Evidence of meeting #15 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was steel.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
Thank you very much.
Guess what? You guys have been really good, so you each get three more minutes.
Mr. Baylis, you have three.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
With SR and ED, scientific research and experimental development, I have a quick question. How useful is it to each of your industries, on a scale of one to 10?
Executive Vice-President, Aerospace Industries Association of Canada
Seven or eight.
President, Canadian Steel Producers Association
The SR and ED credit? I'm unaware of a member who has accessed it. There might be one, but I'm not sure.
Vice-President, Regulations and Partnerships, Forest Products Association of Canada
Eight.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Could you then submit to us in writing how it could be made better? If your industries are using it, how do they use it, and how could it be made better?
Executive Vice-President, Aerospace Industries Association of Canada
Can I have a couple months, because I was just talking about the committee that we're forming to answer that question?
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Yes, it's an issue of SWOT, and even to add to what Mr. Longfield asked on SWOT, could you also add suggestions on how the federal government could help in each one of those areas that you're going to look at: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threads?
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
You might put a line about how the federal government could help out, and you could also give us a report specifically on the SR and EDs.
Executive Vice-President, Aerospace Industries Association of Canada
I'm sorry, I don't want to take up too much of your time, but the whole point on SR and EDs, and I just came from this discussion, is that our members find SR and ED incredibly useful, but it doesn't necessarily generate the behaviour in them the government wants. It's not just a question of whether it helps them. It's a question of whether or not it helps you.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Put that in the report, and we'll look at it. Now I'll pass it over to René, who has a question.
Liberal
René Arseneault Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB
Mr. Lansbergen, I come from a rural community in northern New Brunswick where our wood industry was hit very badly in 2007-08.
Like me, I'm sure you're aware that pulp and paper mills are a very greedy industry for raw materials and for little margins of profit compared to transformed wood products. I'm fully aware of certain miracles we're doing right now in technology with wood fibres. As you said, I've seen diesel extracted from a tree. I couldn't believe my eyes. They'll smell of maple syrup.
Liberal
René Arseneault Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB
That fibre...it's too long to explain, but how open is your association? You're representing wood, pulp, and paper producers that use a lot of raw materials. How open is your association to new technology, new development, or new openings for the wood industry for wood products, and specifically transformed wood products outside of wood, pulp, and paper?
Vice-President, Regulations and Partnerships, Forest Products Association of Canada
I'm not sure if I understand. Our companies are working quite aggressively to try and expand and diversify their product suites to produce—
Liberal
Vice-President, Regulations and Partnerships, Forest Products Association of Canada
Well, no, it's all about what we can do beyond the traditional products.
Can we produce more dissolving pulp? There are two mills in New Brunswick involved in the production of rayon to compete with cotton. There's that type of thing. There are bolt-on technologies to extract lignin or to create sugars that can be converted further into acids and other industrial chemicals for bioplastics, to put those into cars to make them lighter. This is happening to a small degree already. That's completely what we're working on, to expand our suite of products, so we're not relying on newsprint mills that are not going to be prosperous going into the future.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
Thank you very much.
Does anybody believe the $100 bill doesn't smell like maple syrup?
Mr. Albas, you have three minutes.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
Thank you, Chair. If you want to give me a $100 bill, I'll let you know.
I'll just roll it over to the forest products again. One of the things I always try to do is go to as many different mills and operations in my area, and I've noticed that they rely heavily on equipment that is manufactured outside of Canada, often European-made. They are very technology driven. It has really lowered costs. In fact, one of the members opposite was talking about the effect on labour. One of the operations in my riding has tripled its production while reducing its workforce somewhat. Again, technology is driving your sector quite a bit.
One of the things I have seen, though, is that there seem to be a lot more Canadian software firms providing new algorithms and programs to make those manufacturing processes faster. They're taking things that are built outside Canada, but they're actually improving efficiency. Is this something that you've seen in other areas? Is there a way for the government, through digital strategies, etc., to help promote this?
Vice-President, Regulations and Partnerships, Forest Products Association of Canada
Yes, it's true that a lot of the more traditional heavy equipment suppliers are no longer in Canada. Twenty years ago we used to be leaders in that space, but we lost that edge. A lot of the equipment does come from boilers from the U.S. or other equipment from Scandinavian countries, for example.
Vice-President, Regulations and Partnerships, Forest Products Association of Canada
I think that's a long story. Quite honestly, I don't have a full answer for you today.
Going forward on some of the new opportunities, there is a lot of activity happening in Canada with technology developers that might use some equipment that's produced elsewhere, but some of it is in Canada. Certainly, some of the computerization that we've seen, where they have optical scanners for the logs as they go into the sawmill so that they can maximize the value from every tree harvested, is indeed happening in Canada, and that's a great story. At the same time, for us to be competitive, we have to look globally for wherever the best technology and equipment suppliers are. It would be nice if they were in Canada, for sure.
