Finance committee  Thank you for the opportunity to participate in your consultations. After contracting in the second quarter, Canadian economic growth is reviving; however, the pace of economic growth will remain modest, and it will take considerable time for the slack in the economy to be abso

Finance committee  I would concur. Apprenticeships and training programs are absolutely critical to developing the skills that workers need. I would also highlight the fact that we need better labour market information. We are making some progress on this file, but we haven't reached a point where

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  The high level of household indebtedness poses an economic risk in that if you had any sort of economic shock that would result in either higher unemployment or higher interest rates in particular, it would create a vulnerability on the household sector. My understanding and my

Finance committee  I agree. It can be problematic, but at the same time there is a lot of expertise in the country and we can identify where bottlenecks are taking place. For example, it is obvious that gridlock in the greater Toronto area actually comes with an enormous fiscal cost. Improved trans

Finance committee  And you want it very succinctly.

Finance committee  The outlook for the Canadian economy is one of very weak economic growth at a time where there is slack in the economy. I think you can make a case that when private sector demand is weak, some targeted fiscal stimulus can have a beneficial impact. At the same time, you have to b

Finance committee  When we look at the labour market, we see an interesting dynamic. We have businesses that say they're not really willing to invest in the current market, and about half of them are saying they're not willing to invest because demand is weak. You can certainly understand that from

Finance committee  I think Canada has very competitive business tax rates. I think there are other barriers, though, to investment and growth. The regulatory environment is a good example. I'm going to give a provincial example. One of the things I was a little surprised by was to find that Ontar

Finance committee  I strongly believe that a road map as to how the federal government is going to balance the books would be helpful from a business confidence point of view. I think there are concerns on the part of businesses when governments are running deficits. They aren't concerned about the

Finance committee  Thank you very much, and thank you to the committee for the opportunity to appear and discuss how the government can help boost productivity. This is a critical priority. Since the end of the Second World War, roughly 80% of the rise in the standard of living of Canadians has co

Finance committee  Sure. At the moment, about 70% of our Canadian population growth is coming from immigration. The economy grows because either you have more workers or you use your workers more productively. When we think about the trend slowing in the Canadian economy, we realize that if we hol

Finance committee  The recommendations that I just noted are in my submission today, but I'd also be happy to provide more.

Finance committee  The federal government fiscal situation is in good shape, but when you look at federal plus provincial finances, you can see that the country as a whole is running larger government deficits. I think the federal government can run deficits for a few years. I don't really care whe

Finance committee  Sure. On the procurement side, very quickly, if we think about the government as a consumer of goods and services, it's an enormous potential client base. Obviously, the government needs to purchase the right goods from the firms that can provide the products and services that it