Evidence of meeting #32 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was china.
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Thank you.
We'll go to Monsieur Vincent, and this will be our final question.
11:30 a.m.
Bloc
Robert Vincent Bloc Shefford, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I will try to summarize everything that has been said here this morning.
First, Mr. Storey talked about missions to China in which Canadian industries have participated. You also mentioned the automobile pact with Korea, which will soon affect you personally. You also talked about tax credits. With regard to credits, we know that we need them to make profits, but that without profits, they are useless.
Moreover, I said that we were going to overwork the word “innovation”. It’s all very well to talk about innovation, but first there has to be some. However, the most important issue and one that comes up all the time is the protection of intellectual property. As far as I am concerned, I believe that the problem has been created out of nowhere. We are trying to create it on one hand and solve it on the other. The fact remains that it is always the same ones who pay, that is, Canadian taxpayers. With regard to the missions to China, the federal government is paying so that industrial entrepreneurs can try to find a way to reduce their costs by having their products manufactured in China.
Mr. Storey told us that we would become distributors. During another mission to China organized by the federal government, the client will find the same supplier, who will be completely eliminated and be directly integrated with Chinese suppliers. This means that a business that employs 40 people is completely eliminated. Under these conditions, the supplier will also be eliminated. There will be problems on that side as well.
With regard to intellectual property, I do not know if a bill could resolve certain issues. We have to find a way of protecting innovations and the creation of new products. As a lawyer, Mr. Hrastovec, you know that fighting such cases can involve enormous costs. I do not believe that industries can afford to protect their intellectual property on an international scale.
The government is taking us to China. We are trying to find out how we can, financially speaking, preserve the industry here in Canada. Actually, it is always the same money we are spending left and right: taxpayers’ money. We create a problem, then we try to solve it, but the root of the problem is a result of what we are doing here.
I would like to have your comments on all aspects of today’s discussions.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
11:35 a.m.
Partner and Director, MidWest Precision Mould Ltd
First of all, I couldn't agree with you more. As far as intellectual property goes, yes, taxpayers are holding the bag on that one. There seems to be a misunderstanding or a misinterpretation of the global economy in China. I don't think most people understand that China is not purchasing our goods. The deficit shows that. China purchased $7.1 billion from Canada, and that was in raw materials only. We spent $29.5 billion on goods from China.
China is buying our raw materials to make product to sell back to us that we used to make. This way of thinking has to stop. We have to work together, Canada and the United States, because we're both in the same boat. As someone said earlier, we're fighting a war. Yes, we are. In this industry we are. We somehow have to work together to come up with a common plan that is going to slow this influx of goods into this country with very little leaving it. We're not manufacturing goods for China to purchase. They don't want them. It's as simple as that.
11:40 a.m.
Chair of the Board, Windsor and District Chamber of Commerce
I just want to agree with Peter, and I also agree with the comments by the honourable member. You have to marry technology with manufacturing in order to create the lifestyle and livelihood that we have in this community. We can't forget about our own people.
I say there should be fewer trade missions to China. Do trade missions internally. Go from region to region. What you're doing here, for example, is a significantly better spent dollar by the federal government than sending a bunch of business people over to other countries to see how we can do business better. Everybody knows how to do business. On our laptops, we're a click away from communicating with other companies, other industries, and so on. We don't have to have the show any longer. Let's talk about doing things to strengthen ourselves internally in this country.
11:40 a.m.
Chief Financial Officer, Accucaps Industries Limited
Just as a brief comment, we're not going to change the fact that there's going to be competition in the world. The ability to or the rate at which we can change our own organizations, our own products, our own processes, so that we can be on a development and growth curve faster than that of our competition is how we maintain advantage.
We need some structural support for that in the area of intellectual property. We need to have the infrastructure in place and we need to have the policing in place so that we have some forum to go to in order to block product from coming in if it is being developed with stolen technology, with stolen intellectual property. It's a difficult thing to do, but we need to get that type of vehicle for our industry and all industries in order to go and access if we see that things are happening, such as what some of the other members of the panel have been saying in terms of where stolen technology or stolen patents have been resulting in product coming into North America.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
11:40 a.m.
North American Sales Manager, DMS Corporation; President, Canadian Association of MoldMakers
If we don't do something to correct this manufacturing situation, we'll become a colony. Lee Iacocca, in the 1980s, wrote a book about this. He wrote about the demise of manufacturing in North America. I don't know if you've read it.
We don't want to become a colony. We have a lot of good things happening. Hopefully we can take something from this today and go forward.
Thank you for having us.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Monsieur Vincent.
I just want to make a couple of concluding remarks. First of all, for any documents that you do have—Mr. Storey, I believe you've handed something in—we will endeavour to have them translated as soon as possible and distribute them to all members. If any of you have any further recommendations that you'd like to make in addition to your presentation, please do give them to the clerk either now or later on.
I just want to fill you in on our agenda for the rest of the day. We're meeting with the mayor and we're getting a briefing with respect to the border. We're touring the border and we're going to St. Clair College. So we will be doing more here in Windsor.
I want to thank you. You have re-emphasized a lot of the themes that we've heard. The issue of intellectual property has really come up in our hearings across Canada, so I want to emphasize that.
Also, with respect, Mr. Hrastovec, you made a very good point in terms of getting regions to work together. I come from western Canada, and 40% of the manufacturing done for the oil sands is done in Ontario. I think we could do even more of that, frankly. That's what I know the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters are looking at doing. They're trying to partner up regions across this country.
I want to thank you for your time here today and for being with us.
Committee members, we will assemble very quickly, get on the bus, and go meet the mayor.
Thank you. The meeting is adjourned.