Evidence of meeting #86 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 jobs.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Maxime Bernier Conservative Beauce, QC
Thank you very much.
Minister, the Governor of the Bank of Canada said a couple of months ago that he was very happy with the proposal you made during the election and your commitment to the Canada child benefit. He said it's very good because it prompts consumption and is a good stimulus for the economy. Do you agree with him on that?
Liberal
Navdeep Bains Liberal Mississauga—Malton, ON
I think there's real anxiety, frustration, and challenge for many families that are having difficulty dealing with rising costs, and at the same time, dealing with the challenges around growth of their income. This support has been very helpful to those families in need.
Conservative
Maxime Bernier Conservative Beauce, QC
You agree, then, that this benefit is helping Canadians and prompting consumption.
Liberal
Navdeep Bains Liberal Mississauga—Malton, ON
It's definitely helping families. I hear from many people in my community about the rising costs of food and basic needs around books for school. In terms of raising kids, I have two young girls and I know they have high expectations when it comes to clothing, food, and supplies, so this has been very helpful to many families.
Conservative
Maxime Bernier Conservative Beauce, QC
Okay, but the problem with that is that it's coming from a deficit, and we don't see when you will balance the budget. Also, prompting consumption is not what we must do to stimulate the economy. We have declining private sector investment in Canada. It's when the private sector invests that we have real economic growth, because the growth we have right now is with a deficit and debt and it is not sustainable in the long term.
Private investment has gone down by 18% since 2015. We rank second lowest among 17 comparable industrialized countries. That's a big worry. The best thing to stimulate the economy must not be to prompt consumption but to have policies that will prompt and help entrepreneurs by lowering their taxes. I hope that as industry minister you will be able to speak with the finance minister to make sure that he will lower taxes for every entrepreneur and not try to find winners or losers.
Liberal
Navdeep Bains Liberal Mississauga—Malton, ON
Again, that's a really good point. I will say, very quickly, that we have reduced the tax rate for small businesses from 11% to 9%. We introduced the innovation and skills plan, which is all about focusing on training and helping companies scale up. We're really focused on growth, productivity, and competitiveness.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Thank you, and thank you, Minister, for being here.
I have a question around Mitacs. In our last study on intellectual property, we talked about Mitacs and possibly expanding that to include colleges, as well as universities as it currently stands. Do you have any opinion on that?
Liberal
Navdeep Bains Liberal Mississauga—Malton, ON
Yes. I think your study was very helpful in that. As I mentioned right at the outset of my remarks, the discussions you had with me and our department were very helpful. Colleges are now part of the Mitacs program, and they can benefit from that funding and those internships.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Terrific. I'm a college grad and I have three daughters who are college grads, so on behalf of college grads, thank you for the attention to colleges.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
On the supplementary estimates, we have the Canada 150 research chairs program and 25 research chairs being created. Is there an area of priority around research chairs, either geographically or by sector, that you are focusing on?
Liberal
Navdeep Bains Liberal Mississauga—Malton, ON
Yes. Obviously we are focused on areas such as artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, and regenerative medicine. This is something on which I work very closely with Minister Duncan. As I said, we represent 0.5% of the world's population and we have 2% of the publications, so we punch well above our weight. We want to continue to do so, and that's what this funding represents. It represents our commitment to science as part of the overall innovation agenda.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
It's great to see that the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council is included both within your portfolio and that of Minister Duncan. Social innovation is as important as other innovation.
How do agencies participate in the PromoScience program that has also been announced, with the $3.5 million in the current budget?
Liberal
Navdeep Bains Liberal Mississauga—Malton, ON
That's a good question, and I will ask my deputy to speak to that.
John Knubley Deputy Minister, Department of Industry
Minister, I'll have to get back to you on that. The PromoScience program has been launched and a series of initiatives have been identified, but I don't have the specifics.
Liberal
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
Great, thank you.
Thank you, Minister, for being here.
I'm going to throw a bunch of questions at you, and hopefully you can answer them all here.
When will we hear more about the superclusters?
What's your role at the table for NAFTA? In particular, we're seeing a lot of companies choosing the United States right now and leaving Canada. Hopefully you're there.
Also, in your supplementary estimates, we saw the Canadian Space Agency. It's at $12.8 million. They get an additional $8.6 million. This seems like a very small amount if we intend to have any role up there at all in the RADARSAT Constellation mission.
Last, some of your comments relating to where we are in the economy.... You have two young girls; I have two young girls. That's why we do these jobs. I'm more concerned that we're leaving a massive deficit for their generation. I'm hoping you're a champion at the table in making sure that we're not doing that to their future.
Thanks.
Liberal
Navdeep Bains Liberal Mississauga—Malton, ON
Thank you, and I'll be very brief with my response as well.
You asked when the supercluster would be made public. The goal is sometime in the first or second month of 2018. We just received the applications for the second round on November 24. We're going to do our due diligence and evaluate those applications and hopefully make this announcement in early February.
My role at the cabinet table is to be a strong voice for business and for Canadian workers, particularly when it comes to NAFTA. We want to make sure we advance Canada's national interests, and I've been very clear about that both in private and in public.
With regard to space, I'm really glad you mentioned this. We are very proud of the investments we've made in space. That's $379 million in the first budget for the International Space Station and the ongoing commitment to 2023-24. In the last budget, we introduced $89 million for quantum encryption technology with our international allies. We're working on a space strategy, which will hopefully have more funding and initiatives to support space. We launched an incredible recruitment campaign and had two astronauts on Canada 150. That was a point of pride.
Liberal
Navdeep Bains Liberal Mississauga—Malton, ON
There's an infrastructure deficit, a health care deficit. We want to make sure we have a holistic approach when it comes to the economy and not only focus on the challenges around debt and deficit but also growth and jobs. That's what we're trying to do.
