Finance committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I thank the committee for the opportunity to share with you some of the challenges facing our $26 billion chemical industry, which is a significant part of the overall manufacturing sector in Canada, and to make a few suggestions for the upcomi

Finance committee  I'll give you a very straight number. The productivity of Canadian chemical industries is 30% better than those in the United States. We've done studies on that; we've worked with Industry Canada. That's a number we can verify. We're a very small part of the global market, abou

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll try to answer that quickly. I'm not quite sure that the statement in paragraph 7 is exactly what you say it's saying. I think what is important is that when you look at the tax system, you find that the federal government reduces a tax--fantastic--an

Finance committee  No, I don't. We haven't costed it out, and I guess nobody else has. But if you're referring to the statement, “The government’s recently announced intentions to develop fiscal arrangements with the provinces to increase transparency and accountability are welcome”, yes, we totall

Finance committee  Sure. One of the principles in the last budget was that we need to be competitive with the United States. I would start with that principle. The last budget announced a reduction in the corporate tax rate to 19% over a number of years, which we see as a positive move, plus the c

Industry committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have David Podruzny with me, who is vice-president of business and economics. He was just going to observe this meeting, but since I see you have so many good questions I'm going to need some help here to adequately respond. Thank you very

Industry committee  I'm almost done. I'll conclude by saying that CCA has two major benefits. An accelerated CCA would result in significant investments by our industry, which would improve competitiveness and offset the impact of energy costs, the high dollar, and relentless competition from the F

Industry committee  That's right.

Industry committee  You could have some impact on electricity, with better electricity policy--not in Quebec, which has a pretty good advantage, but Ontario could improve.

Industry committee  Yes.

Industry committee  You've got it. I think there are only a few things that government can do. I totally agree. And we'll add that we don't believe in picking winners and losers. We don't believe in special industry programs for the chemical industry. That's not our philosophy. Just get the policy

Industry committee  That's a good question. They're slightly different. The Middle East has a huge what we call feedstock. When we talk about feedstock, our industry is largely natural gas. The price of natural gas in Iran at one point was $1.25 to our $8. That feedstock is about 75% of the cost o

Industry committee  Yes, and we're not against regulation. We are against rigid, myopic regulation. We're for innovative regulation. Also, we don't particularly like regulation that doesn't take into account our performance, which is unfortunately what your government did, and regulation that doesn'

Industry committee  Exactement, oui. Yes.

Industry committee  Dave Podruzny's more of an expert in this issue than I am.