International Trade committee  Where is the balance of opinion in the American business community? I'm confident that it was in opposition to the “buy American”.

International Trade committee  Mr. Laurin.

International Trade committee  I think, as my colleague has said, these are both sectors that have heavy government involvement in a lot of countries. My sense is that Canadian negotiators in this agreement have gone to great lengths to make sure the interests of those sectors are properly protected. If we want to discuss some of the specifics, that's fine, but I think the agreement has found a good balance.

International Trade committee  Not directly. We have a member from the Irving Group, but from the oil side rather than the shipbuilding side.

International Trade committee  Well, perhaps I'll make just a couple of comments. I think with any situation like this, by definition, people don't see it coming. I think we had some indication ahead of time. Certainly when our members met in October of last year, we were already having discussions among ourselves.

International Trade committee  To make a general comment, we've always paid close attention to the impact our commercial representatives have abroad. Different governments have made different decisions over the years about where to focus efforts, sometimes putting more effort into the United States, for instance, sometimes more effort into trying to diversify away from there.

International Trade committee  What you may be dealing with here is perhaps a differentiation of the capabilities and knowledge base of individual companies. Some of our member companies are already active in dozens of markets around the world. They have their own networks in place, and so on, and perhaps don't need the assistance of embassy posts to the extent that small or medium-sized enterprises breaking into export markets need them.

International Trade committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm probably going to repeat some of the same sentiments that my colleague here has expressed, but I do appreciate the opportunity to appear and talk about this bill and the free trade deal with the European Free Trade Association. I know that a lot of people are going to ask if the years of negotiations we've spent getting to this deal are worth the trouble.

Human Resources committee  You've asked several questions there, which are very interesting ones. In terms of repatriating the past surpluses, again, I think my attitude is that what is past is past. On the notion of adding a bit more into the account in the transitional years—if there's a consensus that $2 billion, despite what the actuaries say, is a bit dicey and we need a little more—yes, whether we're talking about $1.5 billion or whatever is available out of a year-end surplus for a couple of years, I can see that kind of repatriation, if you want, as a transitional measure.

Human Resources committee  Yes, and frankly, as you say, employment insurance premiums are a tax on jobs. But what matters I think to Canadians is not just how many jobs we have; it's how well-paid those jobs are, how highly skilled those jobs are. Going forward, as more and more we face a shortage of qualified people, I think we are going to have to pay more attention to the quality of jobs and not just to the number of jobs.

Human Resources committee  As I said in my initial remarks, we certainly argued in favour of bringing employment insurance premiums into line with costs, all the way through that period. On the other hand, we were arguing about the importance of reductions in other tax rates as well. EI premiums act as a tax on the creation of jobs.

Human Resources committee  Our expectation is that the board would be composed of people who have expertise in the relevant issues. Good corporate governance rules would apply to this, as they would to any crown corporation, so I would expect to see that the Governor in Council, in making appointments to the board, would be looking for relevant expertise on all of the matters that would come under its jurisdiction.

Human Resources committee  The Canadian Council of Chief Executives is on the other end of the spectrum of the business community. We limit our membership to 150 people. Each of these individuals is either the chief executive officer or a major shareholder of a large Canadian enterprise. I think our average member company would have annual revenues on the order of $5 billion.

Human Resources committee  Perhaps I can just follow up on some of the comments, because I think we end up in the same place, but our members would come at it from a somewhat different perspective. Certainly our members have been increasingly concerned in recent years about what is developing into a serious structural shortage of labour.

Human Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm sorry we were not able to be with you last week. We were holding our own members' meeting in Calgary at the time, so all of us were occupied with that. I'm delighted to join you this morning. I don't think I'll take up too much time with initial comments, because it's probably of most interest to the members to get into a discussion as quickly as possible.