Finance committee  Thank you. I want to pick up on that same topic, so that was a good segue. You mentioned this in your opening remarks as well, but you briefly touched on the idea of broad economic regions when it comes to the availability of the temporary foreign worker program as one of the pieces that can help to address some of the labour shortages.

Finance committee  Thank you. You may have just answered the first question I had, but I want to be certain that it was the answer I was looking for, so I'll ask it anyway. You talked in your presentation about the $3 million you were asking for that you would match through private sector matching to help small and medium-sized enterprises to digitize or address the digital skills gap.

Finance committee  Would you say that's the biggest issue facing—and I'll ask this in two parts—those trying to start up and the biggest issue facing our small and medium-sized business that are already under way in Canada? Would you say that's the biggest issue? If so, why would you say it is, and if not, what would you say is the biggest issue, and how should we address that?

Finance committee  Thank you. Let me turn now to Ms. Watts-Rynard from Polytechnics. One of the priorities you identified in your opening remarks was workforce development. You specifically talked about being able to match the skills needed in today's economy with the students who are entering.

Finance committee  Another question occurred to me when you were talking about the truck driver shortage, and I might have our friends from CAPP comment on the regulatory process as well because I imagine that they would have some concerns here. Is it one of those cases where we have such difficulty with some of the processes and with Bill C-69 that it's just going to get worse, that what happens is you can't get pipelines built and, therefore, rail is being used to ship oil, displacing other products from being on rail?

Finance committee  I guess what I'm getting at here is that, because you can't get pipelines, you're displacing other things because oil is being shipped by rail. Am I imagining that or does that sound...?

Finance committee  Is that it?

Finance committee  Thanks, Mr. Chair. I'll start with Mr. Neuheimer from the Forest Products Association. In your opening you talked a bit about concerns with certainty in terms of regulation. You had mentioned specifically when you talked about that, the importance of predictability. You also mentioned a working group that you were suggesting, which would be an industry-government co-operative working group.

Finance committee  I'll just follow up on that a little further. In the earlier panel, the idea of some of the overlap that happens between different levels of government was mentioned. I would assume that this would be something that you would agree that we need to look at: making sure that regulatory processes aren't overlapping with and duplicating each other.

Finance committee  Time goes fast. Thank you.

Finance committee  Thank you. I'm going to start with Mr. Lansbergen from the Fisheries Council, partly because you had mentioned your four priority areas in your opening and you didn't have a chance to cover them all, at least in detail. I actually wanted to start with one of the areas that you were able to cover in a bit more detail in your opening, just as a bit of a follow-up with it.

Finance committee  What you're essentially saying is that the uncertainty that's being created is causing investment to be delayed or potentially forgone altogether. It sounds very similar to what I'm hearing in my part of the country, with oil and gas and some of the changing regulations there. The uncertainty that's created makes it hard to make a choice to make an investment.

Finance committee  This question is for the Canadian Medical Association with regard to the disability tax credit. An academic review was done earlier this year. It found that about 1.8 million people are living with severe disability in Canada, but only about 40% of them actually receive the disability tax credit.

Finance committee  Thank you. You just mentioned the red tape. That was one of the follow-up questions I had for you. In your point number six, you mention reducing uncertainty, red tape and bureaucracy. That's certainly something I hear quite often, from small business owners in particular. Obviously, the red tape and bureaucracy that is imposed upon businesses has a greater impact on small businesses, because they have less ability to absorb the difficulties that arise from that.

Finance committee  I'll move now to Mr. Taylor, from Mortgage Professionals Canada. There are a couple of things in regard to some of the changes that have been made to the mortgage rules, in particular, the stress test. I've heard some pretty significant estimates in terms of the number of people who are potentially taken out of having the ability of home ownership, and also the effect this has had.