Finance committee  We have a study on file that's listed in our submission. What happens— and I'll pick a smaller one. Bob's picked some big ones—is a $4-billion investment that's under active consideration will take about five years to construct. In the meantime, all that capital, all the investment, is inactive, but if the companies could recover some of that in rapid writeoff against other expenses, it would allow them to borrow in that particular case, per billion dollars, about $220 million less right up front.

Finance committee  Precisely.

Foreign Affairs committee  I'm sorry but I don't know enough about that specific area on CBI, confidential business information, to comment. I have a colleague, and if you like, we'll exchange cards, and I can put him in touch with you. In terms of working with our American counterpart in this area, I know there is a lot of co-operation going on.

Foreign Affairs committee  Our employment has gone up at the same time. The other thing is we have increased our multiplier effect as a sector. Statistics Canada is telling us that our multiplier effect is now just over five; for every job in the chemistry industry, we're creating five more. We are one of the largest purchasers of IT in the country.

Foreign Affairs committee  I hope so. We, as a sector, like to sell the fact that value chains are what we're about, whether they are inorganic minerals, energy products, or biomass. We have members that take the raw material, which is a resource in Canada, and add 10 times to its value. We take it to a level that none of us see here, a mound of polyethylene pellets or polypropylene pellets, but somebody else takes that and makes an auto part out of it, or a Frisbee or a kayak, and there the value added is a hundredfold.

Foreign Affairs committee  It isn't my first area of expertise by a long shot, but my colleagues who are working on the chemical management plan inputs from our association are just down the hall, so I do overhear the importance of confidential business information. We have ways of sharing information and keeping the information confidential.

Foreign Affairs committee  We look on the renegotiation as an opportunity to take the agreement and what has been a very good working relationship and economic relationship, into the 21st century. Twenty-three years ago, NAFTA was state of the art, as our little three-way statement went with the other associations.

Foreign Affairs committee  There are a couple of things here. First of all, on the rules of origin, our association, working with the European association, had an exchange of letters with the chief negotiator during the CETA to suggest that we needed an easy way to know when origin was achieved. What we proposed was something that could be understood by the people doing the transaction rather than by the government.

Foreign Affairs committee  We can talk about whether we want to end up with a common market rather than a trade agreement. In the investment field, there are certain discounts. Investments, frankly, start the game by being a bit of a coward on this, and they will take a worst case scenario as they go forward.

Foreign Affairs committee  That's bringing me back to competitiveness. Productivity is a consequence of investment. Productivity is a consequence of the latest technologies and continuous improvement, and the industrial chemical productivity has improved and will continue to improve as we invest. I am concerned that as the Americans have taken the field in new investment, our productivity numbers are going to suffer as those new facilities come on stream.

Foreign Affairs committee  The way to make sure it doesn't is to have an agreement that ends up being very specific to the parties, and where the benefits of the agreement accrue to the parties and not to people outside. The biggest concern we're hearing has to do ultimately with transshipment and with leakage into the agreement from parties that aren't part of the agreement.

Foreign Affairs committee  Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to meet with this committee as our bilateral relations with the U.S., in the context of its new administration, have jumped to top of mind. The chemistry industry that I'm representing today is an invisible but vital component of Canada's economy.

International Trade committee  I'd like to take it even one step further—to have the ability to move people around in the services that support manufacturing trade or goods trade, and be able to provide after-sales service. The one thing NAFTA could see some improvement on is on the people side, on their movement.

International Trade committee  We have some things we can do to improve things so that the services associated with goods, which are becoming more and more a component of trade, are looked after. That's a modernization aspect of this agreement that would benefit all three countries.

International Trade committee  To take one example, the market is finding some great ways to do further integration. Where once upon a time we would look at raw materials from Canada going down into the United States to be converted, we now have companies that are building pipelines to bring natural gas liquids up into Canada to convert into high-value petrochemicals and then to ship those finished products at 10 and 20 times the value back down into the United States.