Industry Committee on June 9th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome, everybody, to the 19th meeting of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology.

Today we have three new guests with us. From the Alberta Chambers of Commerce, we have Darrell Toma, past chair. From Precision ADM, we have Martin Petrak, president and chief executive officer, and from Polytechnics Canada, we have Farzad Rayegani, director, centre for advanced manufacturing and design technologies, Sheridan College. Sounds like that will be an interesting presentation.

There are no votes today. How's that? We have two hours of witnesses and work. I'm excited.

We'll begin with Mr. Toma. You have 10 minutes.

[Darrell Toma, Past Chair, Alberta Chambers of Commerce]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll present ideas at the back end of a situation analysis.

Alberta has about 9,400 manufacturers, about $68 billion in sales annually, and accounts for about 11% of national production. Sales growth has been down in the last couple of years, and we have a recession in the province.

There are about 100,000 people unemployed, and the energy supply chain affects a lot of the manufacturers in the province. The manufacturing sector in Alberta includes food manufacturing, beverages, tobacco products, textiles, petroleum, chemicals, coal products, computer electronics, and so on. It's quite a variety of manufacturing. It tends to be concentrated in Edmonton, Calgary, Red Deer, and in some of the smaller centres. It employs about 140,000 people, but this has gone down because of our recession in the last couple of years.

I'll go to the challenges and then to the recommendations. As I said, we have a recession. About $23 billion of annual cash spending and investment has been pulled out of the energy supply chain. That has affected a lot of businesses. Another challenge is a lack of export knowledge and export support for SMEs in the province. That's a challenge. We're also getting more competition from trade agreements.

Competitiveness and productivity are issues. Alberta has to compete with other competitors, such as Korea for steel products or China for other products, and we have many trade agreements that are being implemented.

Costs have risen in the last few years but are under rapid decline in the province right now.

There are some barriers to diversification. We need to diversify the economy more in manufacturing.

Another issue is the small scale of manufacturers in the province. We have many with fewer than 10 employees. Some of them are larger, but we have many small-scale manufacturers.

We also lack a manufacturing policy that focuses on a variety of things that need to be done. There are many unknowns that manufacturers are facing, such as climate policy. In 2017, a carbon tax will be implemented in the province. We have new competitors through trade agreements, and then technology disruptions can occur as well.

There are a couple of big issues. Oil prices are down, so cash flow is down tremendously, and about $23 billion of annual investment has been pulled out of the supply chain. That has affected many of the manufacturers in the province.

I'll go to the key themes of what we think needs to be done.

From the Alberta Chambers of Commerce, which represents about 24,000 businesses in the province, the first theme would be something called “do no harm” to the manufacturing or business base. We recommend that current manufacturers not see any increases in fees or taxes, or any new taxes or fees implemented. They are currently in a fragile state. A number of them have closed. Utilization rates are from 50% to 70%, let's say, so they're not fully utilized right now.

The second theme is support for small manufacturers. The Alberta Chambers of Commerce think that because we have a lack of sales, there is a need for more marketing to build demand for these manufacturers to hire more people, and so on. A growth management approach or a growth management strategy for helping these SME manufacturers grow will be needed, and something new, such as a voucher through the IRAP system, could help.

IRAP currently supports technology companies in the province with research, but in this time of building up sales, a growth management voucher might help to get more people employed and to build more understanding of international markets and international business and so on.

In terms of export capacity, another requirement would be to understand how to access global supply chains and how to become more competitive within a global supply chain. In domestic opportunities, another area would be looking at ways to enhance the public procurement process so that our manufacturers can access that more easily and take advantage of some of the opportunities that others are getting.

Another area would be looking at the innovation system and looking at more regional innovation centres that could help small-scale manufacturers. A good example is the American manufacturing extension partnership, MEP, offices, which total about 400 across the U.S. They're specifically put in place to help manufacturing with competitiveness, adaptation and product design, human resources, export marketing, and so on. We don't have a similar system here, and that's a deficiency.

The next one would be in the area of scale-up and building bigger manufacturers at a Canadian or North American scale. We have to develop a system. One of the ideas might be a manufacturing business network or consortia working together to access international markets or market share at a scale, scope, and speed of bidding on other contracts that they can't otherwise get. They have to become bigger to compete, as we have other companies coming in from other countries to compete. The scale of many manufacturers is too small.

The final two areas that I will talk about are under a broader policy mandate to look at accessing and improving the way intellectual property and the research from the research and development system are provided for manufacturers. Many times intellectual property is patented and not made available. We need to commercialize these technologies if we put money into their R and D system.

In Alberta, for example, $800 million a year is spent in R and D, and about $735 million of that is the research side versus the development side. Development means commercializing products, taking them to market, and so on. We need to do more on that end of it if we're going to build a strong pipeline of products.

Another final point would be the re-establishment of the accelerated capital cost allowance for the oil sands and their related supply chain so that we can get more investment back into the industry. Currently Alberta and the Fort McMurray area are not being seen as preferred locations because of the distance from markets, lack of market access through pipelines, and so on. Hence, capital has gone elsewhere.

We have a deficit in the province of about $23 or $25 billion annually, and that has hurt a lot of people in the manufacturing sector in the province.

Those would be my main points. I would be happy to discuss them as we go through.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you very much.

Next is Martin Petrak, from Precision ADM.

[Martin Petrak, President and Chief Executive Officer, Precision ADM]

Thank you.

I'm going to represent an SME in Manitoba as well as a not-for-profit organization called the Orthopaedic Innovation Centre in Winnipeg. I'm the CEO of both, so we would do both, from the pre-commercialization of medical devices right through to the advanced manufacturing of digital devices.

The Orthopaedic Innovation Centre located at the Concordia Hip and Knee Institute received a $5 million grant from Western Economic Diversification Canada and $1.5 million from Research Manitoba in Winnipeg. This group raises money for the advanced digital manufacturing hub for medical and aerospace industries in Winnipeg.

One of the outcome metrics of the ADMH was to establish new companies in Manitoba to commercialize products for medical and aerospace applications. I have attached a model in the appendix to give you an idea of the type of model that we've actually implemented.

Precision ADM was the first start-up company. Did everyone get the model?

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Which model are you referring to?

[Martin Petrak]

In the appendix of the attached notes. Did everyone get a copy of it?

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

We can't officially hand it out because it's not in French and English.

[Martin Petrak]

Five copies were distributed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

We will have it translated and we will ensure all members get it.

[Martin Petrak]

It's a one-page diagram.

Moving on, we've established, essentially, an SME out of this incubator hub that's roughly 18,600 square feet. It's all definitely focused on medical, aerospace, energy, and industrial applications. We obviously broadened the spectrum beyond medical and aerospace because of the heavy industrial capabilities in Manitoba.

The medical industry is moving toward patient-specific devices to offer better and personalized therapies. The aerospace industry is innovating toward lighter and more fuel-efficient aircraft while developing new components with reduced and expedited supply chains. Our solutions to the clients, obviously, are focusing on innovative digital manufacturing.

Our business model is now a scalable contract manufacturing and engineering company and a solutions provider for high-value industries using additive manufacturing as a core technology.

In Manitoba is an advanced digital manufacturing centre with a significant aerospace and agriculture and a heavy-vehicle manufacturing industry. However, if Canada is determined to become globally competitive in advanced manufacturing—and I think that's what Canada does want to become known for— investing into additive manufacturing, human talent, and the entire value chain ecosystem wrapped around additive and advanced manufacturing technologies will help Canada strengthen its long-term economic and global manufacturing competitiveness. When additive manufacturing reaches approximately 5% of the total global manufacturing, it will approximate a $600-billion industry and market. Canada can become and move toward a significant market share in five to 10 years if smart investments are made now in areas that others are not investing in.

But for an SME, there are a lot of current challenges. With academic partnerships, for instance, there's definitely a lack of funding for our research partners at the universities and colleges, and they choose to end up working with larger OEMs and not SMEs, because the larger OEMs do have the funds.

There's a huge gap in human talent. We don't have the engineering curriculums across the country. We definitely do in certain areas, which Farzad will be talking about, and I think it's important that there are very specific mandates around curriculum across the country, with a focus on additive manufacturing and design. There's also a lack of these academic champions within the universities and the engineering departments.

One of the biggest issues of our spin-outs, I think, as an SME—we're asking not-for-profit organizations, etc., to spin out companies—is that the financial institutions and the crown corporations such as BDC don't really finance SMEs with short track records. Essentially, we're making it very difficult to survive that valley of death, with few venture capital investment opportunities, because VCs look for big home runs—drug molecules, etc. They show very little interest in manufacturing, in terms of a venture capital spin.

Other financial institutions similarly are not interested in the risk of that capitally intensive type of activity in manufacturing. There's a significant gap in funding start-ups and SMEs, and I'm in that same position right now with Precision ADM. There is no VC that we know of that will directly fund advanced manufacturing.

There are inconsistencies also between some of the federal and provincial funding mandates around SMEs, between both the province and the feds, because of their different KPIs, or key performance indicators. It is very difficult for incubators and not-for-profit organizations to actually navigate this.

Scaled contributions from companies based on ability to pay are also another issue. An example is the CARIC program, in which SMEs, which are very small, have to take a large chunk of the actual project and cannot actually fund most of that project themselves. There's a difficulty for small companies and start-ups to have the resources they're aware of to track and apply and qualify for a lot of these different programs. Federal programs in western Canada are good but focus on capital equipment versus HQP and HSP—highly qualified personnel and highly skilled personnel—development. They're not focusing so much on the longer-term programming.

We also notice, as an SME in advanced manufacturing and as we start the advanced digital manufacturing hub in Winnipeg, that there is an NRC factory of the future program that was announced two years ago. However, to our knowledge, SMEs have not been invited to participate in any programming, and nothing is known to date about the programming, so there appears to be a silo effect.

Across the country, little or no additive manufacturing ecosystem or supply chain support exists in Canada. There are no metal additive manufacturing machinery manufacturers in Canada. Most of our materials and capital costs require purchases to be made in U.S. currency.

Both the NRC IRAP programs and the ones from CME are great, except that they lack some of the funding that's required. Again, I believe some of our SR and ED rebate programs have been decreased over the years.

These are some of the quick recommendations.

Canada has the opportunity to become a leader in the additive manufacturing value chain in the next five to 10 years and could feasibly do this with buy-in from government, industry, and academia. A significant federal policy on additive manufacturing would increase Canada's global manufacturing footprint and competitiveness, and one should be adopted as is the case in other leading countries.

Canada should look at an investment of at least $200 million to $300 million into additive manufacturing over the next five years between government and industry, which would include such things as tax breaks, SR and ED, cash, land, academia, utilities, innovation funds, grants and loans, private-public partnerships, and incubators. Increased funding to NRC IRAP programs such as Canada Makes will help these types of programs get to the resources and to the SMEs that require these seed funding opportunities.

Create private-public venture funds to fund technologies and start-ups to share in the risk with the private sector to accelerate manufacturing innovation. China, for instance, might have up to 1,000 different brands of 3-D printers. Canada might have two.

Work in the Canadian financial and banking institutions to make it easier for early-stage SMEs with capitally intensive manufacturing programs to innovate and acquire working capital to grow, based on business plans and returns on investment.

Support the growth of SMEs and micro-companies to drive a diversified manufacturing ecosystem. Small companies are more nimble in moving to new technologies, entering partnerships, and driving economic growth. Large companies are very slow to do this and are risk-averse. We've experienced this ourselves. A hundred thousand jobs in 1,000 companies versus 100,000 jobs in 10 companies creates a dampening impact and the associated economic downturns in a given industry sector.

Leverage existing Canadian manufacturing ecosystem strengths, networks, partnerships, and previous investments, and bridge Canadian raw material extraction into high-value exports. As well, exploit innovation throughout the entire value chain. We do this in Winnipeg. We can take a raw product like titanium and implant it into a patient and then follow them. That comes from raw products we add over the entire value chain. That's something that's happening today in Winnipeg.

Develop additive manufacturing commercialization centres of excellence to develop HQPs and HSPs.

Develop a hub-and-spoke model, as we also suggested, while adopting innovative models similar to those of Israel and Germany to encourage private-public relationships and partnerships to create an environment with conditions that elevate the potential for success.

Break down the barriers and silo organizations associated with some of the universities in Canada and encourage partnerships with SMEs and not just large OEMs. Small companies are like water testers, learning the market through iterative experiences and fleshing out the applications to their highest competitiveness.

Develop a complete ecosystem of additive manufacturing companies' expertise, talent, supply chain, services, and technology development.

Create a substantial reason to get foreign investment into Canada, while also developing additive manufacturing tax-free zones to attract aviation companies like GE; medical companies like J&J; 3-D printing companies like Stratasys, EOS, and 3D Systems; and maybe potentially other oil and gas and mining companies.

The timelines are running out. Other countries are also moving very quickly, and we need to do this in the next two years. Today investors are looking for additive manufacturing companies to invest in. We need to continue to attract those foreign investments to Canada and to format some form of SME database.

Developing academic relationships and partnerships, around IP developments with SMEs, not just with large OEMs, is also important. We also want to encourage the Canadian industry-to-industry partnerships, not just industry/academic partnerships, to innovate and create IP to increase competitiveness and job creation.

We also want to look at technologies that may be too expensive for industry and create tax incentives to make this technology available in Canada so that we can learn and adopt it. Investment is for the long-term ROI. For the government, it will take about 10 years to break even, but we would have significant positive economic impacts on Canada over the next 10 years, and the global market will be worth at least north of $40 billion.

A reality check: don't be afraid of some failures. I think the government has to look at this. If we invest, there will be some failures, but don't be scared of that. Some SMEs will likely fail, but some will be blockbusters, and other companies can also enjoy the benefits of the spill-off effects of the IP.

We want to be able to critically evaluate the current federal programs and assess the KPIs—the key performance indicators—and ROIs, and adopt innovative programming models that have been successful in other forward-thinking jurisdictions. The key, however, is that the opportunity is significant to invest now in the entire value-chain manufacturing ecosystem. Canada needs to invest smart now and focus on areas where others are not.

That's it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you very much.

We're going to move to Mr. Rayegani. You have 10 minutes.

[Dr. Farzad Rayegani, Director, Centre for Advanced Manufacturing and Design Technologies, Sheridan College, Polytechnics Canada]

Good afternoon. Thank you very much. Thank you, Martin, for your great recommendations. I approve of them too.

Thank you for inviting me to discuss the critical role played by Canadian leading polytechnic institutions in shaping the future of advanced manufacturing. It is my pleasure to be here as the voice of those institutions.

I have many roles in both industry and academia that are relevant to your study. Among them, I am a fellow of Engineers Canada and I also serve as the chair of additive manufacturing in the American Society of Mechanical Engineering. I am associate dean and professor of engineering technology at Sheridan College and director of Sheridan's Centre for Advanced Manufacturing and Design Technologies, or CAMDT.

CAMDT, our centre located in Brampton, Ontario, is an exemplar of Sheridan's growing role as a hub for industry, students, and faculty expertise, offering small and medium-sized businesses a technology playground to help them develop and adopt new technology alongside Sheridan researchers.

The new technology that Martin mentioned is additive manufacturing. CAMDT is turning Brampton into a huburb, a vibrant place where experts come together, ideas collide, and innovation flourishes.

CAMDT provides applied research, consulting, and skills training to local manufacturing in the critical areas of additive manufacturing, robotics, integrated energy systems, and mechatronics systems.

Sheridan, government, and local industry have collaborated for nearly a decade to position the centre to address critical skills gaps in the manufacturing sector. The centre helps produce highly qualified, skilled graduates who are able to work capably with the type of advanced technology Martin mentioned being used by manufacturers to increase productivity. CAMDT is very respected in the community, and its external partners include ABB, Siemens, Festo, and Hatch.

Industry collaboration is important to the college's ability to sustain excellence in both education and research. Our entire philosophy is rooted in the movement called CDIO—conceive, design, implement, and operate—that aims to reinvent the way that engineering is taught and practised.

CDIO has been adopted at 100 institutions worldwide, including Stanford and MIT, where it began. CDIO is rich in project-based and hands-on learning. It produces engineers who don't just study first principles in textbooks, but who are actually ready to engineer when they graduate. Like you, we recognize that today's knowledge economy requires engineering graduates who are critical thinkers and creative problem-solvers.

What truly sparks innovation and excitement in the students is the practical application of fundamental principles in the form of experimentation and hands-on experience. This is what polytechnics do best.

Today's subject is of vital concern to Sheridan, which is one of the 11 members of Polytechnics Canada. Polytechnics like Sheridan function as the R and D arm for small and medium-sized companies that cannot afford the cutting-edge equipment that's found in our workshops, studios, and labs, and who don't have in-house personnel to apply for the grants and wait for approvals and decisions. We remove these barriers and risks for the SMEs while speeding up innovation. SMEs and polytechnics need to be part of the government's thinking about advanced manufacturing, innovation clusters, networks, and incubators.

We tackle problems brought forward by industry while giving students sound experience and a skill set that cannot be taught in a traditional university classroom. As a result, we produce graduates who will make immediate and positive contributions to the workforce when they leave our institution. It is critically important that we mentor students in the process because talent—the talent that Martin mentioned—is the key input. It is people who innovate and firms that later commercialize.

A company we have helped through our robotics centre, as an example, is Hatch, an engineering company. Hatch worked with our faculty and students to design, test, and build a solution for the customer. We delivered a working prototype in six months, something that Hatch estimated would have taken twice as long to do on their own and that would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. In the end, all they had to purchase was a nail gun to put on the end of our robot's arm.

Our success also led to a renewed partnership with Siemens Canada, resulting in access to $22 million worth of software licences so that our students can train on the industry-leading digital manufacturing software used in the automotive, aerospace, machinery, medical devices, and shipbuilding sectors.

Through a long-term partnership with our industry partner, Cimetrix Solutions, CAMDT secured a foundational set of additive manufacturing equipment that enabled the establishment of its new Product Innovation Centre. The centre is the crucial link between large, leading corporations, including ABB and Cimetrix, and the local and regional SMEs that can use the facilities to integrate innovative technologies into their own businesses through collaboration with the Sheridan faculty and student researchers. This approach addresses industry challenges, and most importantly, it provides work-ready graduates whose skills contribute to both immediate and sustainable innovative growth.

And we're just one polytechnic institution. Places like Sheridan, Humber, and Conestoga have earned exceptionally strong track records in preparing tomorrow's knowledge workers and partnering with industry to help Canada become more globally competitive.

By uniting businesses, governments, and post-secondary institutions in this demand-driven way, we will bolster Canada's global competitiveness in advanced manufacturing. This is the model that is needed for the times.

In this new economic reality where we must value innovation and creativity more than ever before, Sheridan and polytechnics across Canada are willing and able to meet the challenge that this government has identified as crucial to ensuring Canada's place as a leader in the rapidly changing global manufacturing economy.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you very much.

We're going to go into our round of questioning right away. Mr. Arya, you have seven minutes.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the witnesses for their presence here.

Mr. Petrak, I'm glad that you touched on BDC, the Business Development Bank of Canada, especially with respect to the support, or the lack of it, for new small manufacturing companies. We had heard from the regional development agencies on the utter lack of support for new small companies in the manufacturing sector and about commercial banks almost not touching any new small manufacturing companies. I just got information from BDC, which has an unsecured loan portfolio of over $2 billion, in relation to the hundreds of millions it invests in provincial capital and through yearly loans. During the last year, they have lent only the tiny sum of $23 million to new small manufacturing companies.

You mentioned BDC's lack of support. Can you expand on that briefly?

[Martin Petrak]

Yes. I think that the other equity groups can look at SMEs, and they will look at them from a long-term perspective. You could negotiate for four, five, or six months, maybe a year, and that's great. I think we can still move ahead with that type of process. As for their finance group, unsecured loans don't necessarily mean that they're unsecured. That's not the case, especially for $500,000 and below. If it's true that they can support unsecured loans of $500,000 and below, then that's what it should mean.

When you start looking at small businesses like manufacturing, a single piece of equipment can cost $500,000. For a start-up app company that has a couple of computer scientists or engineers, that can last a while. For a manufacturing company, that doesn't last for the same amount, so there has to be some kind of thought process around how BDC can help manufacturers and help SMEs that use that capital equipment, because it does have value. I think it has to be taken into consideration. Those are some of the troubles we've had so far already.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Yes. In fact, I'm glad you brought up this very relevant point from the small manufacturer's point of view.

You mentioned about the economic development agency, which you said was not focusing on longer-term financing. Can you briefly expand on that?

[Martin Petrak]

This is under the Orthopaedic Innovation Centre.

When we received the funding, it was really for capital equipment, and that was very important, because it is expensive. It's risky technology to take on if you are an SME.

We thought that what they did was fantastic; however, the operational side was left up to us to figure out. Honestly, what we find is more important is the operational side: making sure that we can hire the engineers, hire the HQPs—potentially Ph.D.s—hire the research staff, as well as acquire the equipment. That is one portion of it.

In this example, that wasn't the case. I'd like to see a little bit more programming associated with the actual raising of the capital.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Okay, I'm glad.

I will not ask you to expand on the strategy you would like us to promote related to manufacturing. Maybe later you can send a small write-up on that to the committee, through the clerk. That will be good.

[Martin Petrak]

Sure.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

Mr. Rayegani, thanks for coming here.

With respect to talent, talent and manufacturing of course these days go hand in hand. In Ottawa we have 1,700 knowledge-based companies. A few weeks ago the president and the CEO of Invest Ottawa, in front of national capital region MPs, made a startling statement. He said that there is zero per cent unemployment in the high-tech sector.

The point he was trying to make is that if you see an unemployed engineer in Ottawa, all you have to ask him is what new skills he developed during the last five years. Usually the people who have not added to their skills during recent years are the people who are unemployed.

What is your take on that? Do we have enough talent for the advanced manufacturing sector in Canada?

[Dr. Farzad Rayegani]

No, we don't have enough at all. The skill gap is real. You have to look around, look at whether the market can hire. The market would hire tomorrow, but there is now a skills gap.

Do you know why? It's because we forget or misunderstand the manufacturing spectrum. What is the manufacturing spectrum? I don't have a graph here to show you, but misunderstanding the manufacturing spectrum is the problem of government and universities. Manufacturing starts with research.

Can I give you the example of aerospace? What do researchers do in aerospace? They find a new material for aerospace. The next part of the spectrum is applied research: how can I apply that material to the new application? After that there is design development, development of the new product, manufacturing of it, service of it, and so on and so on.

Manufacturing is not about the research part, which the university is doing. The ecosystem must be healthy. My documentation shows that today 97.5% of the federal dollar allocated to post-secondary research through the granting agencies is directed at the universities, with only 2.5% going to the colleges and polytechnics.

[Chandra Arya, Liberal, Nepean, ON]

I understand fully. In fact, we have had representatives of the universities and the colleges coming in, and we heard testimony on that. Given the shortage of time, let me say quickly that we know that the kinds of jobs in manufacturing are not just those of assembly line operators. We have a need at the very high end of the spectrum.

Can you kindly briefly discuss the lack of availability of capital for small manufacturing companies?

[Dr. Farzad Rayegani]

The point is that when we look at the spectrum, we see that only 5% of the research in manufacturing is happening in Canada, and 95% is happening at the manufacturing part. We are missing both on the capital side and on the skill gap side. There is only 5% research happening, and we are putting 97.5% of the government's contribution into that 5%. The ecosystem won't be healthy, because the company will suffer from having neither the equipment nor the skill sets.

As a researcher at university I am fine, because I come up with a new material every few years, but who is going to apply it? Nobody in Canada is going to apply it, because they don't have the equipment or the skill sets.

The whole idea, then, is to look at a healthy spectrum, distributed in a healthy way, such that the ecosystem is healthy. That's it. It's not a difficult thing to do.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you.

Mr. Dreeshen, you have seven minutes.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses.

First of all, I'd like to speak to Mr. Toma from the Alberta Chambers of Commerce.

I'm from Red Deer, and I know that its chamber of commerce has done a lot of work in a lot of different areas. It has basic groups that are getting together and looking at agriculture, innovation, and so on. They've really put a lot into this. When you talked about some of the concerns that we have in Alberta in terms of recession, your first point was to do no harm to business growth, by making sure that there isn't any additional cost to doing business. Second was to support smaller manufacturers or capacity knowledge competitiveness. Third—and I think that's what we're interested in as far as looking to the future goes—was broadening policy mindsets so that we're able to move forward.

Just to go back to the “do no harm” part, one of the things in your presentation is making sure one recognizes where the tax burden is and the types of things that are taking place. We recognize that there's going to be a carbon tax in Alberta provincially, and we have no idea of what is going to be happening federally. There is a difference from the recession that took place in 2008, when all credit throughout the world was disrupted. Right now, there is money and there are venture dollars, but it's not going to go to places where there's uncertainty. I think that's one of the key things. Positive messaging in that regard is important.

When we look at that and we try to work our way through some of the issues that are taking place, one of the important messages to get through is about the value chain of the manufacturing that is there for Alberta's oil and gas industry.

However, there are other things that can be done, and one of the things that we had talked about a while back was abandoned well reclamation and being able to move that forward. We have people who are experts in the field and we will still be able to tap into some of the resources from the rest of Canada.

Do you have any comment that you could add to that type of a program? Do you have other thoughts that you could discuss as far as broadening the policy mindsets of provincial and federal politicians, as well as those of small and medium businesses?