Industry committee  Thank you for inviting me here today. I can't think of anything more appropriate than a poster of “Humanity First”, from the NDP, sitting over my left shoulder as I make my presentation. I want to start out by saying that I've been watching question period lately. It's usually a

Industry committee  Thank you. I have three quick points. A huge proportion of our productivity gap between us and the United States, for example--I think 40%--could be solved through basic literacy and numeracy training for Canadians. The federal government needs to do a lot more on the issue of n

Industry committee  There's an expression in Latin, res ipsa loquitur, which means the facts speak for themselves. We're seeing record profits. Corporate salaries have never been higher. There's more money in the bank accounts of corporations. We've lost more jobs than at any time since the last rec

Industry committee  I explain it, as I said, in the growth of the low-wage service sector, which doesn't support and sustain the economy. The problem is that the jobs we're creating don't pay enough to support a family. People are actually having to work two jobs, and they have to work longer and ha

Industry committee  In the last three weeks, I don't think that's the case; we're losing jobs in the auto sector. We're losing jobs in the auto sector because we're attempting to sign free trade agreements with countries like Korea. There is no level playing field in this notional free trade agend

Industry committee  We do now. I agree. There needs to be a third level, though. There needs to be a collaboration from all levels—from labour, from management, and from government. I think there is a bright future if we do it right, but just leaving it to the market doesn't work. There needs to be

Industry committee  Thank you. As we see with other trading agreements, they seem to be focused on some key elements but miss others. We think the lack of enforcement of regulation and the lack of enforcement in environmental and human rights legislation to be a key factor in trading advantages of

Industry committee  It's a quick point, Mr. Masse. The other area where there is a huge shortfall is venture capital in this country. The largest supplier of venture capital in Canada right now is money that is controlled by the labour movement, coincidentally. But there needs to be a lot more. On

Industry committee  Sir, I think your glib characterization of our concern for a third of a million Canadians losing their livelihood is depressing. It's disgusting, quite frankly.

Industry committee  We do support, for new manufacturing, investment through a targeted program, and tax cuts for those measures, rather than across-the-board corporate tax cuts, which mainly benefit the energy and financial sectors, which, frankly, today don't really need it, I would think. Buildin

Industry committee  I would just add one, Ms. Stronach. We also would recommend a sector development bank to assist in the restructuring of firms through injections of long-term equity targeted to firms, particularly in hard-hit sectors such as textiles and clothing and pulp and paper. Given some o

Industry committee  Again, I think the proposal you're referring to was one from the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters Association, and we have been working with them. Although our two suggestions are nuanced a little differently, I think we're saying the same thing. Our program would say that

Industry committee  We say withdraw right now, because it's on a track that can't be salvaged. We think you have to withdraw, pull back, retrench, and rethink the strategy with Korea. I'm sure you can come up with something that we and others would agree with, but right now it's on a real fast tra

Industry committee  I don't know the answer to the first part of your question, because unfortunately I don't know what the CME has recommended. We're saying that the automotive strategy in which they had that temporary investment tax credit, and it's granted for investment in new manufacturing an

Industry committee  Our understanding was that any and all of the difficulties with the bankruptcy section had been resolved through the consultations process and the bill was coming back for proclamation. We had this assurance given to us from the minister himself. We were told that would be coming