Industry Committee on May 2nd, 2013

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Certainly it's important to have a target and a plan.

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

The starting price was set at approximately $900 million—

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

That is considerably lower than Scotia Capital's estimates.

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

That's the starting price, sir.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

We have a bottom, but we don't have a plan to make sure we get enough money for Canadians.

Quickly going back to the Investment Canada Act, with the changes and the raising of the threshold up to, eventually, $1 billion, a company could potentially go and buy up several companies that are under that threshold, never have to face a review, and end up with a very large market share. Are there any provisions planned in the Investment Canada Act to deal with that eventuality?

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

No. As I said, there has to be notification for all the proposals. There is a national security issue that has to be taken into account, according to the legislation that was passed in 2009. If there were a concentration, as you say, we would have the Competition Bureau. This is exactly their jurisdiction.

There is always a way to fully assess what is going on. I think we have to keep the principle in mind that we are open for foreign investment. We need foreign investment. It gives players an opportunity to get into the global value chain.

I know that your party and mine have a lot of differing views about that, but we will keep doing this.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

We're agreed that foreign investment is important, but New Democrats believe it has to protect Canadian jobs. Certainly when the government allowed U. S. Steel to come in, that did not do the job.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Harris.

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

I'd rather think that you are totally against foreign investment, so this is why—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Harris.

Mr. Paradis, that's all the time we have.

We now go to Mr. Lake for seven minutes.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being with us today, Mr. Paradis. It is a pleasure for me to work with you as parliamentary secretary. It enables to learn and practise my French.

I am going to ask you a question, and then my colleague Mr. Braid will take over.

Minister, could you explain how our economic action plan will affect Industry Canada and its work?

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

I congratulate you on your clear French, colleague.

The priority that clearly emerges from economic action plan 2013 is the manufacturing sector. We have taken measures since we arrived in power in 2006. My colleague Minister Bernier talked about cutting needless red tape, but there have also been tax cuts. The corporate income tax is now 15%, which makes Canada one of the most competitive countries in the G7. We are going to continue in that direction.

Target sectors include the automotive industry, which will receive renewed funding of $250 million over five years. This is a major opportunity. We are talking about an innovation fund that drives a parallel economy in the automotive industry, which represents 440,000 direct and indirect jobs.

Funding of $1 billion is provided for the aerospace industry over the next five years. There are also the technology demonstration projects that have been introduced in response to the Emerson report's recommendations. That is very promising.

Once again, you can see that we are still targeting innovation and high technology. There is another aspect that the government wants to support, and that is creating innovation, but then it has to be sold or else it is worthless. That is where we generate added value in the country, where we create wealth. We have often heard about problems associated with access to capital. That is why we have established venture capital funds. In addition, as I explained earlier, $60 million will be allocated to incubators and funding will be allocated to the National Research Council so that it can create networks between universities, colleges and SMEs so that SMEs have access to that expertise.

Lastly, we want to optimize the industrial impact of military procurement. Tom Jenkins prepared a report on the subject. In economic action plan 2013, the Minister of Finance clearly stated that we wanted to head in that direction, to structure funding so as to optimize impact in Canada. Even for Canadian procurement projects, various factors will be considered when hiring labour, for the first time or in other situations.

This economic action plan is promising. I think that the measure we should not pass over in silence for the manufacturing sector is the two-year extension of the temporary accelerated capital cost allowance. This support of $1.8 billion enables people to acquire machinery faster, which increases productivity and, consequently, competitiveness.

As we know, there is a productivity gap between Canada and the United States. A good way to resolve it is to interest our people in investing in better technology, which would enable them to do more with less. That is precisely what is happening now. We have observed a rising trend in recent months. There is more investment in machinery in Canada on a per capita basis than in the United States. So we are on the right track, but we cannot rest on our laurels. We must forge ahead. That is why it is important to adopt the economic action plan 2013. It will enable us to advance in that direction.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you.

Congratulations, Mr. Lake.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

I have one or two questions. I'll try to fit them in.

One question I will not be asking either minister is their thoughts, predictions, on the playoff series that will begin tonight between the Ottawa Senators and the Montreal Canadiens.

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

We'll call Jacques Demers; he's the expert.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

He said Montreal in seven, and I follow him.

[A voice]

He said that?

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

I would like to ask you, Minister Paradis, about the issue of intellectual property rights and copyright. This committee in fact recently concluded a very comprehensive study on the issue of intellectual property.

Could you update us on some recent initiatives and efforts by the government to enhance intellectual property rights and copyright protections?

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

I think the major step was to go through with the bill. The copyright bill was I think a very important point. Now there is the implementation. We are at the stage to implement it, and there are several phases. This is a work-in-progress.

Of course, this will help us continue to negotiate with our trading partners. We had to level the playing field, but we had to do it in a Canadian way. We had to do it in the best interests of Canadians. I will of course pay a lot of attention to what the committee has done, because this is a very interesting and important area.

When we have good industries like BlackBerry, for example, deciding to go worldwide, this is quite something, but we have to keep attracting them here with a good and solid regime. Once again, we cannot rest on our laurels. I think the major milestone that had to be achieved, which finally we could do with a majority government, was to adopt the copyright law reform, which had been very expected for a very long time.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

I see.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

You have 10 seconds, Mr. Braid.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Merci beaucoup.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you, Mr. Braid and Minister Paradis.

Now we'll go on to Mr. Regan for seven minutes.