Industry and Technology Committee on Sept. 24th, 2025

[Michael Guglielmin, Conservative, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Thanks for your response. It's appreciated.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thanks very much, Mr. Guglielmin.

Ms. Acan, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Sima Acan, Liberal, Oakville West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, Mr. Robson. Thank you for being here with us today.

It's great to have the opportunity to talk about one of Canada's biggest strengths—our diverse and talented workforce. Canada attracts many immigrants, including myself, with a range of skills and talents. However, we can see a labour mismatch in key industry sectors. From your perspective, what policies or programs could help better align the skills of immigrants with the needs of these sectors, ensuring both economic growth and the full utilization of the Canadian talent pool?

[William Robson]

There are several aspects to your question. It's tempting to try to address them all, but I would run us out of time.

I do have concern about the direction of immigration policy over the last few years. We brought in a lot of people who did not have the same skills and attributes that had been correlated with success in the Canadian labour market in the past. We did it at a time when, as I've been emphasizing, capital investment was so low that we were moving the economy in a direction of less skilled labour and less well-endowed labour in terms of the capital they were working with. That's not a healthy direction to go in.

One thing that I think we need to remind ourselves of is how successful Canadian immigration policy was over time at bringing in people who would do well in Canada. Going along with that, of course, we had very strong political support for that kind of immigration system. I think we need to remind ourselves of the value of ensuring that people who come to Canada do have more of the skills that will be successful.

As you may know, a very disturbingly high proportion of people who come to Canada subsequently leave. Now, I'm very happy to see people moving around the world. We make connections. It promotes economic efficiency as well as human happiness, but when you see how many immigrants come to Canada and subsequently leave, especially for the United States, you have to worry that they're not finding the opportunities here as rich as what they think they'll find in the United States.

I would love to see us doing things, including getting those higher investment rates, that would create more attractive opportunities for people with skills, high education and lots of ambition and get that flow of immigrants who come to Canada and then leave again to keep coming, but then perhaps stay a little longer, or for their lifetimes.

[Sima Acan, Liberal, Oakville West, ON]

Thank you very much for your response.

One of our priorities as a government is ensuring that Canadian companies, especially in such strategic sectors as technology, clean energy and critical minerals, have the ability to scale here at home and remain under Canadian ownership rather than be acquired before reaching their full potential. In your view, what are the most effective measures to help retain and grow Canadian firms domestically?

[William Robson]

I'll go back to the question of talent, because in many of the areas that are most cutting edge, including technologies such as quantum computing and a lot of the leading-edge work that's being done in artificial intelligence, the talent there is flowing south of the border at a rate that is very concerning.

It's a complicated thing to address all at once, but I do think it would be helpful if we lowered our tax rate on the most talented people. I think that if the talent wants to be here, then the head offices will tend to be here as well, because people are gregarious and people like to work together. There's a lot of benefit from collaboration in person in hubs that already have an advantage. In Canada, we do have a number of them; we're not starting from scratch in that area. I think if we can provide a more hospitable environment for talent, then a lot of the industrial policy benefits that we seek will come here as a result of the attraction.

You didn't say anything about ways of trying to prevent foreign investment...like putting barriers up or perhaps government taking a stake in companies to prevent them from moving. I think that's a very difficult thing to pull off in an effective way and over time compared to looking at the policies of broad application that you know are going to be helpful for encouraging Canadians who've perhaps gone abroad to come back to Canada and encouraging Canadians who are already here—who've graduated and are putting down roots—to stay.

[Sima Acan, Liberal, Oakville West, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Robson.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you, Ms. Acan.

Mr. Ste‑Marie, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette—Manawan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Robson, I get the impression that there could be a better alignment between the innovations made in universities and their transfer to businesses in the country.

Is that something you think should be explored?

Can there be a better alignment, which would enable businesses to work more with talented people in universities and thus increase the productivity of our economy?

Thank you.

[William Robson]

I think we probably could. The post-secondary sector in Canada is under a lot of financial pressure lately, as you'll know. For the federal government to support basic research, I think there's a very substantial consensus that there are good effects from that.

The area that is potentially toughest to address, or one of the ones where I admit I don't have definitive answers, is with the ownership of the intellectual property. It strikes me that we have some lessons to learn from different models that you see abroad, including in the United States, where it's a bit more straightforward to say who the intellectual property belongs to and who has the rights to it. It's natural, if public money has gone into research, for us to think about ways we would try to make sure there's a return to the public from it, but at the same time, sometimes that ambiguity about who owns the intellectual property can make it difficult for us to develop the kinds of synergies and the ecosystem you're alluding to when you talk about university research.

It's a complicated area. I wish I had better answers for you.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette—Manawan, QC]

Thank you very much. That's very interesting.

I'll move on to another topic.

Many entrepreneurs tell me that, given the uncertainty arising from the constantly shifting economic, trade, tax and tariff policies of our neighbour to the south, their current instinct is to wait before investing more in our businesses.

Do you have any comments or solutions to propose on that matter?

Thank you.

[William Robson]

As far as the observation is concerned, I have no doubt at all that some of the weak numbers that I was citing just now have to do with the threat of U.S. protectionism, some of the tariffs that are already in place and some of the things that we're worried the U.S. administration may do next. I wish we could control that more easily than we can.

One of the reasons I have been focusing on taxation, perhaps more than some would like, is that it's an area that we can control, and as I have said several times already with a fair amount of confidence, the measures we take will have the effects we want.

I am not opposed to a temporary measure. One of the reasons I talked about a temporary investment tax credit is that some of the problems we are facing right now are to do, as you say, with people who are hesitating. A lot of the temporary impetus that people have is to locate on the U.S. side of the border because that's where the larger market is. To that limited extent, I think what President Trump is doing is bearing fruit.

We can't play that game, because we have the smaller market. What we can do is make Canada more competitive as a place to produce things. Even if we face U.S. tariffs in many sectors where we previously didn't, if we get a competitive edge, we'll be able to ship.

Aside from the tax side, I would actually commend the government for dropping retaliatory tariffs. We have had some success in Canada in making it easy to import capital equipment and easy to import inputs. As we look further ahead, when companies are wondering if they want to be in the United States, where policy is so erratic and you never know what's going to happen one day to the next, or would they like to be in Canada, where it's a very competitive place to produce, they know they can get their inputs and they know there isn't suddenly going to be a tariff that is going to prevent them from getting what they need.

If you have the quality of workforce that we have here in Canada, I think we can get through this. In the short run—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Mr. Robson, I apologize. That was a very detailed answer and I hate to cut you off, but I let that run an extra couple of minutes. To be fair to those who have questions remaining—

[William Robson]

Of course.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

—I'm going to give the floor to Ms. Borrelli for five minutes, sir.

[Kathy Borrelli, Conservative, Windsor—Tecumseh—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Robson, thank you so much for being here today to answer our questions.

You previously told a committee that “too many people find government finances mysterious” and that budgets are often late.

With key numbers buried hundreds of pages deep in an annex, would you agree that this lack of fiscal transparency not only discourages public confidence but also undermines investor confidence? Since we currently do not have a budget, restoring fiscal discipline is critical to signalling that Canada is a reliable place to invest capital.

[William Robson]

I do think that the form budgets take, the schedule on which they are released and the timing of public accounts and these other elements of accountability do make a difference. I wouldn't want to overstate it. It's not something that everybody pays attention to, but when you have a lot of uncertainty about the economic environment, and when inevitably the things going on south of the border are raising all kinds of concerns in the fiscal area as well—what's going to happen to interest rates, for example—it's helpful to have an anchor of stability in federal finances.

I hope this fall budget is a one-off. I would very much prefer to see the federal government go back to a budget cycle where the budget comes out before the beginning of the fiscal year and lays out a fiscal plan that gives people more confidence. I accept that the circumstances we're in right now are a little unusual, but I would be very sorry to see budgets so late in the year become a pattern, because I think that does unnecessarily add to uncertainty, and it creates a bit of a sense that perhaps the government isn't running the way it should.

Some provinces have managed this very consistently with a budget that comes out before the beginning of the fiscal year. I think that creates a bit more of a sense that everything is being run competently, and people can have a bit more confidence that there aren't going to be sudden changes throughout the year.

[Kathy Borrelli, Conservative, Windsor—Tecumseh—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you.

Also, you've pointed out that provinces such as Saskatchewan and Alberta are in the A range on fiscal accountability, while the federal government is scoring only Ds and C-minuses in your institute's report card.

Meanwhile, countries like Ireland and Australia have created investment climates that attract capital and boost productivity. What lessons should Canada take from those success stories if we want to stop capital from leaving and to restore our competitiveness?

[William Robson]

Just to recap a few themes, I think it is helpful to control the size of the public sector and to control the size of public sector borrowing. Ultimately, there is competition for talent and labour in the economy, competition for investable funds and competition for capital. There's no doubt that a fairly significant size of government is popular among Canadians generally. We like the services we get, but we also want value for money. I am confident that we could see better value for money in some areas of government activity.

I hesitate to point to the United States when it comes to fiscal management, because their record is not very impressive, but they have a few advantages that we don't. They have the world's reserve currency. They have a very high credit rating as a practical matter, whatever the credit agencies may put in terms of the letters. One thing that is very clear, though, is that the United States has created a tax advantage that it didn't use to have. They could get by with a tax disadvantage and a relatively hostile atmosphere for investment when it came to the tax system because of their large market and because of some other advantages they have.

It would be very nice to see Canada establish an advantage of its own. We need something. We can't rival them for size of market. We can't rival them for some of the hubs of activity in the short run that they have, but we can make it more attractive for businesses to invest that marginal dollar in Canada and for talented people to say they'd rather be on the north side of the border.

[Kathy Borrelli, Conservative, Windsor—Tecumseh—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thanks very much, Ms. Borrelli.

Mr. Bains, you have five minutes, sir.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Richmond East—Steveston, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Robson, for joining us today.

I'm going to ask you about internal trade barriers. Can you please share some thoughts on whether the removal of internal trade barriers can help to improve productivity?

[William Robson]

I think the short answer is yes. We've seen some fairly big numbers. I don't know that I would subscribe to some of the biggest numbers. They perhaps create exaggerated notions of how large and how quick some of these effects could be. You'll know, without my elaborating, how diverse some of these barriers are and how difficult it is to tackle them as some kind of big project. I think we can look at regulated professions, where it's difficult for people to move across the country, or at such particular areas as electric utilities, where there's a lot of reluctance to collaborate across provincial borders.

I'll mention supply management. I apologize, but I can't resist. It's a huge fragmenter of the internal market. The federal government is very complicit in that. I think we could have a more dynamic dairy and poultry industry if the interprovincial barriers that are part of that system were to get lower or perhaps even disappear.

I thoroughly support efforts that the federal government is making to promote freer internal trade. I would just urge the federal government, as it does that, to look at the ways in which it itself fragments the internal market. It's not only the provinces that are to blame.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Richmond East—Steveston, BC]

Thank you for that.

I come from Richmond, British Columbia. Years ago they had the TILMA with Alberta. It was an agreement that allowed certain professions, such as notaries, insurance and these kinds of areas.... You indicated a couple of skilled professions. Could you perhaps shed some light on transportation or on the other barriers in certain sectors that are the most burdensome?

[William Robson]

The difficulty with addressing this area is that....

You mentioned transportation. It's common for me to hear people say that we shouldn't get bogged down on fire extinguisher regulations and other small-seeming things that can make it difficult for somebody to drive a rig across the country for reasons that do not have to do with legitimate things, such as needing a different braking system in the mountains than you do on the prairies. There's just no substitute for tackling some of that stuff. It's not exciting work. It's not sexy. It probably wouldn't make very good testimony in front of a parliamentary committee.

With regard to the growth of regulations over time, I'm not criticizing the purpose of the regulations. We have safer working environments than we used to have, and we have safer consumer products than we used to have, but you have to be able to get down to the nitty-gritty of that stuff and be ready to do some very painstaking work. We are making progress in these areas. It's by no means impossible. I'm heartened by what's happened.

I'm heartened by what's happening on the provincial front. You mentioned one particular interprovincial agreement, and we've seen expansions of that. We have seen some provinces lay down challenges to others, so it can be done, but in many of the regulated professions—for example, in health care—it really is a line-by-line exercise. We need persistence and we need perspiration in order to reap some of those benefits.