Finance committee  Honestly, I'm not familiar enough with Alberta's. I'm familiar with B.C.'s, because that's where I used to work. I couldn't really comment on it. Unfortunately, I can't shed light on it.

Finance committee  I would agree completely. I think it would be a wonderful task for one of the committees of Parliament to undertake a longer-term view of Canada's infrastructure needs. I very much appreciate what my colleague has had to say about this area in particular. This is a huge area that

Finance committee  I would say only that we would want to ensure that there wasn't any kind of.... It does happen that you have different levels of government in conflict with one another over policy directions and various instruments, so it can create confusion, and that's a challenge.

Finance committee  I think it's extremely important that it be renewed. We have finally reached a point now where environmental assessments are being managed well, where timelines are being met, and where the federal government is able to coordinate with provincial governments. We actually can now

Finance committee  In our sector, the Canadian dollar has a pretty marginal effect because it goes up and down with the price of our products. When the price of copper goes up, the value of the dollar likely does too. Our sector is not one that kicks and screams when the Canadian dollar goes up in

Finance committee  Our frame of reference is global. It is very difficult to compete with countries like Chile, China or Japan whose plants are more competitive. It is difficult for plants to be really competitive because there is not much in the way of a margin. It isn't easy. Building a foundry t

Finance committee  There was a decision by the government this year to terminate the sector council program. It's winding down by 2013. To be honest, this is not something we're all that happy about.

Finance committee  Karina also mentioned that the investment in training for first nations is important, and a really important source of workers for our industry.

Finance committee  If you look at our brief, we're not asking for any economic help from the government. Our companies don't need subsidies. We have $137 billion in investment that we're prepared to start spending now. The moneys we do want are simply to enable that to happen by having an efficien

Finance committee  In the mining industry we have one of the most active and most successful sector councils. Part of the work the mining industry has done is to go into areas like the automotive industry and try to find workers there who could transition into mining.

Finance committee  We are concerned about the termination of this program. We're hopeful that our particular council will be able to continue through our own efforts and some program funding will still be available under the new system. We have nice things to say about a number of the decisions th

Finance committee  I was asked by the Minister of International Trade a month or so ago about the European free trade agreement and what was most important to us. Because there's already a free flow of goods between Europe and Canada, the issue was labour mobility, being able to tap into another po

Finance committee  I don't know if any industry sector would say that it would like to have higher taxes. We wouldn't be in that category either. I wouldn't say you couldn't put a price on carbon into the tax regime in some way, but if you do it, you have to make sure it's done in a way that doesn'

Finance committee  You have to balance it through other elements of the tax system. British Columbia has tried it, and it hasn't been an outright failure, but it could be further refined.

Finance committee  Let me first address the carbon tax issue, just to clarify. We are an energy-intensive industry, so a tax on carbon can be quite punitive to those sectors that are energy-intensive. A carbon tax as a measure is probably one of the simplest ways to put a price on carbon—