Thank you.
Evidence of meeting #43 for International Trade in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was strategy.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #43 for International Trade in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was strategy.
A recording is available from Parliament.
February 1st, 2007 / 12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Dean Allison Conservative Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON
Thank you.
I just want to start off by saying that I'm going to disagree with my good friend from the NDP in terms of what free trade has done in terms of real salaries. I understand that they have gone down. My thought is that we're overtaxed, we're not as productive, and there are all these other things going on, and they are the reasons for that.
In human resources right now, we're doing a study of employability. Certainly there are all the issues you've touched upon in terms of literacy. We have a great educated workforce that has come in from around the world, but it is not necessarily literate, not always able to produce foreign credentials, and all these other things.
I know you don't talk about the Irish experience, but my thoughts in terms of productivity here in Canada—and you've touched on this already—are that some of the things that made a big difference over there were not just cutting taxes, but the educated workforce, people returning home, infrastructure, and all these other kinds of things. We could spend ten minutes on this, but I'm only allowed three minutes, so it's my only question and the only time I have. Talk about that in terms of addressing the issue of rising salaries and some of these other things, and the experience in Ireland and how we could benefit from that.
12:50 p.m.
Senior Vice-President and Chief Economist, Conference Board of Canada
There is actually a high degree of convergence among economic analysts on what things are required to have an effective productivity strategy in order for a country to actually create sustained wealth. You touched on them. You have to be tax-competitive. You have to invest in your people. You have to have your infrastructure working well. Those are all pieces we touch on in our report.
The one thing Ireland had that we will not have was the fact that it became a gateway for foreign investment into Europe, while it obviously also had subsidies from the EU for its farm community. We can't duplicate that. We're not going to attract a disproportionate share of investment into North America, but we would like to capture our fair share.
The Irish case is interesting, as are the cases of Singapore and some other really high-performing global economies, such as Iceland right now. Little Iceland has spectacular productivity growth rates. We can't replicate them, but we can learn what the key elements are. We've done a pretty good job of setting them out by articulating the need to have a national strategy around competitiveness and productivity, and then by pointing to the national market, education, and the role of investment, trade, and ultimately foreign policy in supporting those.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
12:55 p.m.
Vice-President, Policy, Business and Society, Conference Board of Canada
There's an interesting thing about Ireland. If you're looking at it around the late 1980s or 1990, the income per capita in Ireland was about 50% of the Canadian average. Now it surpasses the Canadian average. That's point number one.
Point number two is that they focus. They have a niche strategy. We don't. They looked and said they were going to focus on two things, information communications technology and biotechnology. That's where they attracted the investment, that's where they attracted the top talent, and that's why they've been successful within the basic business environment. We have to develop niche strategies for Canada. They're something we don't have.
12:55 p.m.
Senior Vice-President and Chief Economist, Conference Board of Canada
That's where Gilles and I would probably differ from some other economists who say to let the market decide. The truth is that governments have finite resources, and every day we're taking priority-setting decisions: we're going to give more money for this, but we're not going to give it for that. We think you have to bring the same mindset to the development of sectors without picking winners, without picking individual firms, or even individual subsectors, and really to creating the conditions and identifying the races in which we're really equipped to run.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
Dean Allison Conservative Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON
As I said, the report is excellent. We will appreciate seeing the next couple of reports coming down.
Thanks.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
We just have a couple of minutes left.
Mr. Julian, do you want to ask a short question, or should we just close off now?
12:55 p.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
I have no further questions. Perhaps one of my colleagues, Mr. LeBlanc or Mr. Bains....
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
No, we're almost out of time anyway. It would be one short question.
Gentlemen, it's been a fascinating discussion. I'm looking forward to part two next week. I'm sure it will be equally as interesting. It's a fascinating study that you've done. It's extremely worth while and very informative. So I'd like to thank you very much, gentlemen. We'll see you again.
The meeting is adjourned.