Government Operations Committee on June 11th, 2026

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I have to cut you off there. We are past our time, but perhaps you can provide a further response in writing.

Madame Gaudreau, please.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Mr. Coutrouzas, would you clarify something for me?

You said that there used to be consultations with the unions and that there aren't any anymore. Do you know why?

[Nole Coutrouzas]

It was something that I delved into. As I said, I'm a very firm believer in the people who have worked and gone on the same path as I have, that you learn the history. You try to learn, so I ask the questions. I do ask them.

We couldn't find specifically when it was. It was, again, through conversations, that it was probably the early 2000s, 2010, that we started to see the shift, where we weren't even being consulted or sent these LMIAs, because if there was an LMIA or any pathway, it would come to us first, and then we would be able to say, “That's not true,” because we had the labour force.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

You talked about the 2000s and the 2010s. Do I have that right?

[Nole Coutrouzas]

I don't know what the [Inaudible—Editor]

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I'll stop my timer so I don't lose any of my time. I want to make sure we get the right information, even if it takes an extra minute. No worries.

You said it was in 2000 or 2010, right?

[Nole Coutrouzas]

Yes. Again, I was talking about two separate people. They stopped receiving them between about 2000 and 2010.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you.

[Nole Coutrouzas]

I can't give a firm answer. I did look into that. It's more, okay, tell me when it stopped.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Perfect.

[Nole Coutrouzas]

Tell me when the communication barriers started to get obstructed and why we're not being involved with this anymore, because again—

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Delov, I was elected in the Laurentians, where the forestry industry is very important, as you probably know. I even worked in that industry for several years.

Right now, there are mills that aren't running shifts, that are in danger of closing or that are short on cash. There are even people in the critical minerals sector—graphite comes to mind—who, just this morning, told us they were forced to reduce their workforce and that they used to have 80 employees. We can certainly buy Canadian, but the supply chains aren't stable. They need to be robust.

How is anyone supposed to build housing and homes—which requires resources—when companies aren't even able to keep up?

[Igor Delov]

That's a really difficult question to address, but I would say that in general we do need to focus on maintaining access to our trading partners, including the United States, which is the obvious one and our biggest trading partner.

Despite all the difficulties in recent years, that should be a key priority for the government: either to renegotiate the free trade agreement or to come to an alternative arrangement with the U.S. bilaterally. The market fluctuations affect everybody. Construction is very cyclical. We have waves of unemployment.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Maybe my question wasn't clear. I'll rephrase it.

People want to buy Canadian, but companies are struggling to survive because they lack cash flow. Inventory management is a nightmare.

I understand that we can't change our agreements and our partnerships, particularly in North America, but shouldn't we be directly helping our local businesses upstream so that folks can put a seal of approval on their product, stating that they're buying Canadian and that these are local people—local business owners and local workers?

That was my question.

[Igor Delov]

Yes. In a nutshell, I think the buy Canadian policy can help to alleviate some of those risks for local communities in forestry and mining as long as the federal government uses its great power of procurement to stimulate domestic economic activity to meet the market needs of whatever the projects are. I think it's a good approach that the government is taking.

I think we need to work more collaboratively among labour, business and government to help achieve that, and I think we need more coordination and dialogue to secure those markets domestically in parallel with what's happening on the international trade front.

Thank you.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I have a few seconds left.

I just wanted to tell you that, if government jobs are being cut and the use of outside contractors isn't being reduced, we need you to tell us how important it is to invest in our workforce and in developing skills and expertise, so that we can rely on our own employees. That's not the way things are going. That's why you're here with us today.

If you have any additional information to share with us, please submit it in writing. We'll include it in our report.

Thank you very much, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you.

Mr. Patzer, go ahead, please.

I'm sorry, Mr. Patzer. Mr. Cloutier from Unifor has finally joined us.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK]

Do you want him to—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

No. We don't have time.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK]

Okay. Thank you very much.

Mr. Coutrouzas, at the end of your opening remarks you made a comment that Canadian workers, Canadian standards and Canadian industry need to be involved or to be a part of any buy Canadian strategy that there might be.

You gave that comment in the sense that it's maybe not included or not included in a way that it should be. I'm wondering if you have any further thoughts about that and how our workers, standards and industry might be excluded or impacted and not necessarily included in the way that the government is hoping.

[Nole Coutrouzas]

I'll give you an example of what's happened. Say a piece of machinery gets manufactured in South Korea. Through the free trade agreements, they're allowed to bring specialists for that equipment into Canada to install, maintain, commission and everything. I'll use NextStar as an example again. We were working right beside one line that the foreign workers were working on.

They're meshing the discrepancy between a skilled worker and a general trades labourer to get their workers here and not utilize Canadian workers. It's a loophole. They're using loopholes through free trade agreements to get here. Again, it's not the company's fault; they're doing what they are entitled to do. It's your job to close those loopholes.

As I said, if we can't supply the manpower needed in order to complete these jobs, then there should at least be the opportunity for us, if these pathways are open and foreign workers come, that if it is a job that is a union job, it allows building trades or organizations like mine to make sure that, when they come over, they're not being exploited. A big issue with foreign workers right now is exploitation, both long-term and seasonal. We would make sure that they're paid right and that safety standards are up to speed with what our standards are. Right now, it's almost like, if you bring them in, the standards get lower.

The main thing is, when it talks about a return on investments, we spend the money here. We're the ones going to local shops. We're the ones buying vehicles here. We're the ones buying homes.

We're talking about billions of dollars that have been invested in some of these infrastructure projects. Again, I'll reiterate that the stance needs to be that we have the capabilities to do it. Canada is a great country. We develop our people properly. We give them hope that one day they will retire with dignity. When you have big infrastructure projects like these come and then we kind of get, “Well, you guys can get what they can't supply,” as in the skilled workers or their so-called skilled workers, it's just closing that gap where, again, we do it first and then enable pathways for those foreign workers to come in if we can't accommodate. To just bypass us completely and then go into these agreements to bring in foreigners is not right. It really isn't. I think it's morally wrong.

One, I get free trade. I understand it as a millwright, I should say. I'm not an expert on it, but I do understand it. I also understand that we're in a different situation right now, where we all question what free trade means when we have our biggest support partner to the south of us doing what it's doing and affecting us.

I think this is where we can all come together. It doesn't matter if we're part of the affiliation or not, but we can all come together and agree that Canadians should be first. We're in unprecedented times. Now should be the time that we maybe reassess some of these policies and make sure that the people who are devoting their life to a skill in Canada are utilized for that work.

That was really extended. I'm sorry, but I had a lot to digest on that one.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK]

That's really good. I appreciate that.

Does your council have any very specific line items that would create those loopholes that you could maybe submit to this committee in a brief afterwards?

[Nole Coutrouzas]

I can get that together for you.

I know NextStar, as I mentioned. If it's manufactured in, say, South Korea. I know that chapter 12 of the Canada-Korea Free Trade Agreement notes the labour mobility programs involved with that.

I can get you language on that as well.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley, SK]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Go ahead, Ms. Rochefort.