own bridges and crossings. Their competition, mostly trucking but also marine shipping, operates on publicly subsidized highways and waterways. Water transport is extremely sustainable, but railways are much more efficient than trucking. On average, rail is four times more fuel-efficient than truck, with lower greenhouse gases and other pollutants.

Rail is also safer than trucking. Shifting freight from truck to rail will take trucks off the highway and save money on roads. A single freight train will displace about 300 trucks from our road and highway network, and yet trucking is subsidized, because trucks drive on public infrastructure, and now they are planning to run trucks in platoons on our highways.

Again, from a public policy perspective it seems to me that society is asking government decision makers to facilitate the move to a sustainable future. Creating a level playing field for short-lines to compete with trucks is a sensible way of doing so. Moving ahead with VIA's high-frequency rail plan is another.

The Honourable David Emerson, in his recent Canada Transportation Act review, recommended the creation of a funding program dedicated to short-line railways, and just two weeks ago, before the Standing Committee on Transport, reiterated the urgency to invest in short-line infrastructure to maintain that vital link in the supply chain.

For this reason, the RAC recommends that the government create a capital funding program to support short-line infrastructure investment. In our written submission we suggested the amount and some modalities of the fund. We also provided other suggestions in our pre-budget submission, on which we would be happy to elaborate.

Thank you very much.

5:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

Thank you all for your presentations.

We turn to the first round of questions. We'll have to go to five minutes to get everyone in.

Ms. O'Connell.

5:45 p.m.

Liberal

Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON

Thanks to all of you for coming here today.

To Mr. Coleridge, I think mentoring is incredibly important for all the reasons you outlined in your brief. In terms of the pan-Canadian mentoring approach, is this something that exists? There's not only the investment; you also have to come up with the approach. Is that something you're recommending? Does the cost that's in your brief include essentially coming up with the pan-Canadian approach?

5:45 p.m.

National President and Chief Executive Officer, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada

Peter Coleridge

Yes, that is correct. It doesn't exist now. To form the various partnerships across stakeholders and organizations, to do that level of training and recruitment and screening for mentors—all of that requires planning and investment to roll it out.

5:45 p.m.

Liberal

Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON

Are there other jurisdictions you could point to that have done something similar? I'm wondering what the results were, particularly in and around the economics, such as the graduation rates, the employment, the skills, and the employability of the people involved.

5:45 p.m.

National President and Chief Executive Officer, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada

Peter Coleridge

Yes, it has occurred in other jurisdictions, the closest one being our American neighbours. There's an organization called Mentoring USA, which provides that kind of umbrella approach and ensures various standards and the most effective approaches for mentoring. It provides training and technical assistance. They've increased in the U.S. the number of options for mentoring, from hundreds of thousands to several million. It involves corporate U.S.A. as well, and numerous partnerships.

Closer to home, the Alberta Mentoring Partnership is a great example that we can leverage and build on to try to invest in and plan across Canada for that coordinated approach.

5:45 p.m.

Liberal

Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON

Thank you.

My next question is for the Canadian Association of Science Centres. In your brief and in your presentation, as the chair has already pointed out, you specifically referred to a recommendation, but it wasn't part of your brief; it was part of your partnership. Could you maybe elaborate on that so we can get it on the record and learn a little bit more about what you are recommending?

5:45 p.m.

Executive Director, Canadian Association of Science Centres

Stephanie Deschenes

The Council of Canadian Academies issued a report in 2014, entitled “Science Culture: Where Canada Stands”, with five recommendations for strengthening science culture in Canada. Recommendation number two was to make science more inclusive. They specifically referenced the need to be more inclusive of indigenous peoples and women. In particular with indigenous peoples, it was the need to make greater connections between traditional knowledge and western science, and to find those opportunities to make indigenous peoples more comfortable in the sciences. Not only that; there's introducing in the sciences some of the traditional knowledge that isn't necessarily considered now. That's one very distinct part of inclusivity.

The second major part of that recommendation is increasing women in STEM careers by looking at the entire talent pipeline and looking for the leaks. We know from several research documents that girls tend to like science as much as boys do, but between grades 4 to 7 they start to not see themselves in these careers. They're not seeing the mentors. They're not seeing themselves as university professors. When they get into the workplace, they're finding difficulty in advancing in these careers because of several barriers that are in place.

The report specifically looked at those two things to make it more inclusive.

5:45 p.m.

Liberal

Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON

Thank you.

Mr. Prouse, in one of your recommendations you talked about encouraging the food safety agency—I was writing my notes really quickly, so these might not be your exact words—to support Canadian innovation. Can you give me an example of what maybe isn't happening, and that you'd like to see happening, so that I can put those words into something that I can really understand?

5:45 p.m.

Vice-President, Government Affairs, CropLife Canada

Dennis Prouse

Absolutely.

At present, it takes two years to get a seed, a new trait, to approval. It's a two-year process. Why does it take two years? Well, we know that there isn't two years' worth of work going into that process. It's a few months. So that's a very lengthy process, and in our view, that could be shortened down. That could be cut in half and you could have a one-year guaranteed time. If you want to make Canada a global biotech leader, and you want global companies to want to invest here, then you need to shorten those approval times and have that kind of guarantee. That then makes Canada a very attractive place in which to invest, because now Canada becomes a place where you can get a novel trait approved and you can get a return on your investment in a faster and more timely manner.