Evidence of meeting #48 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was million.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Can you explain the difference between the job numbers that the government references—
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB
I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you're.... It sounds like you're leading a question, but do you have an actual specific citation?
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
The ranking according to the World Economic Forum on private sector capacity for innovation is 26.
11:30 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Industry
Sorry, what does that have to do with—
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB
So they're completely different things, it sounds like.
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Yes, that's fair. That's a fair comment. It is fair.
But there does seem to be some discrepancy between what the World Economic Forum's views on job creation or job numbers are, and the minister's. Where do we get this notion that we are among the best in job numbers in the world?
11:30 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Industry
I think I stated the fact that since 2009—
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
Chair, on a point of order. I think we've gotten to the point, Chair, where the questioning is inappropriate. The question was asked, the answer was given, and to keep aggressively going after one of the witnesses is not appropriate.
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
I don't think there's anything appropriate or inappropriate. What the honourable member thinks about how I should or should not conduct a question is irrelevant.
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Sweet
I think Mr. McKay just reframed the question. Go ahead, Mr. McKay.
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Yes, I'm looking for the basis for the minister's statement, which is that Canada has one of the best job numbers in the world according to the World Economic Forum. If you could provide the committee with that, that would be helpful.
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Now, there's another quote from the minister which said that “Bloomberg has said that Canada's the best place in the world to start a small business, which of course creates jobs.” However, if you look at the Bloomberg Innovation Index, Canada ranks 17th in manufacturing, 20th in research and development, and 21st in patents, in rankings out of 50 countries—not exactly the best. Again, I'm trying to arrive at the discrepancy between the minister's statement, which seems to say that Bloomberg says this is a really great place to create jobs, and the actual rankings of Bloomberg.
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB
Clearly, the honourable member was reading his last question and didn't characterize it right. It would be helpful, again, if we had a citation for the point that he's making right now.
May 28th, 2015 / 11:30 a.m.
Liberal
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Sweet
Go ahead, Mr. Knubley.
Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Daniel. You had a point of order—
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Joe Daniel Conservative Don Valley East, ON
It goes to the relevance of the question on the data. Clearly, what he's talking about in terms of jobs versus what they're saying about innovation, there is no correlation between the number of patents and the number of jobs. So let's get close to the point.
11:35 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Sweet
Mr. Daniel, that's not a procedural point but I understand the information.
Mr. Knubley, you can go ahead.
11:35 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Industry
What I'd say is that I do know the Statistics Canada data shows that Canada is a leader in the creation of small firms. In fact, when you compare our record in the creation of small firms to that in the United States, we're actually better at creating small firms and we create more than the U.S.