Finance committee  Absolutely. That's why we call for industry councils that can help coordinate with government, with labour and with all the players involved to help coordinate those labour market needs. They're always changing, and they'll be different by region as well.

Finance committee  Yes. All those initiatives you mentioned, Mr. Sorbara, are needed and are good. In addition, we're noticing that because of the relatively small size of Canadian manufacturers, we're struggling to move up in the pecking order for critical components. We're still seeing those problems in our industry today.

Finance committee  Basically, there are mechanisms in our trade deals, such as the competitiveness chapter in the new NAFTA, for example, that are designed to do exactly that, and we should embrace them, get working on them and leverage them to their maximum extent. We haven't done that yet. That would be my quick comment.

Finance committee  I agree that it is. As an anecdote, at the association level, whenever we hear from our members that it's the worst is whenever we have blockades or transportation network disruptions. It affects them the most, and certainly manufacturers are the biggest users of Canada's transportation network.

Finance committee  That's part of it. What we're noticing, at least from the government, is.... We're starting to piece together our incentives and plans, and there are various elements to that. That is one of them. Our general feeling at this point is that they're all introductory moves, first steps, because when we look at it, billions of dollars have been put on the table for this type of transition.

Finance committee  We've done a lot of work over the past few years on this, so I would be more than happy to share that research and those policy recommendations with the committee. Perhaps we can connect offline afterward. At a high level, what I mentioned before was the SME piece. That's important.

Finance committee  I'm happy to answer that question. We were very pleased to see the creation of those programs. We're still awaiting a lot of the details of how they'll be structured and what they'll look like, but at first glance, it's something that we called for, so we're certainly very happy on that front.

Finance committee  It's certainly not good. To echo everything that Ms. Anghel said, it's for those same reasons. She's looking at the marine sector, and we have members there. However, it will impact the aerospace and automotive sectors and all of the supply chain partners that are part of that. These are little companies that make all those parts that feed into those products.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning, everyone. It's my pleasure to be here on behalf of Canada's 90,000 manufacturers and exporters and our association's 2,500 direct members to discuss Bill C-19. The manufacturing industry is 10% of Canada's GDP, produces two-thirds of Canada's value-added exports and employs 1.7 million people in high-paying jobs across the country.

Industry committee  Absolutely. You know the system very well. In terms of the manufacturing of automobiles, it makes no sense to us. As I mentioned earlier, we don't really trade with the U.S. anymore. We produce stuff together, and it does cross the border a number of times. In our messaging, we certainly echo that.

Industry committee  I think they're playing it right now. What I mentioned in my remarks was the unique problem SME manufacturers are having when it comes to accessing components key to their processes. When they talk to us about these problems, it's that they can't get the components, they can't produce, they can't operate and they're terrified of having to shut down and lay off their workers.

Industry committee  We understand very well that the program, for political reasons and rightly so, does not want to displace Canadian workers who can fill these jobs, but then we look at it as an association and as an industry that sees 80,000 vacancies—30,000 plus in Quebec—and we say, “Why are we doing labour market impact assessments to get foreign workers?”

Industry committee  Obviously, manufacturers are feeling the pinch from the sanctions. It's not that they don't support them. They do. We understand the global crisis we're in and the immoral actions of one country, Russia, in all of this. For the most part, manufacturers support the sanctions, but it doesn't mean that it doesn't come without financial hurt and a cost to them.

Industry committee  Yes, the crisis of labour shortages in manufacturing is very acute, particularly in Quebec. We have 80,000 vacancies in our industry right now and we're one of the highest-paying industries out there. This is a problem we need to fix. We think we can do it through immigration, but we have to be a lot more aggressive.

Industry committee  The temporary foreign worker program is being relied on a lot more out of necessity by manufacturers, because there's simply no other recourse to get the workers they need. On that front, sure, there's always streamlining that needs to be done to the program. They're currently trying to introduce a trusted employer stream.