Evidence of meeting #10 for Subcommittee on Canadian Industrial Sectors in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was companies.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:25 p.m.
NDP
Glenn Thibeault NDP Sudbury, ON
CMIC. So innovation is important for both supply and service and for mining companies, is it not?
12:25 p.m.
Managing Director, Canadian Association of Mining Equipment and Services for Export
I gave you some numbers on what the federal government is not doing in supporting research. CEMI should be supported by the federal government, but it should be one of four centres of excellence in the country. We need one in British Columbia, we need one in Saskatchewan, and we need one in Quebec, on top of CEMI.
The money for CEMI really came from the provincial government, and it was matched by those companies. So the provincial government took the lead, but we need a system. This is the vision of CMIC, the Canadian Mining Innovation Council, that we have a coordinated thing with these centres of excellence, without destroying the silos we also have in universities and other things.
12:25 p.m.
NDP
Glenn Thibeault NDP Sudbury, ON
But it's harnessing those silos, bringing them under one place, and then, as we talked about initially, creating that national strategy.
12:30 p.m.
Managing Director, Canadian Association of Mining Equipment and Services for Export
If we compare with the forestry industry, for example, in the last budget, just to give you one little tidbit, the forestry industry got $160 million over two years. For what? For innovation and marketing.
We have the Canadian Mining Innovation Council sitting there—it's an embryonic thing—needing help, needing finance, and of course, there's nothing in that budget. We're still working on that, but we've got to get some federal government money, big time. We need the government to recognize that governments in Canada are underfunding mining innovation by about $30 million a year.
I could go on about forestry. It goes on and on and on. I mean, I guess you have to be a loser, if I can say that here, because the forestry industry doesn't seem to be prospering at this time, as many aren't. But one wonders about the future. We're not wondering about the future of the mining industry.
It's a bit like the biotech people who were here today. They see a great future, but we can't come out of this with our capacity to innovate and to commercialize destroyed.
12:30 p.m.
Vice-President, Economic Affairs, Mining Association of Canada
Just very quickly on that, I think a challenge for CMIC, the Canadian Mining Innovation Council, still rests with the industry. We haven't had our own act together adequately to make the proper representations to Finance officials, etc., in the lead-up to the last budget. We're aiming to do that in the lead-up to this budget.
Beyond that, I think Mr. Baird's remarks are appropriate: other sectors have had significant support in the innovation area. Once we get our act together and get our representations in to the right people, we will be seeking a similar kind of support.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
12:30 p.m.
NDP
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dave Van Kesteren
No, we can't do that.
Gentlemen, we could go on for a long time. I think this has been fascinating, as every study has been.
Mr. Baird, you were talking about mining supply. It just galls me every time I see an area that we're productive in and yet we import the technology. Is that what you're saying, that we import much of our mining technology when we should be developing it and exporting it?
Is that what you meant by that?
May 14th, 2009 / 12:30 p.m.
Managing Director, Canadian Association of Mining Equipment and Services for Export
Not quite.
Yes, we do import. Effectively, since the World War II, Canada has not had tariff barriers to let in the world's mining equipment, and services, and technologies, and so on. But that's a strength for us, because it means that the mining suppliers who exist have to be world competitive—and they are. As I said, there are 300 companies in Sudbury that get a large part of their sales from the mining industry. And so we've developed a very strong mining supply industry here. I wasn't able to give you a lot of the statistics, and so on, that I had prepared.
The situation is okay. Yes, we have foreign competition. Yes, foreigners sometimes buy mining supply companies, just like they buy mining companies. Yes, those earlier entrepreneurs go and found another company, and away they go. We're just not taking enough advantage of the world markets, and we are not getting the kind of government support in innovation that is needed.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dave Van Kesteren
If there's something that you felt you weren't able to express, please send it to our committee. We are going to be preparing a report, so we will need that in the very near future. You can send it to the clerk.
We're going to suspend for just a few minutes to give our guests a chance to leave, and then we'll be going in camera to do the last piece of our work.
Again, thank you very much for attending.
[Proceedings continue in camera]