Finance committee  Good morning, everyone. My name is Charles Milliard, and I am the president and chief executive officer of the Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec, or FCCQ. I am joined by my colleague Mathieu Lavigne, director of public and economic affairs. The federation—which I be

Finance committee  Thank you for the question, Mr. Ste-Marie. I will start and I will let my colleague complete my answer. In terms of the labour shortage, it's important to understand that a number of levers must be moved at the same time. Often, it can be more helpful to refer to just one lever

Finance committee  The retraining issue leads me to the reform of the employment insurance program. This is not a criticism, but I feel that the employment insurance account, as a concept, has been used very broadly during the pandemic. However, right from when we start to reform the system, we hav

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning, everyone. My name is Charles Milliard. I am president and chief executive officer of the Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec. With me is my friend and colleague Mathieu Lavigne, who is our director of public and economic affairs. A

Finance committee  When we request a number of fiscal or economic support measures for small, medium-sized and large businesses, it's also important to have enviable public finances. However, I would remind you that we're in a relatively enviable position compared to many OECD countries. Canada is

Finance committee  I'll leave it to you to engage in politics. People here do that very well.

Finance committee  Whatever the case may be, Canada's credit rating is either a virtuous or a vicious circle. It has an impact on international borrowing costs, the kind of people who want to do business with us internationally and the quality of our free trade agreements. It affects entrepreneurs

Finance committee  Yes, I'm aware of what you say about our request and a balanced budget. Earlier I said I wouldn't get political. However, since we are the Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec, the chambers of commerce tell us about problems and issues concerning Quebec's entrepreneurs.

Finance committee  It's a dream, but we do expect better cooperation on immigration between Quebec City and Ottawa. Ministers often speak to each other through the media, and that causes problems for people who've chosen Quebec.

Finance committee  Some serious soul-searching has to be done on unemployment insurance, and the program must be reviewed. During the pandemic, employment insurance was a critical support and wealth redistribution tool. I'm not judging it, but now we need to reframe employment insurance to a certai

Finance committee  I would prefer that somebody do something quickly; that's for sure. Having said that, I'm sensitive to the argument that we're the only G7 country that doesn't have a high-speed train, although that's not the fashion in the United States either. We would be in favour of a high-s

Finance committee  That's an excellent question. You're right to relate this back to basic economic concepts. In order to ensure productivity, you have to have either more people producing more or better processes. Since no people are available in Canada, we have to consider investing in innovation

Finance committee  It will be hard to answer that in one minute. First of all, successful immigration is geographically diversified immigration. We think that regionalizing immigration in Quebec is a challenge. People often land in Montreal, and sometimes in Quebec City, not in the other regions o

Finance committee  We can francize immigration, but we have to acknowledge that there's exceptional talent that must come to Quebec and that can subsequently be francized. The same is true in the rest of Canada. Francophone immigration outside Quebec is very good too. The Canadian government has pr

Finance committee  There, you understand it completely.