Government Operations Committee on Feb. 22nd, 2021

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I'll share that with Kelly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you.

We're going into our third and final round.

We'll go with Mr. Paul-Hus, and if anybody else wants to help us get back on time quickly, we appreciate that.

Mr. Paul-Hus.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to come back to the way the council operates. I have somewhat conflicting information, and I'd like your perspective.

When the COVID-19 Supply Council was established, the minister stated that it was “not meant to fill a particular gap in the supply chain per se” but that its purpose was “to take a fresh look at the procurements.” In her words, it's more like an advisory committee.

As for Prime Minister Trudeau, he said the council's job was to ensure that Canada would have sufficient supplies to continue fighting the pandemic, such as ventilators, masks and hand sanitizer

From what I'm hearing today, you were called in to give advice, but you weren't really involved in the operations. But the Prime Minister said you were there to help with operations.

Mr. McHattie, which is the right version: the minister's or the Prime Minister's?

[David McHattie]

I think that it's a tough question for a member of the council to answer.

I think everything was open to us, and I didn't feel someone was putting handcuffs on us and saying not to suggest this or that. Everything was open to us and I thought we had fairly broad conversations to cover both and we went into some specifics where there were specific ideas.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

So it was all about conversation and an exchange of ideas.

Did the advice given at these meetings serve any purpose? Did you see any changes in equipment procurement procedures or were they just meetings to look good?

[David McHattie]

They were certainly not meetings for show from my perspective, and I doubt from anyone on the council.

There were the initiatives we didn't do personally but we gave some feedback on, like the supply hub, like the contingency reserve for strategic products. These were ideas that resulted...that I think the minister's department was thinking of and they shared them with us and asked for feedback.

I think there were some outcomes, but we were advisory.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Did you have concerns about masks from China? A lot of equipment came from China in the beginning. However, we know that Chinese factories use forced labour. Was this a concern that was raised during the meetings?

[David McHattie]

We definitely tried to promote the difference between something made in Canada and what's made in other places. We're certain there were some of us who would have intervened, talking about why we should try and develop more local supply chains for diversity reasons, for inclusivity reasons, and for our economic recovery. When you spend a dollar in Canada, it's powerful.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Many of the well-known contracts awarded were for the purchase of personal protective equipment. We know that astronomical amounts of money were given to businesses. However, we haven't been able to obtain any information as to whether the equipment that was submitted was of good quality and effective.

Was that a concern for you as well?

[David McHattie]

We were concerned, of course, about the quality, the safety and the sustainability of any of the products, but we didn't weigh in on any specific trade-offs. We were advisory. We weren't taking any kind of an operational position on what was bought from where. We did not discuss specific companies or specific products. If you look at a ventilator, it has 1500 inputs. We did not talk about those 1500 inputs, as an example.

From my perspective at Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters, our role was more conceptual. We talked about the quality from Canada being at a high level, but we wouldn't disparage other people's quality.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Mr. MacKinnon, filling in for Mr. Drouin.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As I speak to you now, I am on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River, on the territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.

Thank you, Mr. McHattie and Ms. Bull, for being with us today.

I had the pleasure, as parliamentary secretary at PSPC, of sitting in on a number of those supply council meetings. I want to thank our witnesses for their time, their expertise, their insights and their knowledge.

Frankly, Mr. Chair, I find this badgering about what was discussed at these meetings a little tawdry, and certainly unproductive on the part of the opposition. What you had were conversations with people from all walks of life, and notably from the business community, during a crunch time for Canada. It's a matter of public record that we were in a PPE crunch, and we called out to representatives across the country to come and counsel the minister and the government on these issues. I know their advice was very well taken and very well received.

In that spirit, I want to further the conversations that went on in the minister's supply council and ask about next steps.

I'll start with Mr. McHattie. From your perspective at Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters, what are the barriers you see that remain in order to continue the evolution of a domestic supply chain for PPE, and for any sort of health-related applications that were discussed and outlined?

With about a year's worth of hindsight, are there things governments could be productively doing to help Canadian manufacturers get a bigger foothold in this sector?

[David McHattie]

That's a great question.

I certainly don't mind, and I didn't consider it badgering. I think the work that's done by members of Parliament in trying to hold the administration to account is perfectly fine and acceptable, so I'm okay with that. However, I want to bring it up a level.

What can we do better in Canada to attract investment in Canadian manufacturing, regardless of whether it's PPE, biosciences or whatever? Think about things in terms of when you invest in new capital equipment; you're investing in a higher or more advanced technology. It's more likely to have digitization, automation and the kind of industry 4.0 Internet of things. This is something where Canada—as ranked among OECD countries—is near the end of the list. We're not at the front of the list. We would like that trend to be reversed, so we need to find ways to attract investment to Canada.

There are two aspects to that. We can compare ourselves to the United States and we can compare ourselves to other OECD countries. The report of the Industry Strategy Council is an extremely good report for someone like me: I love to think and talk about that. It's tough for Canadians to read all of these detailed things. It's easy to say we should have lower, more competitive taxes and we should find a way for companies to have more to reinvest. We need to partner with companies to invest more, so we need to do a lot more of this.

Innovation is not only in R and D and in new concepts and ideas. Innovation is in applying what's available today. When you're a manufacturer, you need to keep investing in your manufacturing equipment. Every time you do something new, it is going to be more innovative. We have a great opportunity to do more of that. I would like to connect lessons we learned in the COVID-19 supply response with those broader manufacturing investments, and I think we have opportunities to take.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. McHattie.

Do I have any time left, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Ms. Bull has 10 seconds if she wants to add a quick response.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

I apologize.

Perhaps my next colleague can give you the floor, Ms. Bull.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you.

We'll now go to Ms. Vignola for two and a half minutes.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. McHattie, in your comments, you talked a lot about attracting investments and creating jobs.

Ms. Bull, my question may be of interest to you, as well.

The idea is not to attract these investments from abroad, but to attract them from within. Do we have that opportunity in Canada, or are we still waiting for the good Lord to come through the side door?

[Tabatha Bull]

We definitely can do that.

We've demonstrated that innovation is alive in Canada. Particularly, by continuing to support that fabric of small and medium-sized enterprise and the innovative thinking that we're seeing happening at that level—by continuing to sustain those businesses—we have an opportunity to be at the forefront of innovation. Also, we should ensure that we're stimulating that research in the institutions that exist here.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

I don't know what the basis for your participation on the council was or what the incentives were. Were you paid or compensated in any way for your travel and time, for example, or did you participate as a volunteer?

[Tabatha Bull]

No. It was all volunteer.

If I were not on the supply council, I would not have the audience that I have today. As an aboriginal business association, this is an important audience for us. The opportunity to be on the supply council and support that work continues to help us work to support indigenous business.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you very much.

That will be all for me.

I'd like to thank you for being with us today. Have a good evening.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Ms. Vignola.

In light of the time, we're going to suspend after Mr. Green.

Mr. Green, you have two and a half minutes.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Ms. Bull referenced some of the barriers to traditional financing. She may have caught that this government released $750 billion in equity supports, liquidity supports, to Bay Street, our big banks. Was there any spillover? Were there any earmarked programs in terms of the money and the liquidity supports that were provided through our financial institutions that would have been directed directly to aboriginal businesses?

[Tabatha Bull]

As the Canadian council, we do have an MOU. We work very closely with EDC and BDC in supporting indigenous entrepreneurs. They are making some significant progress. We're able to see some real gains in that area in the work that they're doing directly with indigenous entrepreneurs but also in finding opportunities for partnerships with non-indigenous businesses. We are seeing some good progress there.