Evidence of meeting #32 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was economy.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:25 p.m.
Associate Professor, University of Calgary, As an Individual
The budget provides additional funding that I'm hopeful will be meaningful, but it's too early to know what effect that might have.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sherry Romanado
Thank you so much.
We'll now start our third round of questions.
Mr. Généreux, you have five minutes.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses.
Ms. Shaban, I hope you go into politics, and hopefully, under the right colours, not to put too fine a point on it. I find you are very smart, and your comments are very informative. Madam Chair, as I'm new to the committee, I don't know if I'm allowed to recruit. In any event, we need women like you in politics, Ms. Shaban. I find what you are telling us about this to be very instructive. I will stop there for now and come back to it if I have time.
Mr. Ehsassi, I take issue with what you said about Mr. Ulicki. His presence today is just as relevant, if not more so, than any other witness, if you ask me. It is not because he has a direct relationship with the federal government, but rather because his relationship with it is indirect. After all, the provinces and municipalities are creations of Canadian politics writ large.
Mr. Ulicki, if you spoke French, I would tell you to come to Quebec, because we need people who want to open daycares, and it's probably much less complicated than in Toronto.
I have a quick question, for you, Mr. Ulicki.
Did you invest any more money, other than the half a million dollars that you said you lost earlier? Had you started construction on your daycare centre before you had all those permits?
12:30 p.m.
As an Individual
At the end of the day, what's happened here is that I'm going through this application process, but in the back of my mind, as a back-up, I would have to then just drop it, and then it would go to a multi-unit residential building. Whether it's a day care or multi-unit residential building, I'm going to guesstimate probably that the total cost will be just under $4 million.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
In any event, your story really shows what a crazy world we live in nowadays. It's the same thing with the tariff barriers between provinces. Judging from what all the witnesses are saying, I feel we're living in a madhouse. If we really want to increase Canadian productivity and make it more attractive, we absolutely need to get rid of all this horrible red tape.
Mr. Balsillie, I found what you said very interesting and I'd like to get your opinion. You talked about the positive things that might be in the budget presented to us yesterday, but the fact remains that who knows how many billions of dollars were invested in the superclusters. What I take from what you said is that it wasn't done well or should have been done differently, in a truly effective way.
12:30 p.m.
Chair, Council of Canadian Innovators
That is correct, and it's the same for the strategic innovation fund, yes. We have to focus on what the objective is of generating these assets. We have to make sure we have the expertise and the pieces of infrastructure, which I put in that chart that I showed you, to ensure that we turn our dollar into $10, not into 10¢. I'm not saying spend more money or spend less money; I'm saying get more outcomes for the inputs we spend. We've been first world in inputs for decades, but we're not getting the outcomes. It's because of a lack of appreciation of the role of the government. This is not about industrial strategy. Words really matter in this discussion. It's about the role of a government and doing what other governments have been doing for decades.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Ms. Shaban, let me turn to you again.
It's clear that the Competition Bureau of Canada is a very complex organization.
In light of what you experienced—I understand you have worked there—and the new investments in the budget to increase the number of staff working there, which will allow them to do more analysis, don't you think that is actually going to increase the red tape?
If not, should this be seen more as an improvement in the quality of work done at the Competition Bureau?
12:30 p.m.
Principal Economist, Vivic Research
I think quantity is the big factor here. This comes back to the nature of competition law in Canada and the exceptionally high standards that officers have to meet in order to make a successful case. This comes back to some of the remarks I made in the opening statement about reforming the act so that it's more efficient for the Competition Bureau to actually enforce the law.
We need greater output. We also need to make reforms to the act that allow the Competition Bureau to get more bang for its buck.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Madam Chair, I have a point of order. We don't have enough time to ask our questions.
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sherry Romanado
Ha, ha!
I just want to say that red is a lovely colour too.
Our next round of questions goes to MP Jaczek.
April 20th, 2021 / 12:30 p.m.
Liberal
Helena Jaczek Liberal Markham—Stouffville, ON
Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses. It's certainly been a very wide-ranging discussion this morning.
I'm also on the transport committee, so my first question is for Mr. Donald, in relation to our thriving aviation and aerospace industries, as they certainly were prior to the pandemic and hopefully will be again.
Mr. Donald, you've made it very clear that you feel that the curriculum is outdated in terms of training all the workers that we need in the aviation and aerospace industries. If for a moment you could assume that finally Transport Canada puts that together for you, and being aware that in our budget yesterday there was an announcement of some $721 million over two years for some 100,000 job opportunities for the workforce of tomorrow, how would you, in a practical sense, want to see that money allocated specifically to the aviation and aerospace industries?
12:35 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Council for Aviation and Aerospace
Thank you for the question.
Of the two programs the government has run in the past through ESDC, one's ongoing, the student work placement program. Those have been hugely beneficial for the industry. CCAA alone has put over 1,000 students into the workforce, and a high number of them continue to be employed after they graduate.
ESDC used to have a program called career focus, to provide incentives to employers to hire graduates. The work-integrated learning is for students. We'd like to see a reintroduction of the career focus program, to give employers an incentive to hire and train new workers who, again, are a great asset to the industry.
Does that respond to your question, Ms. Jaczek?
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
Helena Jaczek Liberal Markham—Stouffville, ON
Yes, it does. I like to hear about practical examples of programs that have worked.
In Ontario, the former Liberal government did introduce a program for grade 12 students to get involved in the skilled trades, carpentry, for example, just to expose them to that sort of opportunity, and there was considerable success.
Do you see a role going potentially even earlier into the high school years?
12:35 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Council for Aviation and Aerospace
Absolutely. Again, CCAA has a high school program that is just extraordinary. High schools don't have the resources. There are only 30 high schools in Canada that are using it; there should be 300. Why aren't we doing it? High schools don't have the resources, but it's something that we definitely need to be doing more of.
To your first question as well, I'd like to see more money spent on helping industry train. If we don't have enough students coming out of colleges, and if we cannot expand the physical bricks and mortar capacity, as a government, I think we need to—and Transport Canada needs to recognize it—provide the tools to industry to train its own people, independently of the college system. Without that, we'll never have the competitiveness we need.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
Helena Jaczek Liberal Markham—Stouffville, ON
Thank you.
I hope that those comments will be clearly picked up by our analysts, because I think this is the way to get things done. As the federal government, obviously, it is our role to make major commitments, but if we don't see results on the ground, it might be for naught.
On that sort of practical topic, Professor Tombe, you alluded to each province having its own regulatory colleges and so on. I have a health care background, so when you referred to different regulations in terms of, say, the scope of practice of dental hygienists or any other of the health professions, I totally agree with you that it doesn't seem to make any sense. Why on earth wouldn't we collaborate? Of course, we're dealing with human nature, however. Everyone basically wants to keep their own control over their particular area.
How do we get beyond that particular barrier?
12:35 p.m.
Associate Professor, University of Calgary, As an Individual
I'll note two things.
First, I'll repeat an item I noted earlier. The hard work through the Canada Free Trade Agreement and the Regulatory Reconciliation and Cooperation Table really balances those interests that each province has where one would potentially be willing to change something that it views as giving up in exchange for another doing the same. Continuing the capacity there....
The second point is—and I'll shamelessly steal the Economic Council of Canada idea—ensuring that good analysis and information is out there around the benefits can inform Canadians and shape government actions.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sherry Romanado
Thank you.
Mr. Lemire, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.
12:35 p.m.
Bloc
Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I will turn to Mr. Balsillie again.
Mr. Balsillie, what programs are offered by Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions, or CED, and Canada's regional development agencies? Do they meet the needs of our innovative SMEs?
12:40 p.m.
Chair, Council of Canadian Innovators
They're beginning. I think it's very important to hear from the Standards Council of Canada on how they're starting to work with Canadian companies to proselytize Canadian standards abroad, because standards embed power. I think how you're beginning to look at foreign direct investment with your excellent report there is starting to attune. I think the minister has now commissioned a committee in his mandate, I believe, on guidelines to start to look at research funding.
I'm very concerned with data, because I think we're falling behind every day on data. I was very disappointed in seeing the data commissioner in the budget yesterday. I think that takes us away from where we need to go. I'm afraid that 10 years from now we're going to wake up on data like we woke up 30 years later on IP.
Some parts of the government are making steps forward; some parts are backwards. That's why we need some place of expertise that can guide and coordinate these kinds of decisions. It's very technical, and it has to work together as an integrated whole like a recipe that you cook. If you miss a step, you can lose the whole thing on just one little mistake.
12:40 p.m.
Bloc
Sébastien Lemire Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
One of the issues I see with this is that the financial envelopes for federal programs, particularly CED programs, often have a time limit. They are open from November to May, for example. Obviously, innovation doesn't necessarily happen when the program envelope ends.
What are our innovative entrepreneurs frustrated about? How do our programs adapt, or not, to the fact that innovation and program funding are not always in sync?
12:40 p.m.
Chair, Council of Canadian Innovators
That's a very good question.
What places like Germany, South Korea and Singapore have done is integrate things like their IP expertise and their data governance with the research funding, and they stay with the firm for decades. You don't look at it as a transaction; you look at it as a parent-child relationship. You stay with these firms in the completeness, not as a transaction that is hot and cold, hot and cold.
I think we could get guidance from how the Fraunhofer Institute does it in Germany. They stay with it forever. That's research funding, commercialization and other things like that. That would guide us.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sherry Romanado
Thank you very much.
Our next round of questions goes to MP Masse.
12:40 p.m.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Donald, I'll get you to expand with regard to the suggestion of having industry train the skilled trades, as you mentioned earlier. I want you to highlight a little bit more about that.
The one thing I worry about is it devalues the training that took place for other people who went through the accreditation. Also, where I'm from, we've been fighting to get a new border crossing, and part of the border crossing was a P3 where they brought in foreign workers, and they didn't do the welding properly. They had to dig up over 200 girders for a highway system after it was exposed. In fact, we only found out about it because a guy in my gym was telling me about it and was able to break the news on it. They had to dig these things out of the ground.
How do we deal with that? Are there ways that we have the system to get people more supports and more accreditation but not lose our standards or be hoodwinked by bad actors?
