I will just talk about some of the companies in my area that are coalition members. There's this great Indian baked goods company called Surati. If you ever want the best pistachio cookie made right here in Canada, that's the place to go. They were going to expand into a building right next door, but instead they are going to expand into the States. That's 150 jobs we could have had.
Plasticap Canada were also going to expand, and now they are expanding into Ohio. These are our jobs. As a mother, what I'm worried about, and the only reason I'm here today....
When I started the coalition, one of the other members of the coalition, a business friend, said, “What are you doing, Jocelyn? Why are you banging your head against the wall? Why don't you just go out and worry about your business and try to make money off the cap and trade and green energy?” I said, “If I did that, my kids wouldn't have anywhere to work.”
All of us, all of you guys, should be worried about our uncompetitive nature, because you guys have kids and you want them to work.
We need to get a strategy that helps us compete, and we need to forget about the partisanship. We need to get going on how we make it more effective and more competitive.
Those are two companies. Those are 300 jobs that we could have had here in Canada. Those are great products, and guess what's going to happen once they go down there. They don't treat you like a criminal if you are a Canadian company. What did I hear? We were tax cheats. I used to hear from the former premier of Ontario that we were bad actors. We're not bad actors. We're not tax cheats. We look after our employees. We take care of them when they are sick. We need help on growth and competitiveness so we can expand.
I will tell you one other story. I was talking to one of my members who's at capacity now, and his customers are asking him to expand. That's a risky proposition. I said, “Are you going to expand?” He said, “Why am I going to do that? I will just end up giving more money back to the government.”
That's what you're up against. You want people to grow and expand and make money, but when they can, they don't grow to their capacity. Fundamentally you have to ask yourself. I as a business owner work 14 hours a day. I was up last night putting a proposal together for a customer while I was driving here. We're not drinking champagne from our shoes. We're working to keep the lights on. How many of my 14-hour days should I work for me, and how many should I work for you? Because right now I'm working more for you than I am for me, and that's not a good thing.
We need to get competitive. We need to celebrate success. We need to help companies scale up, and we need to make it beneficial for them to do so, because otherwise why are they killing themselves?