Evidence of meeting #16 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 41st Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was forest.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Ed Komarnicki
Thank you.
I noticed that in your recommendations you talk a lot about providing tools for Canadian businesses and stakeholders. I know that Mr. Cuzner mentioned broadband and making sure that it was available, and you talk about single points of contact where businesses can obtain regulatory information. Then you talk a whole lot about how that might be improved in connecting businesses together so they could learn best practices. Can you comment on those issues?
Director, Parliamentary Relations, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
For sure. This has come up in a couple of pieces of work the chamber has done in bringing together non-aboriginal and aboriginal business.
Again, we think the government could play a role, either through Industry Canada's small business branch creating online portals for businesses to access the tool kits that we talked about--something along the lines of what the small business women's group is doing in Nunavut--or in bringing people together from the private sector in remote communities and bringing in the youth. It doesn't necessarily have to be in person; there is a lot of technology available, assuming they have some type of Internet connection.
We think there are a lot of possibilities there, not only in creating the tools but also in making sure that the tool box is kept updated. Of course, we would advocate seeking the business community's input on what those tools should be, because that will help make them appropriate, and also on communicating them.
December 1st, 2011 / 4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Brad Butt Conservative Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, ladies, for being here today. I appreciate it.
I appreciate the work the chamber is doing and also its help for us. I think it's always helpful when we have organizations that take it upon themselves to do a study, to survey its members--and here, obviously, its members across the country--and provide those of us in the federal government with some valuable ideas to think about.
I think we all know that we have a challenge in this area; there is no doubt about it. I can't say I'm an expert on remote communities in Canada, representing as I do a suburban riding outside of Toronto, but I work with many of the small businesses in my riding, and I know they find challenges in those communities as well.
When we talk about remote communities, I'm still not quite sure, when I look over the list of recommendations, that I see any very specific things that the federal government should do, beyond the aboriginal issue, which you've highlighted in terms of education—which I get, and I think the other members have talked about. But I'm still trying to determine within your report the specific things that the federal government, in your view, should be doing that we are not doing. Or are there things we are doing that we should not be doing, in order to make investing in and running businesses more attractive in remote communities throughout the country?
Do you have one or two specific things that we're doing that we shouldn't be doing, where your advice would be to get out of the way and let you do your bit; or things that we absolutely and very clearly, within the federal jurisdiction, should be doing to help facilitate economic growth and new business opportunities in these remote communities?
Director, Parliamentary Relations, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
I don't really have anything specific to say in terms of what the government should not be doing, but in terms of what we think government should be doing--and this won't surprise you, given our constituency--we think that business should be part of the conversation, perhaps a bit more than it is today, whether it be about skills and training or infrastructure investment. As we said, we think business has a lot to bring to the table in reducing costs and bringing efficiencies and those sorts of things.
I think the plea here--and again, this isn't new from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce--is to make business a part of the conversation, because we believe we have a contribution to make.
Conservative
Brad Butt Conservative Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
Did you look at any of the impediments or difficulties? Again, it's the same thing for the provincial and territorial levels of government. Are there things there that are impediments to having greater business success in these communities, which the provinces and territories perhaps are doing and for which the federal government could play a better coordinating role?
I'll give you an example. A friend of mine has a steel fabrication business out in Mississauga. He was doing the demolition work at the old Maple Leaf Gardens, under his Workplace Safety and Insurance Board certificate, with his very highly trained guys. There was no issue with that.
The next contract he got was to build a 400,000-square foot Loblaws storage and warehousing facility in Regina. He got his guys and went over there. He told me that because of the red tape and nonsense he had to put up with—basically for exactly the same work he did in the province of Ontario, which he was now trying to do in Regina—his project was delayed by months and months. It was because of all the certifications and everything else he had to get for the guys who had the exact same skill set to do the same kind of project in Regina they had done in downtown Toronto.
Did you look at any of the provincial impediments that might make businesses that would otherwise invest in these communities decide that doing so would not be worth their while?
Director, Parliamentary Relations, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
Perhaps we should have a separate conversation on interprovincial barriers to trade, because that's long been a focus of the Canadian Chamber, but it wasn't a focus of this paper. This focus was on the federal government, but I'd be happy to send you some material. We have lots. It's very frustrating.
Conservative
Brad Butt Conservative Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
I know we're not going to solve this question today, but do you believe the federal government should try to play a coordinating role around that? Is that a big enough impediment?
We're very leery about sticking our nose into provincial jurisdictions, getting into a turf war, and all of that kind of stuff. I don't really have the appetite to do that, but sometimes.... For example, our committee just finished doing a study on foreign credentialling. We found that the pan-Canadian framework for getting provinces to recognize credentials across the country in many different disciplines has actually worked really well. The federal government showed leadership in that.
I'm wondering if there's a role for us to play at the federal level in skills development, credential recognition, certifications, and other things so that businesses can move a lot more easily from province to province, territory to territory, to actually invest in these communities, to create jobs, and to run successful businesses.
Director, Parliamentary Relations, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
The short answer is yes, we do. The Canadian Chamber has been on this issue for several years. A lot has been accomplished, but there is still some work to do.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Ed Komarnicki
I'm not sure if Regina was a particularly good example. We'll have to check into those facts. There must be more to that story.
Having said that, we'll move on to Ms. Crowder.
NDP
Jean Crowder NDP Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC
I just want to make a quick comment about broadband before I ask a question.
My riding of Nanaimo—Cowichan wouldn't normally be called rural and remote, but there are a significant number of people in my riding who do not have access to high speed Internet. In some cases, they have the line running 100 feet from their property line, but the cost to have it hooked up is prohibitive. There are home-based business operating with access to dial-up. It's outrageous.
You made a comment about developing partnerships. I wonder if, in your experience or from comments you may have heard from businesses that are developing partnerships, the timelines for government support, whatever they might be, were long enough to have partnerships actually develop and come to fruition.
Director, Parliamentary Relations, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
I don't want to harp on the same issue, but looking back at the Baffin Island example, I think the answer would be yes. Even though the government didn't necessarily have money to hand over, it certainly had in-kind support that turned out to be very valuable to the initiative.
NDP
Jean Crowder NDP Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC
I know that in some other studies I've looked at, one of the biggest challenges with community economic development has always been that there's not a long enough window. Sometimes, especially in rural and remote communities, it takes a little longer for things to happen. Sometimes it's just access to goods and services. Sometimes the timelines simply aren't long enough to see the project become successful. I don't know if you've heard anything about that.
Director, Parliamentary Relations, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
No, we haven't.
NDP
Jean Crowder NDP Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC
I have a quick question about value added. I did find the numbers in your report. One of them was that commodities represent one-third of Canada's exports—and that, of course, includes forestry products. Later in your report you specifically talked about value added. You cited the fact that the Chilean government created the National Innovation Council for Competitiveness, with national policy clusters for the mining, food services, and tourism sectors. This was around value added. If you want to refer to that, it's on page 34 in the report.
How closely did you look at the Chilean model? Were there specific things there that you thought would be a good for us to pay attention to in terms of value added?
Director, Parliamentary Relations, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
We get into this in that same section of the report on adding value. It's the notion of sustainability in the creation of small and medium sized businesses that initially may be created around a particular major project or operation. The desire would be that they become sustainable, so that whenever the mine or whatever wraps up, the businesses don't all wrap up at the same time.
What we found particularly interesting about the Chilean example was that they started out by trying to create more value added in a cluster of SMEs around particular mining operations, enterprises that were, at the beginning, providing relatively low-value and low-skilled services to the mines. But the objective was to move the value chain up, so that not only would those companies grow but also that when the resource were no longer there, there would be more hope for these companies to actually be sustainable.
NDP
Jean Crowder NDP Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC
In fact, you're talking about capacity-building in a community.
Director, Parliamentary Relations, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
Absolutely. That's exactly what--
NDP
Jean Crowder NDP Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC
I have just one quick last question: did you look at other business models, like co-operatives?
Director, Parliamentary Relations, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
No, we did not--
NDP
Jean Crowder NDP Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC
Okay, so were any....? I ask this because I know that in the north, for example, there are some very successful co-operative models, whether they're employer/shareholder-owned co-ops or worker co-ops. They've been quite successful in some regions of the country.
So none of the people who came to the round tables or who were consulted were from the co-operative sector?
Director, Parliamentary Relations, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
Again, we do have Credit Union Central as one of our members, so yes, from the chamber, I did consult with them. I talked to the Swan Valley Credit Union in Manitoba, which talked about this unfortunate circumstance of not having a rail infrastructure in place to accommodate the two businesses that were coming in.
I would have to go back through the list of the 100-and-some people that GE had. Co-ops don't jump out at me, but that's not to say they weren't involved. There were academics and others involved. It's quite possible that there was somebody from one or more co-ops at the round table.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Ed Komarnicki
Thank you.
I'm about to suspend, but I see that Mr. Shory has a very short question. After a short response, we'll suspend.
Go ahead.
Conservative
Devinder Shory Conservative Calgary Northeast, AB
It's a very, very short question, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much.
I was reading the executive summary. Under “Remote communities' place in Canada”, it says that “Despite many sources of government support and significant federal spending directed at rural/remote areas of Canada, consistent progress in building strong self-sustaining remote communities is not evident”.
I just want you to give a quick comment. What is the reason for that, despite all of the spending and investments?
Director, Parliamentary Relations, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
As we got into in the paper, we saw that there was a lot of energy and focus, primarily through the regional economic development agencies. Again, as with education, it's not so much an issue of the money that's being put into it; our observation is that a lot of these agencies don't talk to each other as much as they could, necessarily. So I guess it's a situation where we felt that maybe the agencies could work a little better together and everybody would benefit as a result.