Subcommittee on Canadian Industrial Sectors committee  Thank you for that question. That's exactly where we want to position ourselves coming out of this, in a positive, sustainable way, whereby Canada can be very proud of its manufacturing sectors and specifically where we try to position ourselves, when domestic and international

Subcommittee on Canadian Industrial Sectors committee  Merci beaucoup, monsieur Bouchard, pour votre question. I have to apologize to my colleague, Mr. Paton, as he's been bearing the weight of the manufacturers' coalition and the issues by himself. I owe him some support here. We are a proud member of this coalition and are one of

Subcommittee on Canadian Industrial Sectors committee  The concept is absolutely positive, as is the principle behind it. I just cannot speak knowledgeably about members who have accessed this program. I just don't know.

Subcommittee on Canadian Industrial Sectors committee  What I usually hear about are not the good news stories; I get phone calls telling me they are in bankruptcy protection and have to furlough half of their employees and asking how I can help them or channel the government to help out.

Subcommittee on Canadian Industrial Sectors committee  Absolutely. That's a great point.

Subcommittee on Canadian Industrial Sectors committee  Let me add that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. We're seeing rail investments going down, on the bed, in locomotives, and in new information technology systems—“smart yards”, to use the term they're coining now—for more efficient movement of goods. That's good

Subcommittee on Canadian Industrial Sectors committee  This, in essence, is a job creation program for a growth market. We're not saying that.... If government would work with us to do this, we actually would love to make sure that the UPs, the CSXs, and the rail lines from Mexico could apply to this and could help buy Canadian techn

Subcommittee on Canadian Industrial Sectors committee  We know now that it is not anti-NAFTA. We're not arguing tit-for-tat with the U.S., because the U.S. has a similar model. Mind you, if you're going to get federal funds to compete in these RFPs or procurement processes, 60% needs to be made in the U.S. When you're assembling it

Subcommittee on Canadian Industrial Sectors committee  I'm happy to give you my views. We know that the railways are heavily capital intensive, with 20% of the revenues going back into the system, meaning the equipment, track, and rolling stock. A lot of it, to be honest with you, is going into positive train control right now. We'r

Subcommittee on Canadian Industrial Sectors committee  The simple answer is yes. Absolutely. We have that capacity and we have a commitment by some of our OEMs, our original equipment manufacturers, to go and do just that. Right now, you can hear the crickets in our plants. That's our reality. We need to change that and we need to ch

Subcommittee on Canadian Industrial Sectors committee  Thank you very much for your question. The industry in our sector is very aware of and understands the need for succession, especially with the changing workforce and folks coming to retirement age. But also we're seeing some challenges in getting the folks coming out of colleg

Subcommittee on Canadian Industrial Sectors committee  As an association, we do not have an official policy on ways to mitigate environmental degradation when it comes to industrial transport. However, what we do as an association--and it's probably not the answer you're looking for, but this is our reality--is produce the solution t

Subcommittee on Canadian Industrial Sectors committee  That's true. First, maybe I should just say that we view this as a North American industry. Obviously we recognize that there's a border there, but for trade, it needs to be an artificial border. We've done a lot of work with government to make sure that we do pre-screening, espe

Subcommittee on Canadian Industrial Sectors committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Bouchard. Unfortunately, my French is not very good, so I am going to answer in English. I'd like to be very clear that by no means am I suggesting we should nationalize the railways again--the short lines and the class 1 railways--because they are one o

Subcommittee on Canadian Industrial Sectors committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Esteemed members of the committee, let me preface my presentation, if I may, by echoing complete agreement with Mr. Paton's analysis, which is truly a “forest from the trees” perspective on manufacturing in Canada and what's needed. So I won't spend much t