Evidence of meeting #23 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 vote.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
In their case, they have seen this inconsistency between one region of the country to another.
4:05 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Acadian Seaplants Limited
Yes. We certainly see that in certain parts of the country, because one of the things about the SR and ED program is that a lot of interpretation is necessary with respect to what qualifies and what doesn't. That is something we hear all the time.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
You both touched on something that I'm going to come back to. It may be a simple question.
I'll starting with Deloitte. What is the biggest challenge your manufacturing customers are facing? If there were one thing that the federal government could do, what would you want us to look at?
4:05 p.m.
Managing Partner, Consumer and Industrial Products, Deloitte
Consistent with our study, consistent with my experience, and consistent with what was said by the two presidents with whom I spoke specifically about this last week, it's talent. It's the availability and the quality of people throughout the system.
It's not just people on the manufacturing floor. It's the analysts and the managers. It's the people who have the skills and the attributes necessary for manufacturers in an increasingly technological, IT-driven, globally competitive environment. That's the single biggest....
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Are they looking for the universities and colleges to be more specific? Are they looking at temporary foreign workers? Is it all of the above?
4:05 p.m.
Managing Partner, Consumer and Industrial Products, Deloitte
I think there are elements of all of the above.
In my view, and as I heard in my discussion with these leaders, what we are seeing is a shift in some of the skills sets. For example, 10 years ago a number of business schools in the U.S. university system created supply chain management programs. Those have come to some of the Canadian universities, but we are years behind. That's an example of the kind of thing that the government, the university systems—the colleges, frankly—could be focusing on to become more specific, more industry-focused.
Ryerson, for example, now has a retail-specific faculty, which is the kind of thing that produces specific skill sets and allows people to go deep in a manufacturing context. To me, that is what we need to see more of.
4:05 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Acadian Seaplants Limited
There's no question that the demographics show that there are going to be challenges in the future with respect to getting skilled workers to fill our factories in the future.
I want to focus on the other end of the spectrum, which is the highly qualified people. If you're going to have truly world-class organizations, you'd better have the best people in the world. That's extremely important, because you want to find those people and bring them into your organization so that you can remain world class.
There are many areas in which we are the best in the world at what we do. I spend my time trying to measure ourselves against competitors to see if we are really there or if we are slipping. I saw recently one area where we were slipping. I went and searched for who I believed was the best person in the world to help us move forward, who happened to be not be in Canada. Getting that person into Canada is a big issue.
I think our immigration system needs to have a fast-track process to bring in those best people in the world. If that happens, all right, we can be truly globally competitive. It is not good enough to just be good in Canada, because somebody else will be better. If you're the best in the world, you can take on the world and win.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
Thanks very much. Thank you for coming here today. I apologize for the slight delay in the program. It was good that you were able to get your presentations off in time. It's unfortunate that we couldn't have a vote in public.
Mr. Deveau, thank you for making investments in, and doing business in, and having processing plants in Canada. I think that's truly commendable.
I might have missed it your presentation, but I was curious about whether you have somebody dedicated in-house in your business to do your IRAP paperwork and your SR and ED paperwork. Did I hear you say you hire an external firm to file those for you?
4:10 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Acadian Seaplants Limited
Because of the size of our organization, we have our own people do it. Our scientists are the people who are able to do that. Everything we do is done internally. We don't farm out any of it at all. My concern is that smaller organizations, particularly start-ups, don't have the resources to be able to do that kind of thing.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
With your SR and ED then, you file all that paperwork in-house and meet with the SR and ED officials to discuss or debate your applications then?
4:10 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Acadian Seaplants Limited
We do not file our own tax return, but we prepare all of the submission necessary and then hand it over to KPMG, who then file the actual tax return, but we answer any questions regarding the work that is done or the amount that is spent.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
Mr. Brown, I have some experience dealing with SR and ED. I worked in the finance department for a software company many years ago. We dealt with Deloitte, and they were great to work with, but it was surprising to me when I got there that so much work had to go into it. I'm not criticizing Deloitte, but there were many fees for helping with this process and the application and everything else.
I know that it's good for all the accounting firms coast to coast, but if you were to look at it a different way, shouldn't it be a little easier for companies to file?
4:10 p.m.
Managing Partner, Consumer and Industrial Products, Deloitte
I completely agree with that.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
Maybe one of the take-aways from this study would be—again, we're not trying to take business away from you guys—to work hard to find an easier, more straightforward way for companies of the kind Mr. Deveau mentioned, small and medium-sized companies, to be able to file for themselves and have the confidence that when they're audited, they're going to pass their inspection.
4:10 p.m.
Managing Partner, Consumer and Industrial Products, Deloitte
Right.
Further to that, I think there's probably some onus on an external provider to provide knowledge transfer and some encouragement to be able to take that on internally. There's also the element of whether they have the confidence within the company to do it correctly and to do it consistently. Some of the onus to take it on and to do what Mr. Deveau's company has done is on the company as well, so that at the end of the day get the benefit that the program is intended to deliver.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
Mr. Deveau, for many years now I've talked to many businesses both in my riding and outside of my riding that experience frustration with bringing in people to work for a company. The headquarters could be Huron or Bruce or where-have-you. They might have workers in Europe and want to bring them in for a week of training, but the visa process is a nightmare and getting them here is a nightmare.
When you're trying to train your sales staff or any other part of the company, it's almost a defeatist outlook, because it's not even worth it sometimes to bother doing it. That would also be a nice take-away. Maybe you want to provide comment on that, too, or any suggestions.
4:10 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Acadian Seaplants Limited
I certainly believe that there should be a fast-track method for companies that can show they need a highly qualified person, and can identify that, to get on a path that would allow a work permit can be issued in a short period, which I would consider 30 days.
Australia is known for being able to do those kinds of things. They actively seek the best talent in the world and want it to come to their country. Here, those kinds of people are essentially lumped in with everybody else. I think we do a great job with a lot of things in terms of being very welcoming as a country, but this is a situation where it gets bogged down. If we want truly competitive, globally competitive companies, we need to refine that process to be faster.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
4:15 p.m.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Thank you, and thank you both for appearing here.
I just noticed in The Globe and Mail today, “B.C. urges Ottawa to fix tech talent gap”, so there you go. What B.C. wants is more talented tech people to be let in through the immigration process.
I want to start with Mr. Brown. One role I have here is as the NDP critic for post-secondary education. You mentioned some of the places where we are lagging behind the rest of the world in college and university courses. Are there reports out there that list all the types of talent that Canada's lacking, how universities and colleges can tackle this gap, and how the federal government can spur on that process?
4:15 p.m.
Managing Partner, Consumer and Industrial Products, Deloitte
It's a great question. I'm not aware of such a list. I think the various industry associations would probably have an idea of the competitive pressures, the technologies that are coming, and the attributes of the workers and the white-collar talent these companies need. Out of a discussion like that, these requirements should emerge.
However, I do think that it's important for us to place some bets and make some decisions. I would argue that we are better off taking some risks in trying to get alignment between industry and academia to identify the incubators and the various hubs that sit in between those two. If we can align them in almost a cluster, we can have a bunch of things working together in places where we have collectively decided we can be globally competitive.
4:15 p.m.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Mr. Deveau, you mentioned some ideas about getting the best in the world here quickly, such as 30-day work permits. I've been talking to manufacturers in my riding, who are trying to bring in the best in their field from Europe and other places. Once they do get them here, they find it difficult to keep them here because of various immigration rules. If there were a policy to give these people a track to Canadian citizenship once we bring in, do you feel that would be something your industry would support?
4:15 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Acadian Seaplants Limited
If you're looking at highly qualified personnel for a fast-track process, what I've indicated is that we'd like to see a process through which you could get a work permit within 30 days.
I would hope that it would be attached to those individuals who had applied for landed immigrant status at a future date as part of a normal process. These are not temporary foreign workers that we're talking about; these are people who are committing to come to Canada with their families and are going to stay here. Those are the types of people for whom I believe we would want to find that process to get them to landed immigrant status.
4:15 p.m.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
What I've heard from these manufacturing companies is that people who have a work permit then have trouble getting permanent residency. Going through that hoop was an additional bit of work, and they were running into roadblocks there.
