Industry Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2016

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Can government help you on the R and D?

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you—

[Pierre Richard]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you very much.

We're going to move to Mr. Longfield. You have six minutes.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thanks to our colleagues across the table for letting us go through the study this week. We've had good presentations. We've had great information.

Mr. Stetski made a comment earlier about being married for 38 years. My wife and I also have been married for 38 years, and this bridges to our furniture purchases. Thirty-eight years ago we bought a Canadian-made couch. It has a maple frame. It's still in our house, and it has held up over raising three kids. We've gone to the discount stores, and those purchases last maybe two years, maybe three years, and then you have to recycle them and get them out.

The Canadian brand is a solid brand, and I wonder whether either the association or the government can be working together with industry to promote the Canadian brand as a solid brand, which is made with Canadian maple or made with Canadian hardwood trees. Has that come and gone in your industry? Is that something we need to get back to?

[Pierre Richard]

You're right that the Canadian brand represents quality.

Branding in this world is difficult and costly. We have attempted to raise that through the Canadian Furniture Show, which we own. We have a website that lists about 70 Canadian manufacturers, and we get a lot of hits on that because people are looking for quality Canadian furniture. The site refers you to the websites of the companies, and there you can find the furniture.

There is a tendency in the States of reshoring in furniture manufacturing. It's perhaps more an intent at this point, as opposed to a reality, but many consumers are experiencing what you have just said. They thought they were getting a deal, but three years later it's on the sidewalk. That's not a deal. It's a deal for the person who sold it to you, but not for you.

How do we get around that? Consumer needs have changed and consumer desires have changed. Perhaps the youth of today don't want to buy a bedroom furniture set that will last 38 years. Perhaps they want to put their money elsewhere, so it's finding this in-between.

As far as branding Canadian is concerned, there is an opportunity to raise that profile. How do we do it? It's not something that can be done individually as a company or as an association, but only as part of an overall government effort to promote “Made in Canada” and manufacturing in Canada.

What I'm saying about furniture being representative of quality is not just true about furniture; for most of the manufacturing in Canada, if it's not quality, it's not surviving.

Yes, I think there is something that can be done about raising our profile. When you see that something is made in Canada, that means it is good and you're getting value for your money.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I'd like to extend that. I was fortunate to have a career in mechanical engineering technology, and I worked across Canada with different manufacturers making wonderful products.

Canadian engineering is another standard, and we're too humble to say that Canadian engineers lead the world, but when we look at the aerospace industry, we see what's going on at Pratt & Whitney or other companies in Quebec to attract students into these industries in which Canadian engineering is the leading engineering in the world. Are there any comments from Pratt & Whitney or from the furniture industry on how you see your industry? In the Avro Arrow disaster, we had the best engineers, but they went to NASA or they went to France and developed the Concorde.

Is there a role government can play in tooting our horn?

[Jeffrey Astle]

I don't really have a sense of that to give you a good answer. I'd have to go and talk to some friends back at work as to what their thoughts are on it. I don't disagree with what you have to say, but I don't know whether there's a flux in or out.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

When my father was alive and I would come up with a design, he used to say, “Did you think of patenting that?”, but I would be on to the next problem. Whatever the problem, it was yesterday's, and we didn't grab our intelligence and say, “Okay, we're going to spend time and really take credit for the work we're doing.” Dad could never understand that. He would say, “Wouldn't you patent that?”

For a layperson, is the reason we don't patent that it's a barrier, considering that it takes three years and costs $3,000? Is it more of a mentality thing?

[Jeffrey Astle]

Some of it is. I think some of it's culture. Your dad's thinking was not unusual. I think that if your mindset is local, getting a patent might not be as important to you, but I think people are thinking more globally now, so you have to protect yourself not only here but abroad, and it's necessary to think a little bit beyond just getting your product out your own door and to think about getting it onto the doorstep of someone somewhere else.

The competitive forces outside of Canada are different. It's tough out there, so you have to make your foundation nice and strong and then grow from there, rather than just moving to the next idea before protecting what you've sort of left behind.

[Michel Gérin]

Can I just add to this? A couple of years ago I met an entrepreneur from the Saguenay in Quebec who had a small electronics business and who had gotten patents and had later made a lot of money selling those patents to IBM. She wrote a book and did a tour across Quebec to explain to entrepreneurs. Her book was called “Innovating is good...patenting is better!” It was for entrepreneurs. It was in basic terms and it said not to be afraid of the patenting system.

Our suggestion for the first patent program that they're starting in Quebec is this: break the ice, and you'll see that it's not that complicated. We're going to help you break the ice and get that first one. Then once you do that, you can say, “Hey, I have an agent now. I know how to do this”, and then it will snowball.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

What used to really bug me was when my colleagues in Pittsburgh would take my ideas and patent them and sell them back to us.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Thank you very much.

Now we're going to move to somebody on this side.

[Alex Nuttall, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

That's me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Mr. Nuttall, you have five minutes.

[Alex Nuttall, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Mr. Chair, I would like to reintroduce or call back the motion that was adjourned last meeting. It was the first one regarding Valerie Fox.

The motion is moved, Mr. Chair. Hopefully, we can invite these people to committee to discuss the state of manufacturing and possibilities for becoming more innovative and more successful in the future.

For the second one, we actually ran out of time in the meeting, so I'll put this on the floor. I don't think I need to go back regarding this particular individual, but I will say that Valerie is the chief innovation consultant at The Pivotal Point. She is the co-founder and former executive director at Ryerson Digital Media Zone, a university business in computers housing over 190 companies.

I think that bringing Valerie here to testify is in line with what the minister was intending when he appointed—

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Before we jump to Mr. Longfield, is there any objection if we thank our witnesses and let them go?

Gentlemen, merci beaucoup. Thank you very much for some really great information. We look forward to seeing how the analysts can put it together in our study. Thank you very much for coming in.

We're going to keep going.

Mr. Longfield, you had your hand up.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Yes. Out of respect for our witnesses and the great work we're doing on our manufacturing study, I won't be supporting this motion. I'd like to move on with our study.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Is there any other debate? Go ahead, Mr. Nuttall.

[Alex Nuttall, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

I find it difficult when, with the support of our NDP counterpart, we look to adjourn the study into the changes that are affecting StatsCan because this study is so important that we can't take a two-meeting break, and then when we invite other people to come and testify, because this study is so important, we fail to invite those people to come.

These are people who have been appointed by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Innovation because of their skills, because of their experience, because of what they have brought to the table, and then members of the Liberal Party vote against their participation. Am I the only person who sees how ridiculous this is?

Either the study is so important or it's not. Which is it? If it is so important, certainly we want those who have been defined as the most skilled innovators in Canada at the table. It just makes sense.

If we're ready to move to a vote, I'm fine with that. If there are others who want to speak, I'm fine with that too. It's just strange to me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Is there any further debate?

Go ahead, Mr. Lobb.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Thanks very much.

This is another example.... To be quite honest, Alex has a few new names of people to appear at the committee, which is perfectly reasonable. I'm sure other members may want to bring up new people to provide some insight into this study at any time, yet here we are, in an open forum, and Mr. Nuttall's witnesses are not even being considered at all. It's just a straight-out “no”.

What's ironic about the whole thing is that the Prime Minister thought enough of these are people to appoint them to a panel or a committee. We should have them in here and let them provide their thoughts.

I'm not sure how many meetings Mr. Nuttall thought it would take for them. For example, today we had two groups here. You can make it for two hours or you can make it for one hour, whatever works out, but really, in an hour we could have learned everything we needed from these two groups, and in the second hour of this meeting we could have had two of Mr. Nuttall's people here.

I'm not criticizing the chair or the clerk here. That's not my intent. I'm just providing an option to allow for more witnesses to appear. Doing that would make sense and would not take away from what we're trying to do.

It's an opportunity for my Liberal colleagues to show the independence they were granted. I can't remember if they had their mandate letter from the Prime Minister directly or if it was generally speaking, but it's an opportunity to show their independence and say that they've already shot Lobb's motion down. That was probably a direct action from General Leslie, and now we have another series of motions to bring speakers in to provide good comment, and General Leslie doesn't think we should hear them either.

I don't know why we're hearing this now. There are still many witnesses that I've put forward, and I don't think any of them have appeared yet. I think some of them have been invited, which is great, but I can't remember our putting a time limit on this study. Maybe there is one. However, if the Liberals are going to vote down the opportunity to have two meetings to hear the most relevant bit of news that's come through here on Stats Canada—

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Sorry, but we're not talking about StatsCan. That's a motion that's not on the table. We're talking about—

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I am just tying it all together, Mr. Chair.

They are saying no to Mr. Nuttall and they are saying no to this; it all ties together. It's all relevant to the data that helps manufacturers and other people make decisions. It helps—or it should help—policy-makers in this country make the decisions.

What are we seeing from the Liberals so far? In short, they are breaking the promises they should have kept and they are keeping the promises they should have broken. That's really a one-year summation of what we are seeing here.

I have a list of other things I had to say, but I'll save them for later.

For heaven's sake, a few more people could come to a committee and could either be tacked onto the end of an existing panel or be on a separate panel. Some of these people probably live in Ottawa or Toronto, so it wouldn't cost much to get them here, or they could appear by video conference, and there really would be no cost. Perhaps some good points can be made. I'll leave it at that for now.

When you look at the intent that the Liberals had in the early part of November last year in regard to the independence of committees.... There is no independence of the committee. This is a whip-driven system, the same as it was before. We saw last week that when the going gets tough, the Liberal whip's office comes right down here lickety-split and starts providing advice to the Liberal members.

In an independent system, the members have complete autonomy in their committee, and the only time you should see the whip's office in here is when they are providing a sheet for substitution. That's another point you should bring out.

[The Chair, Liberal, Dan Ruimy]

Are you done?