International Trade Committee on April 26th, 2018

[Jonathan Azzopardi]

Are you concentrating more on the environmental side, that you believe there's an impact?

I will be honest with you. We deal in an industry that is very progressive, very highly technical, but also moving forward very quickly. From an environmental standpoint, we believe that our impact is greatly reducing. We believe that the chemical plants that produce the plastic are probably far more detrimental to the environment than the users of our moulds who produce the parts. Brazil as a country is the seventh highest user of plastics. We believe that they're a user of plastics, so they will continue to be a user of plastics, which makes parts. We make the moulds for those parts.

Environmentally, I don't believe that there will be any further impact to Canada, because we believe that plastic is not necessarily made in Canada from our users, our customers. Your concentration needs to be on the chemical facilities.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you.

You mentioned employees earlier. You said that your industry started up after World War II. Do you have trouble recruiting people? Are you able to recruit the people you need with the training offered?

[Jonathan Azzopardi]

I will definitely agree with you 100%.

The average employee in our industry is between 52 and 55 years of age. Within 10 years, we believe we will lose between 20% and 30% of our workforce. It is obviously a demographic cliff that we have our eyes on constantly, but it doesn't mean that we don't have things we're doing right now to change that.

I'll take an example from our own business. The average age in my business is 40 to 44. There are ways to work around that, but you have to take a very progressive and a very proactive approach by integrating women into the workforce and by penetrating the poverty barrier to be able to educate, to be able to move people out of poverty into highly skilled, high-paying jobs. Our industry is one that is very much reward-driven. By that I mean that an employee could, within a very short period of time, be making a lot more, and it's not based on time or experience but on their performance.

I'll give you an example. I have an employee in my plant who, within three years, was making the same as somebody who has been in my plant for 20 years, because it's performance-based.

We can take somebody with a short amount of education and turn them into a highly experienced and highly valuable asset to all these businesses, and highly paid.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

You mentioned women. What is the percentage of women working in production in your industry?

[Jonathan Azzopardi]

Women in our industry are a great opportunity. They're only about 3% of our industry, but they're 50% of our population. We believe that between youth, being able to convert people who are in lower-paid incomes, and women, we can get past the skilled trades gap. But women are essential. They are totally essential to our success here in Canada.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

I agree.

In your industry, what is the average salary for factory production workers?

[Jonathan Azzopardi]

It's a very difficult question to answer, but it's approximately $48,000 per year.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

That is a very good job.

[Jonathan Azzopardi]

I think so too.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you.

[Jonathan Azzopardi]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We're going to turn it back over to the Conservatives. Mr. Hoback, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Ms. Palmater, thank you for being here. Please, I'm just going to try to flesh out some of the things that you're saying, some of the ideas, and some of the confusions that I and a lot of my constituents have.

I'll use Ms. Ludwig as an example because I know she's a good colleague. In the last general election, first nations and non-first nations voted. They participated in the election. They decided who they wanted to represent them here in Ottawa. Now when we get to Ottawa here and we're dealing with trade agreements, she's representing not only non-first nations but first nations people. How do we square that with what you're saying?

When I go back to my reserves, or she goes back to her reserves and she asks, “Do you have any concerns about Mercosur?”, you don't get any comment. You don't see that as a highlight of the issues that they want to talk about.

How do I square that? How does that work? How do you see that working?

[Dr. Pamela D. Palmater]

Not all indigenous peoples vote. A record number did vote in the last election, but you're still looking at less than half the population voting in federal or provincial elections, because they don't feel that federal or provincial governments represent them and their particular and unique interests.

Section 35 constitutional rights are unique to first nations, and we don't see a lot of federal and provincial governments championing that versus fighting that in court.

On the one hand, there's a lack of trust that you bring forward. Secondly, I've yet to see an MP go into any first nation, do a comprehensive presentation about what's in NAFTA, the current problems, what's being suggested, how negotiations are going, do economic cost-benefit analysis, and ask anybody what their opinion is.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

That's a good point, because when you look at elections, the turnout was approximately 50%. Right across first nations and non-first nations, a lot of people would probably say the same thing.

We do the best we can based on the mandate we're given. We do present a mandate of policies going into elections, so we actually say, “Okay, this is what I believe, this is what I represent, and you can agree or disagree with me as you check the ballot.”

You talk about going in and consulting with first nations, and I agree with you. We need to do a better job of that. However, in the same breath, when I do a consultation in my riding, or when Ms. Ludwig does one in her riding, she makes it open to everybody.

We don't see first nations coming out to talk to us. Then we find out later that we've missed something or groups such as yourselves come forward and say, “You've neglected us; you didn't talk to us.” Wait a minute. The opportunity was there for you to come forward if you had a concern.

[Dr. Pamela D. Palmater]

That's assuming that they knew about the opportunity. Don't forget that the legal obligation is on the federal and provincial governments, not the other way around. It's not for first nations to try to chase committees or meetings or public consultations and say, “Hey, listen to me.”

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Okay, that's fair.

[Dr. Pamela D. Palmater]

It's not dedicated. It's a legal responsibility. Also, relying on votes and representative government ignores the fact that first nations are no less than a third order of government in this country, with their own jurisdiction, their own mandates, and their own laws that are not covered by federal or provincial elections.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

How do I take that scenario, where I go and deal with first nations, and then find out, in talking to individuals in the first nations, that they say, “Well, I don't have anybody to represent me. I don't even believe my chief represents me because I didn't vote for him either. I don't believe the chief because he selected the leaders to represent him here in Ottawa. They don't necessarily represent all the best”?

When you have first nations not agreeing on how to move forward on a certain topic or issue, how do we react? We still have to move forward. We still have to make decisions.

[Dr. Pamela D. Palmater]

How does Canada react to the fact that Canadians don't all agree with Prime Minister Trudeau, or provincial residents don't all agree with him? The requirement isn't that every individual agrees. We're talking about government-to-government negotiations on constitutional rights.

There are inevitably going to be individuals who don't agree, but we're talking about government, who this government should be talking to—our first nation governments—in the way that they want to be talked to. It could be as a treaty group. It could be as the entire Mi'kmaq nation. It could be as a province, all the first nations in Manitoba, but it's up to them to decide how they want to negotiate on that nation-to-nation, government-to-government basis, and it's not happening.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Is there any continuity? Is there any process? What's the right word? Maybe I'll go back to “continuity”. When the government looks at it and asks who they should talk to now, who they should consult, what's the hierarchy? Who are the appropriate people to talk to? Then you talk to them, and then you find out another group comes back and says, “Well, you forgot to talk to us.”

How do you know if they're actually legitimately representing the people they claim to represent, or if they're just playing politics and saying, “No, we just don't want a trade deal”, and they haven't even done their proper consultations themselves with their own individuals?

[Dr. Pamela D. Palmater]

Well, I guess you could ask all those questions of the federal, provincial, and municipal governments.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

It's the same thing.

[Dr. Pamela D. Palmater]

Politics is politics. However, Canada hasn't done the job of asking. They haven't done the job of saying, “Okay, we've pronounced nation-to-nation. We've cried tears and made apologies, but we haven't got down to the actual mechanics of it. How are we going to engage on a nation-to-nation basis?”

We've been saying all across the country how we want to. You could read books from 1970, the Red Paper, “Wahbung”, and all of these responses to the White Paper about what we want and who to talk to, but no one does it. We get presented with questions around, “We don't know who to talk to.” Well, ask us and we'll tell you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you. That's a good dialogue.