Human Resources Committee on May 28th, 2020

[Mathew Wilson]

We're always interested in exploring anything that helps people invest in the right ways to sustain long-term growth in the country, so we would always be interested in those conversations.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Okay.

Second, I'm very concerned that the Parliamentary Budget Officer said that we don't have an overall economic plan for our country. I believe all of us would really benefit hearing from your organization and getting your testimony in more detail on the record moving forward.

Would you be able to provide us with more detail on an economic recovery plan?

[Mathew Wilson]

We will be releasing one next week, and I'd be happy to send it to the clerk for circulation.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you.

That's all, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Ms. Kusie.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'll continue the questioning there.

Obviously, in the first phase of the pandemic, we were worried about public health and safety. Then we moved to economic supports, which are of course very important, but now I feel as though we are not focusing enough on economic recovery, both from a domestic and international perspective.

If I were the prime minister, I would be doing a complete inventory of all internal resources, everything from agriculture to energy, to textiles and to minerals, and after that determine the internal capacity for production. What are we able to make internally? What do we have in excess that we are able to trade internationally? Who will those trade partners be based and who we've seen act in good faith throughout, as well as prior to, this pandemic? What will we have to bring internally so that we are prepared in the future to be more self-reliant in, God forbid, the face of another pandemic or another horrible international incident or even continued peacetime?

You said that you have a plan coming out next week. Can you say the three things you would do along this line? I'm just concerned that we're not moving fast enough both domestically and internationally.

[Mathew Wilson]

Interestingly, all of your points about what we should be doing are part of our plan, but the other thing that's really interesting is that a lot of these aren't new. I've been before this committee talking about some of these things before. I guess now we have a platform where people seem to care a lot more about what's made in Canada.

Outside of what you said, yes, we need to be competitive; yes, we need to invest in technology; yes, we need to invest in our people. There are two other things I'll say too.

One, we need to look at where we have strategic advantages and grow off of those. We do not do a good job in this country of taking advantage of the opportunities we have in front of us. For example, agri-food is massive. We undervalue agri-food production in this country. I think during this crisis we've seen how important it is that we can put food on the table.

Second is energy, oil and gas, but beyond oil and gas, renewables, wind, solar, all of that. We are an energy superpower—

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

We are.

[Mathew Wilson]

—and the world's always going to need more energy. We need to figure out a way to make sure it's green and clean and that we can provide it to the world. I believe we can provide more energy efficiently than anyone around the world. How do we develop that?

The third piece would be around technology itself. We manufacture awesome technologies in this country, whether software, hardware or the integration of the two of them. How do we use that and leverage it to create a domestic advantage for our industries so we can compete against the rest of the world? Those are some of the things we're going to be talking about.

Then, how do we compete better with our supply chains? How do we stand up better supply chains across North America to compete against China and other parts of the world? It's been a long-standing frustration that we just seem to want to be able to import everything in our free trade agreements. Not just one political party, but all political parties over time seem to be focused on getting our natural resources to market instead of building more value here and exporting the value product.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

And a focus on necessity and economy rather than ideology.

Thank you, Mr. Wilson.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Ms. Kusie.

Next we will go to Mr. Housefather.

You have five minutes, please.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I have the time as 5:59. Do I really have five minutes?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Yes. Go ahead.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Okay. Thank you very much.

Mr. Wilson, as someone who came from this sector—I worked for a manufacturing company where we manufactured, out of choice, the vast majority of our products in North America because of the high quality of product we could make here despite the lower costs in the Far East—I want to thank you and your organization for all you do. It is really, really important.

We've talked a lot about the government programs that have been rolled out that your organization has taken advantage of. I want to give you the opportunity to talk to us about this: If you could add or change one program, what would it be? What would your membership most want to see?

[Mathew Wilson]

The biggest one is the wage subsidy. I talked about that.

The other one that's out there at the federal level that will not work for our sector at all and that I didn't mention is the rent subsidy program. It won't work for us, in part because it's too small. Second, there's very little incentive in it for landlords themselves to go out and get the subsidy on behalf of the tenant. That's the big one that will come up as that program opens up. We probably need to see that changed so that the tenants are applying in the same way as the wage subsidy works.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you very much. Of course, if you look at it and you give the money to the tenants, then you're not necessarily making sure it goes to rent. There's a bit of a difficulty there. We also know that this is in provincial jurisdiction. If we want to make sure that the landlords are required to apply for these programs to benefit the tenants, the provinces actually need to act in concert with the federal government as we develop the program together.

But I appreciate the sentiment. I've been working very hard, and I know my colleagues from all parties have been working hard, trying to convince landlords in our ridings to participate in the program. I think it's a very important thing to help manufacturers and other Canadian businesses.

Another passion that I know we share, having looked at comments that you've made, relates to our trade relationship with the United States. They are our biggest trading partner, the partner that we need the most to be onside with. What steps do you believe this government should take to improve...?

I mean, the fact that we reached the revised NAFTA is incredibly important. The fact that we have been able to work out with the United States that PPE is able to be imported from the United States is very important. What would be the number one priority for your group in terms of our relationship with the United States?

[Mathew Wilson]

It would be fully implementing the new deal. There are huge opportunities in the new deal that I think are undervalued by people. The increased regional content value, for example, in automobiles could be a huge win for Canada underneath the deal.

We're working with Minister Ng's office to try to get the committees set up specifically on SMEs, on regulations and on industrial competitiveness. Those will be foundational to make sure that we have the right implementation strategy around those.

So yes, get it going, get it implemented and let's see how we can take advantage of it. Most importantly, we can't look at this as, “How are we competing against Mexico and the United States?” This has to be about, “How are we leveraging this deal to compete with the rest of the world?” If we're not doing that, I think we're missing the boat on what the whole idea of the regional integration really is.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I agree with you. This has to be a “team North America” type of approach. I also believe that people greatly undervalue the improvements that were made to this deal and how important this deal is to Canada foundationally.

I'm looking at the chair and I can see I'm running out of time, but my last question is about PPE. We've talked about, and you've already talked about, how important it is to domestically supply the PPE we need. We can also take that as a North American approach and have an agreement with the U.S. and Mexico related to PPE importation.

Can you just talk a little bit more about how Canadian manufacturers have stepped up to the plate? It's been incredible to watch those in my riding who have converted their premises to make PPE equipment. I just want to give you a chance again to herald your group.

[Mathew Wilson]

I know we're really running out of time here, but the hats off to the companies themselves. As soon as the call went out from the Prime Minister and premiers right across the country, our members flooded us with calls on how they could get involved, what they could do. A lot of them weren't asking for money; they weren't asking for anything. They just immediately switched for one reason: It was Canada; Canada and the health care workers needed it.

I talked to companies from coast to coast that weren't looking for contracts; they weren't looking for nothing other than to give their capabilities, their expertise and their support to their communities. That was it. Thousands of companies from across the country did this.

Interestingly, though, the frustration has been and continues to be that in some cases they switched over and these things.... I was talking to a company today in Ontario that made shields. They have thousands—I think he told me 10,000 of them—sitting in their factory that they can't get rid of because they can't get Health Canada clearance, even though they were promised it would be done rapidly. These have been sitting there for weeks.

It hasn't been as smooth as we wanted, but the companies stood up and still fought through all the barriers they faced. With a lot of it, they're just giving it away. They're giving it to local hospitals and health care workers, and first responders such as police and others.

It's been an amazing response. I think Canada should be very proud of this sector and what we've done.

The other thing I'll say—because it's my last comment, Chair—is thank you, all of you. All parties have stepped up. You've listened to the support that we've asked for. Frankly, across the board, from all political stripes, from all governments, you've done a terrific job. Thank you for everything you've done as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you for that, Mr. Wilson.

Thank you, Mr. Housefather.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Mr. Chair, before the witnesses leave, I'd like to ask you something.

Since the other parties have used up their time, I'd like the Bloc Québécois and the NDP, in all fairness, to have their five minutes. It's currently 6:05 p.m., and we could continue the meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Ms. Chabot, according to the rules, your next turn is two and a half minutes. I'm ready to proceed with the witnesses and give two and a half minutes to you and Ms. Kwan if there is no objection from the other members.

Do we have unanimous consent to proceed? I see we do.

You have two and a half minutes, Ms. Chabot. Go ahead.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you.

My question is for Mr. Keyhani.

There's a lot of talk about e-commerce and digital skills development. In a recovery, e-commerce and buying local are very important, but to develop all of this, the regions absolutely must have access to the Internet.

Why do you think it is impossible to develop the network in the regions? Is it because it's less profitable for urban businesses than for rural ones? Is it because governments should invest more? We have been talking about this for a long time, and we believe it should be resolved.

[Dr. Mohammad Keyhani]

Ms. Chabot, I completely agree. The telecom infrastructure in Canada is definitely an area in need of improvement. To be honest, there are developing countries that have better telecom infrastructure in terms of its availability in remote areas and the price of Internet access. That's definitely an area that we need to improve on.

Most observers I've seen, and I'm not a complete expert in the area of economics of telecom—

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

What do you think is preventing it?