David Emerson

[Industry, February 23rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, under the Investment Canada Act we will review such a transaction and we will ensure that undertakings are in place to protect workers and to protect Canadian interests.

[Canadian Tourism Commission, February 23rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I think there are powerful logical reasons, powerful public policy reasons, and service delivery efficiency reasons to get more institutions out of Ottawa.

[Canadian Tourism Commission, February 23rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I think if you look at the numbers you will find that there has been an increasing percentage of federal government employees in the Ottawa area over the last 10 years. I am one of the members of the House who thinks that it has probably gone too far, that Ottawa is not Canada and we need more Canadian public servants outside of Ottawa.

[Research and Development, February 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the Canada Foundation for Innovation is one of the foundations that has been set up to provide predictable and stable funding for research in Canada. The research is evaluated on the basis of merit and peer review. There has been something like $4 billion put out to research. We have attracted 1,889 new researchers to Canada.

I quote from the president of the University of Saskatchewan who said:

--CFI's support for research infrastructure has been a critical element of Canada's success in research in recent years.

[Public Transportation, February 16th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, we are moving ahead very rapidly with an aerospace strategy for Canada. We will continue to push aggressively on that in the months ahead.

[Public Transportation, February 16th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it is something that we will be looking at as part of the overall plan going forward.

[Aerospace Industry, February 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, we continue to work with the industry and provincial governments. We will have an aerospace strategy announcement in the next few months.

[Financial Institutions, February 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, federal, provincial and territorial ministers of consumers affairs have been looking at this very issue for the past year. I have had a discussion with my colleague from the province of Manitoba. It is something that we are hoping to move on in the next few months, but we need to work in cooperation with provincial governments.

[Gasoline Prices, February 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is concerned. All members of this House are concerned with gas prices. That is why the Competition Bureau is undertaking a review of the state of competition in the retail gasoline industry.

The only reason for setting up a monitoring agency is so that it can be regulated. We will await the results of the Competition Bureau review. If there is an anti-competitive situation, it is actually the provincial governments that have to regulate retail gasoline prices.

[Wal-Mart, February 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, we are having a look at the Investment Canada Act and we will bring some suggestions forward to Parliament in the weeks ahead.