Evidence of meeting #4 for Finance in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was infrastructure.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
President, Canadian Convenience Stores Association
For Ontario, our most recent studies indicated a 22% rate of contraband.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Twenty-two per cent of all the consumed product is contraband?
President, Canadian Convenience Stores Association
For discarded cigarette butts that were collected on various locations around the province—
President, Canadian Convenience Stores Association
—the percentage of those cigarette butts that were identified as contraband was 22%.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
This is a huge issue. It's an issue that poses all kinds of dilemmas and unfortunately, a politicization of things. That particular manufacturer, by the way, pays the excise tax. They pay no other taxes, no property taxes, no income taxes, and no corporate taxes, just the excise tax, so they have a huge advantage.
The other interesting fact is there are 11 known illegal manufacturers on the Six Nations territory that GRE told me about when I visited them six years ago, so my information is dated.
The issue is one that is so difficult to tackle. In fact, some of the richest people in Canada live on Six Nations as a result of this business.
I appreciate your encouraging the new government to tackle this issue in a meaningful way, but it's a very difficult issue to tackle. I just wanted to put it in context, because you've been fighting this battle for a long time.
Your business people, the people who own the stores, have lost the revenue numbers you mentioned: $2.5 billion, estimated four years ago, in lost revenue for them, and $2 billion, estimated four years ago, in lost revenue for the government. Are those numbers correct?
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Thanks.
I'll end it there on that issue, and go to Mr. Eby.
In your presentation, you mentioned the accelerated capital cost allowance, and you requested the government to move it to what number?
Director, Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations, Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association
Fifty per cent.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Do you know that's a huge advantage over other business categories in this country?
Director, Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations, Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association
I believe it would be over some, but there would be some that would have a similar rate.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
We just had petroleum upstream people here, and they were getting accelerated capital cost allowance as well. It was portrayed as a huge advantage.
I'd like you to review again the numbers of what it would mean to your industry should that happen.
Director, Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations, Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association
These are from the Conference Board of Canada. They did a study on this. They said that in the long term, if it were a permanent change, it would result in an additional $225 million in infrastructure investment annually and 1,660 jobs.
Conservative
Director, Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations, Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association
From that, it was a $163-million increase in GDP. They didn't have a tax revenue.
Conservative
Liberal
Robert-Falcon Ouellette Liberal Winnipeg Centre, MB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
My next question is for you, Mr. Angers.
I'd just like to understand what you said about commercializing Canadian products. Would you mind elaborating on how that can help manufacturers of energy products?
Chief Executive Officer, Centre of Excellence in Energy Efficiency
Thank you for the question.
The Liberal Party said that it wanted to deal with the carbon issue. It's a fact that the transportation industry is responsible for 23% of the country's greenhouse gas emissions. Our goal, then, is to invest in the commercialization of energy-efficient innovations in the transportation industry. For instance, there is a hydrogen company in British Columbia, and Quebec has a hydrogen research institute. And both of them have developed wonderful applications that could find takers throughout Canada's north.
The Germans, however, hold patents and their products may cost buyers less because our companies don't have the resources to commercialize and sell their products. It's hard for them to compete with companies that have the upper hand over Canadians in the country. We want to invest that money in those Canadian companies. We want to help them commercialize their products outside the country, and their profits will generate our return on investment.
That's what C3E does. As a non-profit organization, we pass on the profits to the next company to create the wheel that will allow Canadians to engage in more commercialization all over the country.
We'd like to put in place a strategy, in other words, create a Canada-wide efficient transportation community. All the projects that universities are working on would be part of that platform, as would all of our promotional endeavours. Large entities would see Canadian innovations on that platform and be able to acquire them. Canadian companies would be in a position to export their products and import money.
Liberal
Robert-Falcon Ouellette Liberal Winnipeg Centre, MB
You talked about university researchers. Often, although they are able to design a product well, they don't have the expertise to commercialize it.
Chief Executive Officer, Centre of Excellence in Energy Efficiency
That's right.
We provide the financing. A lot of research is being done. We make it available on the platform so that all the investors see it. The investors will help them commercialize the products.
Liberal
Robert-Falcon Ouellette Liberal Winnipeg Centre, MB
Thank you very much.
My next question is for Ms. Kent.
I will also ask it in French.
Could you tell me what the impact of the current drop in oil prices is on the biofuels industry? Is that also affecting your industry?
President, Canadian Renewable Fuels Association
Thank you for the question. If you don't mind, I'll respond in English though.
There's absolutely an impact in our industry. It's not unlike other commodity-based industries. We are witnessing here exceptionally low oil prices combined with a falling Canadian dollar. It creates instability and ripple effects for us as it would really any other segment of the economy at this price when you look at the low price combination in this environment.
What is important to realize is that for us, oil isn't the only commodity that we're linked to. It's also gasoline. When you look at the demand for gasoline, there's always a flip side to something. Low prices mean higher demand in this instance.
Because gasoline demand has remained relatively very strong and increasing, ethanol demand as a result of that has also done fairly well comparatively over this period. Biodiesel isn't combined with oil in quite the same way. So we're doing well. That isn't to say things like the mandates aren't still important. A lot of the reason that we're able to weather these price fluctuations is policy certainty.
Liberal
Robert-Falcon Ouellette Liberal Winnipeg Centre, MB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I will ask my last question in French.
In terms of this type of energy, I have often heard that it can sometimes have a negative impact on the environment. Actually, we hear that a lot of farmland is being converted for biofuel production. Instead of feeding people, we are feeding cars.
Is that correct?
