Economic Relationship between Canada and the United States committee  Yes, we should have an advanced manufacturing strategy for the country. Call it an “industrial strategy” or anything you want, it doesn't matter. Certainly, the CME, working with our colleagues at CSPA and the Cement Association, has called for years on the federal and provincial

Economic Relationship between Canada and the United States committee  The ability of companies to transition to making other things is critical to modern manufacturing. That's what a lot of manufacturers were able to do during this crisis, but we struggled to do it, because we didn't understand what the capabilities of the companies were in the fir

Economic Relationship between Canada and the United States committee  I'd say that the U.S. and Canada are facing similar price issues with steel. I don't think that's just a Canadian issue, Mr. Hoback. Certainly with the way it's looking in the U.S., if there's no new capacity brought on, I would expect the supply to get tighter, and we know that

Economic Relationship between Canada and the United States committee  Mr. Hoback, is that aimed at me generally or at Catherine more specifically?

Economic Relationship between Canada and the United States committee  It's hard to tell. It's a lot easier in person. Markets tend to work themselves out, but when governments overcook a market, there can actually be those longer-term impacts. We saw that in Ontario with the Green Energy Act. A whole bunch of production was brought on board for p

Economic Relationship between Canada and the United States committee  Do it sooner rather than later. I think I completely agree with the comment made by the president of CADSI—absolutely. We certainly have worked with Canada's regional economic development agencies for a long time to make sure that things like the regional trade benefits are fully

Economic Relationship between Canada and the United States committee  I think it comes back to a misunderstanding of taxpayer value. There was a really big push for a long time in this country to make sure that we were not wasting money when we were buying things. The private sector does a lot of the same stuff, so this isn't pointing a finger at j

Economic Relationship between Canada and the United States committee  First, I agree with my counterparts, Catherine and Michael. They're certainly looking at it from a very specific sector's perspective. I'll maybe take a step back, though. We've been working on procurement policy with Canadian governments for as long as I can remember. We can't

Economic Relationship between Canada and the United States committee  Here's the problem. I think in the last panel someone mentioned $600 billion in procurement markets in the United States. It's a huge number. We only make about that much in manufactured goods in Canada on an annual basis across all industries, so it's a massive number. I don't

Economic Relationship between Canada and the United States committee  Very quickly, companies can do paperwork. They may not like it. Small companies have a hard time with it, but they can deal with it. What they can't deal with is uncertainty, and that's really the situation we're into now with most of the movement of people. I think you captured

Economic Relationship between Canada and the United States committee  Well, it would very quickly stop most production in most sectors. To be very blunt, Mr. Lewis, if stuff can't move back and forth across the border, the manufacturing sector can't operate. There's almost no part of the supply chain that doesn't have linkages either going out of o

Economic Relationship between Canada and the United States committee  Good evening and thank you, Mr. Chair, and members of the committee. Thank you very much for inviting me to participate in today's discussion. It is my pleasure to be here on behalf of our association's 2,500 direct members, and 90,000 manufacturers and exporters across the coun

Human Resources committee  I'm not sure about the tie to the mortgage, but certainly our recommendations to government so far—and what we'll be saying more publicly—is that it should be on the renter, not the leaseholder, to do the application. It's for the same reason as the wage subsidy program, where th

Human Resources committee  Yes.

Human Resources committee  The biggest one is the wage subsidy. I talked about that. The other one that's out there at the federal level that will not work for our sector at all and that I didn't mention is the rent subsidy program. It won't work for us, in part because it's too small. Second, there's ver