Industry Committee on March 23rd, 2021

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'll start with an answer to my colleague Mr. Poilievre.

I could ask for nothing better than to be among only eight million people funding investments in our aerospace industry. Instead, we have to deal with a government that chooses not to invest, and imposes foreign policies in return for half of our taxes.

That said, I would like to hear Mr. Oehrli's comments about this. I believe that he too wanted to react to Mr. Poilievre's remarks.

[Stéphane Oehrli]

Thank you, Mr. Lemire.

I would like to state to Mr. Poilievre that we actually are not asking for government money. We're asking for fair rules and enhanced competition. It's a highly technical subject, the subject of a value proposition and ITBs, and we have a chance to present our recommendations for consideration.

In no way are those for more money. It is for the tweaking of regulations for enhanced competition and for fair rules.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Oehrli, you mentioned overbidding in the federal government tendering process for military procurements. What kind of problem does that pose for companies like yours?

[Stéphane Oehrli]

Entrepreneurs have to be careful with their investments. Some subsidies could clearly distort the calculations a little.

Being encouraged or forced by the government to submit a bid where they invest more money than they get in return will cost them in the long run. In my opinion, it's a poor business practice. They will end up in a precarious economic situation and will no longer be able to invest in innovative technologies. They will no longer be able to submit bids in the future.

In our opinion, keeping regulations that allow that kind of mechanism weakens the economic fabric in the long run. So we advocate for a one-to-one relationship. Otherwise, it does not make for good business.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you very much.

I will take the 10 seconds I have left to express my particular thanks to Mr. Donald and Ms. Medve for having highlighted the importance of training. I found their remarks very helpful. It is something that we must not neglect. I am thinking particularly of the École nationale d'aérotechnique, the ÉNA, located in Saint-Hubert, and its contribution to economic development.

Thank you for joining us today.

[Robert Donald]

My pleasure.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much.

Our next round of questions goes to MP Garrison.

You have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

It's always nice to be present in committee for another chapter in the bromance between Mr. Poilievre and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

I would like to differ briefly at the beginning. The shipyards at CFB Esquimalt are the biggest employers in my riding. I think the taxpayers in my riding would completely differ.

What we're looking for here is not necessarily subsidies or government spending, but ways to grow the aerospace industry that will create those goods jobs. I'm afraid that Mr. Poilievre and the representative from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation won't be happy until we're all hewers of wood, drawers of water and workers in Amazon warehouses. It's not that I disrespect any of those jobs, but Canadians are looking for skilled work and the aerospace industry is a good source of that.

I'm going to go back to Mr. Donald and perhaps Ms. Medve to talk about the overall contributions of aerospace to the Canadian economy, because I think we've lost sight of that today.

[Robert Donald]

Thank you, Mr. Garrison.

I believe you had Mike Mueller from AIAC before you last week. He would have gone through the hundreds of thousands of jobs and the $90 billion contributed to GDP—the vast majority exported.

That's not really what we focus on. It's the labour force, so I'll let Tracy speak to that.

[Tracy Medve]

I did talk about Canada being a large country. We suffer from a lot of geography and not very many people. We need aerospace and aviation just to get by every day. That goes without saying.

The point I was making before is that I haven't come here asking for subsidies. I don't want it represented that this is what I was doing. I'm just asking that you please recognize in your policy-making that we go beyond just the air carriers in this industry.

I'm also trying to make the point that where we already have Canadian capability—for instance, in military pilot training—do not give that work to companies outside Canada because we're already really good at it.

I know the time is up. That's all I'm going to say.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thank you very much, Ms. Medve.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Our next round of questions will go to MP Baldinelli.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Again, thanks to the witnesses.

I would like to follow up on some of the questions. It's about things that government can do to foster and spur investments on the aerospace industry side. I've been reading in some of our briefing materials that R and D investment has actually gone down over the past five years. I was listening to Sir Arthur talk about the innovative research hub in Vancouver and the 200 jobs there.

What is it that government can do in setting a climate to encourage research and development investments in Canada? What role can it play in any needed recovery?

[Michael Arthur]

May I ask Bill Lyons to come in on that one? He's our global head of research and technology placement and works with governments and universities all the time. He's the real expert on that.

Bill, do you want to pick it up?

[Dr. William Lyons]

Yes. Thank you, Michael.

The first thing is to have a policy around what the national priorities are. Something I see around the globe is that where governments have really well-defined policies around where they wish to be, they have areas of comparative advantage. The second thing is to create that climate for women and girls and to value diversity in all forms, so have people get involved very early in education.

Aerospace is not just about building airplanes. There's a whole raft of industries that connect with aerospace that we really need to try to make interesting for people to connect people. Aerospace, for me, is one of those things that really connect to that higher human purpose to know our world, to understand our place in the universe and to connect and trade with others. Technologies make a difference in all sorts of ways. I come not from the United States and not from Canada, but I look at how access to space—like remote sensing technologies, in which Canada excels—makes a difference.

When I lived in Australia, I worked for the Australian government, and I can tell you that Canada was always better at predicting Australian wheat yields than Australia was, and it really comes down to investment in science and the applications of aerospace. One of the things I see in Canada, in places like UBC, is a real strength in advanced materials and in the future technologies that aerospace is going to need.

We heard earlier from Mr. Donald and Ms. Medve about advanced training, data analytics and technologies that are shaping not just aerospace but also automotive and other industries, not just transport industries. Investment in those industries has a benefit for everybody, not just for aerospace.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Thank you.

To the other panellists, are there roadblocks in the way in terms of things like government regulations and so on that preclude you from doing the type of R and D programming or investments that are required and that could assist your businesses moving forward?

Ms. Medve, maybe you could go first.

[Tracy Medve]

I don't know that there are impediments, but certainly there seems to be almost this idea that we want innovation as long as it's been tried before and we can be sure that it works. You're dealing with this kind of schizophrenia of “yes, we want you to innovate, but don't be too innovative because that's a bit scary.” When you're talking about government procurement, in that aspect, you can't be too innovative or it can't invest in those kinds of things.

I don't know what you do about that, to be really honest. I don't know what you do about that, but industry's pretty good at figuring out ways to move forward and to move around blockages and so on. If it's a great idea and it's going to bear fruit, they'll usually find a way to get there, but....

[Jason Hamilton]

I'll second that.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Yes, Mr. Hamilton, I was going to ask.

[Jason Hamilton]

You know, I can't think of a government impediment, but I'll double down on the comment that's been made already that skilled labour in science, technology and engineering is the foundation for building more innovation here. We need to keep investing in that through the universities and through research credit.

The companies will find ways to innovate and go to market with it. If we make Canada an attractive country to do business with and we have the talent here and develop it, the industry will win.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Our last round of questions will go to the Liberal bench. MP Ehsassi has generously offered his time slot to me, so I have a rare opportunity to question witnesses.

Interestingly, today we've heard a little bit about the ecosystem of the aerospace industry. We often think of the aerospace industry as being merely airlines, so I was delighted to have parts of the industry sector here that could talk about the other impacts.

One of the other areas that we keep hearing about is training. In the last Parliament—the 42nd Parliament—motion M-177 was brought forward by former MP Stephen Fuhr from Kelowna—Lake Country with respect to pilot training schools. We know there was a problem with respect to training pilots prior to the pandemic, and that, I think, has just amplified the problem. We talked a little bit about retraining people who already have the competencies, and we know that there is a system called PLAR—prior learning assessment and recognition, or reconnaissance des acquis et des compétences in Quebec—that will do just that. If somebody has the competencies already, rather than retraining them for something they already know, we just fill in those gaps.

I believe, Mr. Donald, you were the one who brought that up. Perhaps you'd like to speak to the importance of leveraging the tools we have in the tool box, so that we can get people off the bench more quickly and get them into those jobs that we are going to need in terms of the economic recovery that we have in front of us and so that they are not getting discouraged by retraining in something they already know.

[Robert Donald]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Yes. Unfortunately for the licensed trades in Canada—pilots, aviation maintenance engineers—we do not use PLAR. We don't care about competence. As I alluded to earlier, an AME working in Germany for Lufthansa for 20 years on an Air Canada aircraft, a 737, comes here to work on exactly that same aircraft and is not granted a licence because she didn't study exactly the same thing in Berlin that Transport Canada requires Canadian colleges to teach. That individual's option is to go back to school for two years, because there's no gap training in Canadian colleges. They don't have gap training for that one identified gap.

We have a system at CCAA for online assessment of foreign workers in non-licensed trades that works well. For the licensed trades, which are the most in demand—AMEs and pilots—it does not, because of Transport Canada restrictions. I'll stop there, but I'm happy to elaborate.

[Tracy Medve]

Can I just say one thing too? That's if you can get them into the country under the foreign worker program. That is an impediment. We've had a lot of trouble with it. When we were pre-COVID, there were all kinds of issues. It's expensive to apply. It takes forever. That's not to mention what happens on the foreign country side to have the workers come in.

That's how we get a lot of our skilled workers. You cannot populate an MRO like ours with just new grads. That's not going to work. You need much more skill than that. We did go to a foreign worker program but had all kinds of issues with it. It's another area that could use some attention.

[Michael Arthur]

Thank you.

Can I come in with a comment on that too?