Thank you for inviting me to the committee. I haven't taken the same time everyone else has taken with regard to preparing a five-minute speech, with regard to all the various details, but what I can tell you is that I'm the owner of a company called Treasure Mills. We are in the bakery business. We make kids' snack foods. We are located in Aurora, just north of Toronto.
One of the biggest things I see in youth and people is that skill sets.... We have a massive immigration policy with so many people who show up, day after day, who do not have the skills, yet I think it keeps other young people from obtaining the jobs. At the same time, a lot of the youth who come into the workforce simply go to universities or various trade schools and come out with very little.... They seem to have the skills that have been referred to and reflected in various people's comments today.
I think the other biggest thing is innovation. We are lacking productivity, as Mr. Rizzo has indicated, and I would agree with 100% of the comments he outlined earlier on the taxation, the government, the percentage of people employed in the government and the waste that exists. Our productivity is going down constantly. I find that a lot of the programs the government supports do not necessarily drive efficiency or drive what is necessary in plants. It wants to constantly focus on innovation, but innovation that may not necessarily drive what is a necessity today in order to bring about higher productivity where a company needs it, as it's driven around certain mandates that are outside of what the corporate company needs.
At the same time, I think there are tremendous opportunities when you look at transferring businesses and stuff like that. I have heard over the years that people want to keep companies in Canada but the taxation and the process and way we are taxed makes it very difficult to keep a company in Canada, or transfer it to your youth or into your family, with respect to things. I think there is the opportunity to increase people's skill set. I think there are opportunities to.... We look at where we are spending our money as a government, and what are we putting forward? We seem to lack the necessity to execute on our human resources across Canada.
We should be one of the richest countries in the world, yet we seem to allow various minority groups to influence all decisions, instead of, as Mr. Rizzo says, having a 10-year plan that drives a consistency regardless of the stripes of the various political parties, that is cohesive, and that drives the betterment of Canada. When we don't have that constant betterment of Canada and there are various small institution groups that influence everything, it drives costs through the roof, with respect to things.
I think there is a tremendous opportunity to improve our health care systems and drive more and more people and educate more people to participate in various other types of trades and skill sets that people can have. I would look at our immigration policy, which I think has also plagued our country in various ways with respect to that. I think the challenge today with regard to youth is having them have ability, or have more knowledge and more understanding. There is a significant lack of skills when it comes to trade skills. All the youth seem to go to university, but they come out of school and they really do not have the skills, whether it be in engineering or various things, to do various jobs. There is a massive lack of tradespeople, and it doesn't seem to be supported by institutions and schools as it used to be many years ago.
I realize AI is coming and doing things, but there are certain things AI will not be replacing, and I think a lot of those are also in the trades fields. How can Canada help youth, who can make better money than university students, get a job, a trade, and have better education and a better future by thinking about what type of job they want to have and what kind of living they want to have. I think there is not enough education around the trade industry for people to make very good [Technical difficulty—Editor] AI technologies or computer technologies, or a financial wizard, yet I think so many people go [Technical difficulty—Editor] that leaves them with very little skills coming out to be able to participate or add value in a major corporation [Technical difficulty—Editor]. We could do a better job in educating our youth and helping them better understand some of the [Technical difficulty—Editor] obtain a positive job, a good income and a good living.
These would be my comments. With regard to taxation [Technical difficulty—Editor] continuing to invest in youth. How do we train people? How do we bring people into the company [Technical difficulty—Editor]?