Industry committee  The first thing I'd say is that you should invite the Canadian Taxpayers Federation to committee more often. Aside from that, I think it's incumbent on the members in the committee and all members of Parliament to remember that fact. I don't want to take anything away from the

Industry committee  As I said, invite us to committee more often. Maybe speak more often to your constituents and see how they feel about some of these proposals.

Industry committee  First of all, I want to be clear. I am a big supporter of the marketplace and business, and I wish all the best to any business and any industry that can do well in the marketplace. I'm not anti-business by any stretch of the imagination. With regard to your point about the real

Industry committee  That's for the politicians to make, but you have to recognize that it is a choice and that you are essentially going to be saying to the public that some industries and some jobs are more important than others. How are people who are not in those industries going to receive tha

Industry committee  I don't support subsidies to any business.

Industry committee  Yes, you would understand correctly. That's our position, and I recognize that a lot of people take that to be an extreme position. I think that the onus really needs to be reversed. We're arriving at a point in this country.... I spend a lot of time in Ottawa around a lot of lo

Industry committee  I think there were bigger problems that go back a lot further than that, but this was definitely something that I think drew a lot of negative attention towards it, and rightly so.

Industry committee  Yes, absolutely. That's been our position all along. We take the exact same position. I want to be clear. It's not picking on a particular region. We take the identical view on every industry, including auto and oil. I recognize that some people consider that an extreme positio

Industry committee  It would be better than getting nothing in return, but I'm very worried again about the auto bailout example. Taxpayers lost a lot of money on that deal. I recognize that there is an immediate benefit in terms of keeping those companies afloat, but there was a cost. We need to be

Industry committee  We lost $3.7 billion on that transaction, so I would argue it wasn't exactly a.... I understand the political pressure. I understand the calculation. However, we put out a study on this, and if you look at the dollars and cents, taxpayers lost money on that transaction. I know

Industry committee  Yes, I think the public interest is better protected when there is a consequence or when the government has some form of stick. You're proposing an equity stake. I propose things like transparency or other looser strings that don't involve an equity stake but are definitely bette

Industry committee  It's probably a little more nuanced in my position. The challenge with a bailout is that you tend to run into one of two problems. You're either giving money to an entity that doesn't need it, as we've seen some companies openly say; or you're giving it to companies that may not

Industry committee  Yes. Competition is always the better way to determine who should succeed in the marketplace. I'd agree with that.

Industry committee  The challenge there, then, is now you are essentially marrying government into the entity. I realize the purpose of joining them at the hip with a company is to ensure accountability for the taxpayer support, but the flip side is that there's a reason that most businesses are not

Industry committee  Thank you so much, Madam Chair. Thank you to the committee for having me today. For those unfamiliar with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, we are a national, non-partisan non-profit with over 235,000 supporters across Canada. We focus our advocacy on three general areas: lowe