Finance committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. I am Richard Paton, the president of the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada. With me is David Podruzny, the vice-president of business and economics. Our association used to be called the Canadian Chemical Prod

Finance committee  In the age we're living in--very competitive, needing major capital investments--it's that cashflow that makes the difference between making the investment and not making the investment in Canada. Once you build an aluminum plant or a chemical plant or a fertilizer plant, you cre

Finance committee  Yes, thanks very much. I really appreciate that. I've never envied the role of members of Parliament in making these kinds of decisions. I've always found these sessions fascinating because the richness of needs is always overpowering. To make our case, though, first of all, i

Finance committee  Yes. By building a stronger economy with major capital investments in this country, you do generate jobs, growth—Mr. Lemoyne knows all about no jobs and growth—and that generates income for the country, which then will enable these other issues to be also applied.

Finance committee  Oh, and environmental improvement. Win-win-win.

Finance committee  Are you addressing that to me?

Finance committee  Okay. I think you've got to look at them as two different things. The corporate tax reductions, which business has already assumed are going to happen, have allowed us to stay in business as China and the Middle East emerged. It's a very different globally competitive environmen

Finance committee  They're both very valuable, and if we don't get them both, we probably won't--

Finance committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for the invitation to speak to your committee. I'll start with a very brief introduction to the chemical or chemistry industry, and then I'll talk about my three main messages. First of all, our membership includes about 40 large, medium-sized

Finance committee  Well, we have 40-plus companies, but that would be about 25,000 employees.

Finance committee  No, I can't say they did. However, I do have to add that we—

Finance committee  —are committed to improving—

Finance committee  No.

Transport committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I'm going to give about half of this presentation, and then Fiona Cook will continue. She is our director of business and economics and has been involved in this issue for too many years. We represent 45 chemical-

Transport committee  We don't really store chemicals. We store chemicals...as in Roger's example, we have a lot of cars that our companies own, and the production goes right into the cars and then they are shipped. So there is very little tolerance...when we have a rail strike, for example, as soon a