Industry committee  No, I wasn't.

Industry committee  I agree, sir, that we have a structural problem in our ability to nurture companies beyond the start-up phase through to the medium and larger size of firm, which is so important in order to reach export markets, invest in innovation, and so on. I think the ease of foreign takeovers—especially of the smaller firm, which now under these regulations is under a billion dollars, and that is quite a significant firm—is one of the factors in why Canada has a dearth of globally oriented, successful, medium-sized exporters.

Industry committee  My actual point there is not so much that the resource sector is dependent on incoming capital, in the sense that we actually need that capital, otherwise the sector couldn't be developed. To the contrary, my point is that it's become dominated by incoming foreign capital, which has been interested more in purchasing control of the asset rather than in actually building, investing in new capital, new productive capacity, new jobs, and so on.

Industry committee  Thank you, Chair and members of the committee. I work as an economist with the Canadian Auto Workers union, which also represents about 200,000 members in about 16 different sectors of our economy, including manufacturing, resources, transportation, and services. Our union welcomes foreign investment to Canada if it enhances Canada's capabilities, adds to our productive capacity, creates jobs, and accumulates real capital assets or technical knowledge.