Finance committee  Our response to the budget was certainly aggressive. It was maybe a little angry, but it was a reflection of some of the disappointment and frustration that—

Finance committee  Perhaps I could go first. This time last year the Canadian dollar was at 84¢. I think when those hearings took place it was probably close to $1.10. Nobody could have foreseen that, and that rapid surge in the dollar has overwhelmed most companies. Most exporters will be in a los

Finance committee  We have. First of all, we're dealing with issues in manufacturing that are far too important and urgent to have arguments between jurisdictions when we should be looking at providing solutions. We're been on the record for some time saying there are two major tax issues that we

Finance committee  I'm meeting with the Deputy Minister of Finance on Friday.

Finance committee  We have not seen any consequences as a result of the discussion that is going on. We're under tremendous competitive pressure to attract and retain investment and keep product mandates. Companies are making these decisions all the time. I think we have to give credit to what all

Finance committee  If I could say, having it publicized internationally is not helpful in making the pitch to retain or attract investment. I guess, though, at the end of the day the decision is above all a decision that makes economic sense for the company and is made, to some extent, on tax rates

Finance committee  No, it's the most important. This is where the money is spent, in the prototype development, the engineering, the scale-up. If you don't do that, you can't do this--

Finance committee  It's the same for manufacturing.

Finance committee  I think it's extremely important. In my mind, research is transforming money into knowledge. Innovation is taking knowledge and creating something of greater value. The issue is, what solution does business need that they can apply the knowledge to? How can we build more collabor

Finance committee  But that itself depends on industry continuing to spend on R and D and new technology. We hear a lot about receptor capacity. If I have a business and talk about receptor capacity, it means I have something my customers don't want. It offers no solution. Maybe that's true of th

Finance committee  The bigger companies are certainly more capable of finding out where the research is and working with industry. I think most of the big companies do that very well, but not only from Canada, from around the world.

Finance committee  I think that's right. We've certainly been in support of value-added taxes as the way to go, rather than embedded taxes. In many cases this is a fixed cost that industry has to pay. That's not the way to run an efficient or effective tax system. Another set of fixed costs—here's

Subcommittee on Canadian Industrial Sectors committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Maybe I've been around CME too long. I remember back in the recession of the early 1990s when I was debating with the Fraser Institute about the demise of manufacturing. This was one year before the manufacturing sector in Canada experienced its fastest gro

Subcommittee on Canadian Industrial Sectors committee  Maybe I could take a first crack at that. I think one very important reason is that we don't have the global companies and the ownership of the global companies that are doing the R and D. One of the benefits of our relationship with an awful lot of multinational companies is th

Subcommittee on Canadian Industrial Sectors committee  I think the impact on production and employment lies ahead, and I think for the rest of this year it's going to be a very challenging period of time for manufacturing. I hope the worst is behind us in terms of the downturn in orders, but the adjustment to that, which is what affe