Industry committee  In terms of getting access to global value chains, I'm not sure if there's an easy answer to that. We've done some work with the aerospace industry. One of the key things that the smaller suppliers in that industry talk about is a lack of integrators, the companies that are the

Industry committee  I would say that we're generally supportive of the free trade agreements that we've been party to in recent years. We have been actively working with our members through our networks, those sorts of things, to try to educate business leaders about the opportunities. We view these

Industry committee  I don't know if I'd have an answer for small versus large companies. I agree wholeheartedly on the global value chains. It's a key way for us to make up deficiencies that we might have in our own management skills, our own skill sets, and those sorts of things. The other thing I

Industry committee  Yes.

Industry committee  At the Conference Board, we often talk about the commercialization problem. We do really good primary research, but it doesn't often turn into business practices or business products. That's again part of what I alluded to in my initial comments. We probably work too hard at, “He

Industry committee  Yes, I would definitely say that. Yes.

Industry committee  We've talked about the cost of electricity. It's definitely a problem. There are really two things you can deal with if you're not happy with the price you're paying for electricity. One, try to find ways to improve your efficiency. There are many examples of businesses that, a

Industry committee  It's a reality in the forestry industry right now. If you want to build a saw mill in Canada, you pretty much have to build a co-generation plant.

Industry committee  Well, that is a manufacturing side.

Industry committee  Most of the businesses I've spoken to about temporary foreign workers would be happy to find ways to transition them to permanent status. They are happy with these people; they want them there. The problem often is that the programs that are in place to move those people from tem

Industry committee  Certainly.

Industry committee  I talked earlier about the decline in manufacturing employment in general. There are a lot of people whose skills may be out of date. If we want to make full use of our workforce—and many employers talk about not being able to find people—we need to find ways to retrain them. I t

Industry committee  There is no doubt that we could invest more. For example, if you look at the rate of investment in information and communication technology relative to sales for Canadian businesses, it is almost half of what we see with our neighbours to the south. We are not making full use eve

Industry committee  At least assurances around businesses that they will have access to cash when they need it if another financial crisis comes....

Industry committee  If you're talking about the issue of how companies make those decisions, it's an unfortunate truth that in some industries like aerospace and auto parts, they're more prone than others to look for government assistance of one sort or another. Rightly or wrongly, it's part of play