Industry and Technology Committee on Oct. 6th, 2025

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you very much.

Madam O'Rourke, you have five minutes.

[Dominique O'Rourke, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

My first question is for Mr. Fast.

I am hoping you're aware of the BDC-EDC regional tariff response initiative, which may be helpful for you in the coming months.

I am also hearing from medium-sized businesses in Guelph and nationally that there seems to be a missing middle for manufacturing. There is support for entrepreneurship, innovation, small businesses and start-ups to help them scale, and then there is support for the larger organizations, but that piece in the middle needs something different.

I'm wondering what programs or supports you think would be helpful for medium-sized businesses.

[Neil Fast]

Thank you for that question. I could not agree more.

I would like to echo.... We have all of these new programs, and while I have a limited understanding of the BDC-EDC program, our ability to take advantage of these programs, every one of them, comes at the cost of employee attention. As we work to comply with export regulations and customs and to understand tariffs, the reporting requirements of what country of origin the aluminum is smelted in consumes so much capability. We have had to start hiring consultants to help us comply with human trafficking regulations.

The ability to take advantage of these programs with less overhead and fewer requirements, or by removing some of the overhead that is already placed on us, would really allow us to take more benefit.

[Dominique O'Rourke, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

That's a great recommendation for us. I've made a note of that.

You mentioned that some of your manufacturing is taking place in Europe. Are there any opportunities to pivot to some domestic manufacturing around that to build and buy Canadian and to reduce your costs of import?

[Neil Fast]

We do all of our manufacturing and assembling here in Manitoba, Canada. We have several significant vendors that are located in Europe.

What happened even six or eight months ago was that they would ship to a large location in the U.S., where that product may have been combined with something that was manufactured in the U.S. and China and then redistributed throughout North America as a complete product.

To bypass tariffs, all of those issues have changed. In that way, it's a benefit to Canada. More work is being driven into Canada because of those tariff walls.

[Dominique O'Rourke, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you.

My next question is for Mr. Duhamel.

We have been talking about productivity in Canada for 30 years. I'm a visual person. If you had to create a continuum of actions to improve business productivity in Canada in the short, medium and long term, where would you place the most relevant initiatives?

What is urgent, what needs to be done over the next two years and what needs to be done in the longer term?

I am relying on your expertise to help the committee do its work.

[Marc Duhamel]

I'm not an expert in productivity. I'm sure you will be hearing from other experts who will talk to you about this.

I'm here to tell the committee about the importance of business transfer. Let's look at the example that you mentioned, namely medium-sized businesses that employ between 100 and 499 people. A total of 8.5% of medium-sized businesses are transferred, while 0.8% are start-ups and 0.1% are dissolved.

Business transfer is therefore one way of improving and accelerating business transformation through new investments in innovation and technology.

I sincerely believe that this course of action has been overlooked. It is new, but it should be urgently studied in depth by the committee.

[Dominique O'Rourke, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you, Ms. O'Rourke.

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

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

Mr. Duhamel, in two and a half minutes, can you talk to us about the funding needs of young buyers?

Can you also tell us what you mean by the “intangible capital” of businesses?

You can also use the time to share any other comments you may wish to make.

[Marc Duhamel]

Thank you for the question.

In Quebec, the average transferred business has an annual revenue of $4 million and employs about 15 people. It's obvious that entrepreneurs under the age of 30 have a really hard time finding the capital they need to buy such a business. In fact, the segment that is experiencing the strongest growth is buyers aged 55 and over. Older people or senior entrepreneurs make up the segment that has the strongest intention of taking over businesses in Quebec, and I have no reason to believe that things are any different in the rest of Canada.

We are talking about protecting the intangible capital of businesses. What is intangible capital? It is assets that lack physical substance, such as trade secrets, patents and all other forms of explicit or implicit intellectual property that contribute so much to the value-added businesses in Canada, as studies by Statistics Canada show.

A business transfer is important to protect this capital, since it will ensure its survival, while a merger, an acquisition that liquidates all of the company's assets, or worse still, a dissolution, will result in the loss of this intangible capital.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you everyone.

I want to thank Mr. Fast and Mr. Duhamel for being with us this afternoon.

Thank you very much for making yourselves available to the committee. I appreciate the insight very much. It's quite useful and helps guide us as we move forward.

We'll dismiss the witnesses. Thank you very much. You're welcome to drop off.

Colleagues, I want to raise one quick thing before we go.

This is just as a matter of practice. We've been meeting for a couple of weeks now, and I think we've gotten a feel for style. I've allowed us, quite graciously, to go over time in most instances because I always feel my job is to make sure—no pun intended—we're productive and efficient and that there's no use in calling witnesses.... The downside is that we lose time. Every time I allow somebody to go a minute, a minute and a half or two minutes over, it cuts into someone else's time.

I'd like to suggest that when we look at the way we move forward, in the second round, the Conservatives and the Liberals will get five minutes. That's the last two, so that's 10 minutes. Ultimately, the discretion is mine, but I don't want to be a dictator here, so I would like to suggest, if everyone is amenable to this, that we kind of operate with the understanding that we're not going to go to that last part of the second round. If we make up the time, then we make the offer.

If we operate with it.... I see it as a little bit unfair because a member comes, puts their name on the list; they've prepared a question and now we're 15 or 20 minutes over time and people are saying that they have to get to their next meeting, etc.

This is just food for thought. We don't have to make a formal decision. I just want to put it out there that I've really tried to not cut people off, but there comes a point when, of course, I have to do that because it comes at the expense....

Maybe it's something we can discuss among the respective critics for the parties around the table. I just wanted to put that out there because I don't want to get in the habit of saying, “Sorry, witness, we've gone over. You still have something to add that will be useful to the committee, but I'm stopping the clock here just for the sake of making sure we end on time.”

Does what I'm proposing kind of make sense?

I share this just as where my thinking is.

We don't have to make a decision today. I just wanted to share some thoughts now that we have had a few meetings.

Thank you, everyone.

The meeting is adjourned.