Industry Committee on May 20th, 2022

Evidence of meeting #25 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was competition.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

Subject Matter of Part 5, Divisions 15, 16, 17 of Bill C-19, Budget Implementation Act, 2022, No. 1

MPs speaking

Joël Lightbound

Sébastien Lemire

Gérard Deltell

Nathaniel Erskine-Smith

Also speaking

Vass Bednar Executive Director, Master of Public Policy in Digital Society Program, McMaster University, As an Individual

Jennifer Quaid Associate Professor and Vice-Dean Research, Civil Law Section, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, As an Individual

William Wu Partner, Competition, Antitrust and Foreign Investment, McMillan LLP, As an Individual

Benjamin Dachis Associate Vice-President, Public Affairs, C.D. Howe Institute

Elisa Kearney Second Vice-Chair, Competition Law and Foreign Investment Review Section, The Canadian Bar Association

Dominic Thérien Secretary, Competition Law and Foreign Investment Review Section, Canadian Bar Association

Kaylie Tiessen National Representative, Research Department, Unifor

2:55 p.m.

National Representative, Research Department, Unifor

Kaylie Tiessen

I don't have a specific idea of what the threshold should be. I definitely agree that they need to be much higher. I like the idea of them being proportional to the income or the profits that corporations have worldwide.

One thing that I've heard a few times today is that this change will damage Canada's reputation, and I think what we would actually see is other countries following suit. This conversation is happening globally. We need to make sure that we are deterring the behaviour and that we're punishing this behaviour when it happens. If we move, other countries will move as well.

It's very important. We're being held hostage by this argument that no corporation will ever invest in Canada again. I just don't think that is true.

2:55 p.m.

Liberal

Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON

Thank you very much.

I would love to see that graph that Ms. Bednar talked about, so if you do come up with it, feel free to send it through a written submission.

Thank you, Chair.

2:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound

Thank you, Mr. Dong.

Again, we've had the opportunity as a committee to hear from a panel of experienced witnesses.

I thank all the witnesses who made themselves available so quickly to take part in our meeting.

I'd now like to remind the honourable members that I must prepare a letter to the chair of the Standing Committee on Finance by next Friday.

You'll have the opportunity to provide me with all your observations, recommendations and proposed amendments, which I'll add to the letter that I'll submit for review by the Standing Committee on Finance. Please send me that information fairly early next week. It also has to be translated by the translation service before being sent to the Standing Committee on Finance.

I thank our witnesses again. I also thank the clerk, the analysts, the interpreters and the support staff.

The meeting is adjourned.