Industry Committee on April 23rd, 2020

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Thank you very much.

Denmark and Poland have decided to not give any of their emergency rollout to any company that has offices or is set up with tax havens around the world. Is this something you're looking at? Are you going to have the same application here in Canada?

[Paul Thompson]

That's something I'd have to take under advisement and follow up.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Are you looking at that? I'm just asking. Are you currently looking at that?

[Paul Thompson]

I would have to speak with the Crown agencies that are responsible for the lending decisions on that.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

This needs to be a priority. We need to make sure they're Canadian companies and that the money stays in Canada.

Around credit cards, we know that you were able to work with credit card companies to reduce some of that interest, but they're still 10 points above prime.

Is the government continuing to work with the banks and the credit card companies so that they're reducing their rates while businesses are closed and have zero revenue? A lot of them are living off these lines of credit and credit cards.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Unfortunately, that is all the time we have for that round.

We will now move to round three, with a five-minute question from MP Patzer.

You have the floor.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

My question will be for Simon Kennedy again in regard to our supply chains.

There is an ongoing concern about maintaining our domestic supply chains, especially for food. This past week saw the temporary closure of the Cargill processing plant in High River, Alberta, and that's on top of the issues we were already having in Ontario.

Are there currently any parts of our supply chain at risk of supply disruption?

[Simon Kennedy]

I know that is an issue the government is certainly carefully following. For the specific answer to that question, it is probably best directed, in the case of agriculture, to the agriculture ministry.

In the case of some of the broader supply chain security issues, this is something we are working on very closely with colleagues from the public safety ministry, the finance ministry and sectoral departments such as agriculture.

Certainly I'm well aware that my colleagues in agriculture are paying very close attention to what's going on in the slaughter sector, for example, and the incident in High River which the member mentioned. That is very much on their radar screen. I can confirm that's something we're tracking closely and we want to make sure those disruptions are minimized.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

For sure.

Lots of our small businesses rely on other supply chains as well to ensure that they have the products they need for their stores. Are there any other supply chain shortages or disruptions that you are aware of or that you are concerned about?

[Simon Kennedy]

Certainly an area of significant interest in the immediate term, and I think it's probably obvious to the committee but maybe I'll just underline it, is the issue of personal protective equipment and various supplies, medical supplies, that are needed to deal with the immediate challenges to health and safety. Everybody has seen the global demand for things such as N95 respirators, medical gowns and other protective equipment rise dramatically. That's an area where supply chains have been shown to have some real challenges. That is definitely an area that has been a central focus in the last five to six weeks, or two months.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Yes, for sure. There are lots of small manufacturing businesses that have wanted to help out. They've gone through the online portals and processes, but they've been told, “We don't have anything for you right now”, or “Just wait; we'll get hold of you.”

As you're saying, we do have shortages and issues, so why are we not allowing industry or our small businesses to join in?

[Simon Kennedy]

There are, just for simplicity's sake, a couple of different pathways for businesses that have that interest. One of them is the Buyandsell website that is being managed by Public Services and Procurement Canada. The second one is the made in Canada program which my ministry is responsible for.

I can speak to my ministry's work. In particular, as I mentioned before to one of the other honourable members, we've had about 5,000 businesses step forward. This is really fantastic. We're using the industrial research assistance program's advisers. It has technical advisers. There are about 250 of them across the country who are actually speaking with every one of those businesses that have put their hand up, in order to get a sense of their capabilities, what their interests are and what their ability is to retool quickly.

I don't have a precise number now, sir, but I can say that we have maybe 200 firms, or more, that have been able to actually retool their operations to produce sanitizer or to work on ventilators. We're certainly interested in having as many of those Canadian companies as possible participate.

As time goes on, we're going to need more and more firms to come and join the fight. Our plan is to continue to circle back to the firms that have put their hand up, and where we can find opportunities for them, we're very keen to do so.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you for that; I really appreciate it. I was wondering if you could potentially table a report to this committee later about the engagement you've had with those different manufacturing companies and small businesses that were engaged and able to help out. We could then get a broad spectrum of the impact it has had on those businesses.

Moving forward, a lot of people and businesses are bringing to my attention that the financial measures and announcements have all been great; however, they're all short term. We've heard from the minister that we don't actually have a plan on how to get our economy open again. Before this week's announcements, we were already at a projected $184-billion deficit. If we only have these short-term plans and we haven't looked long term, has the government given you any direction or indication as to what a plan might be going forward to get our businesses working?

[Simon Kennedy]

I don't think, Madam Chair, that I would go further than the minister's comments in this regard. Clearly the Prime Minister has indicated that some of those conversations have started. Our focus in the immediate term is on health and safety and getting the supply chain to produce medical equipment.

Am I at time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Unfortunately, you are.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Our next round of five-minute questions goes to MP Jowhari.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

It looks like the conversation is now turning its focus to PPE. Both the deputy ministers, international trade as well as industry, talked about how we are trying to do our best to source PPE both internationally by partnering and through domestic markets by building capacity and optimizing distribution.

Starting with the deputy minister for international trade, can you share which countries we are partnering with and some of the challenges and the successes?

I'll then direct the question to the deputy minister for industry.

[Emmanuel Kamarianakis]

Madam Chair, let me just say that we have been partnering with quite a few countries, of course, globally. The largest share of PPE equipment coming into Canada would be coming from China, what we term the greater China network, so Hong Kong and Taiwan and the surrounding area. We're getting a significant amount of supply to Canada from those sources.

We have also gone out and been proactive in identifying other sources. We have built up capacity to procure from the U.S., including for supply chain procurement into Canada. We have also worked with some European partners, countries in other parts of Asia, including South Korea, Singapore and a few others and have built those relationships through supply chain channels. We've also been proactively identifying sources that we may not have identified before in trying to get ahead of the curve in a very competitive landscape.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

My riding enjoys the benefit of having a large constituency base of Chinese Canadians. They've reached out to me, and many of them are getting involved in the export of PPE. They've shared that they are facing huge challenges, not as much in the sourcing, but in being able to get it to the proper distribution through customs to be able to get it to Canada. I understand that even our government, through its initiative, faced some challenges around getting the product on a timely basis to the airport so we wouldn't have empty flights coming back.

Can you shed some light on that one?

[Emmanuel Kamarianakis]

Madam Chair, let me just say that it's been a particularly difficult period for procuring international supplies at this point. In particular, in the case of Shanghai, where we've had some of these constraints and problems, there are contributing factors that have made it very difficult to get supplies out of China. Not only is there just huge congestion with many countries trying to do exactly the same thing that we're doing, but there's a global crisis going on.

The Chinese authorities are taking the issue very seriously and, to their credit, have been imposing regulations, I think, to make sure that the supply that is leaving is well identified, packaged and ready for international export. Combine that with the fact that we are also being careful in terms of how we're procuring by making sure that the flights that we send in are well taken care of and the crews are well taken care of. All these things contribute to some difficulties.

I have to say, to the credit of our network, Ambassador Barton in China and his team have done yeoman's work, a lot of work, to make sure that we are able to get supply into our—

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

I thank you for that.

I want to quickly go to the deputy minister for industry. I'd like to commend the department for the great work they're doing by complementing the financial program that's being tabled by the government specifically around innovation, expediting research and development and getting the product much faster.

One of the questions that's constantly coming as a lot of businesses are reaching out to my office is what criteria they will be assessed by when they reach out and say that they have this capability and they want to be able to retool. How does the department assess that? I'm sure there is an assessment.

You indicated that there are 5,000 applications and that nearly 200 have already been approved. Can you shed some light on that?

[Simon Kennedy]

I should clarify and say that 200 approvals is my rough guesstimate. I would have to provide more specific figures, so maybe you shouldn't hold me to that, but we've certainly had a large number that have been able to make a direct contribution.

When interested firms go on the website, there is kind of a questionnaire, a process that they go through to enrol. The questions there are indicative of the kinds of things we're looking for. For example, can they move relatively quickly? If they can only produce a result a year from now, that's obviously going to be of less interest. Do they have a secure supply chain so that they're not dependent on stuff from overseas that is hard to get? We ask those sorts of questions. Those are the kinds of criteria that are being applied.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you, Mr. Kennedy. That's your time.

Our next five-minute round is with MP Rempel Garner.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

My questions are directed to Mr. Kennedy.

Mr. Kennedy, as you are aware, over three months ago members of this committee asked your department for some undertakings related to the supplementary estimates.

I was listening to the exchange you had with MP Gray. Is it my understanding that you've now tabled all of those undertakings, including the questions that I asked? I had seven questions during that meeting three months ago.