Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think the question is very relevant. Every company, big and small—we represent larger firms, obviously—is dealing with this thing. It's not going to go away; it's just going to accelerate. The Business Council has been supportive of carbon pricing for

Finance committee  Yes. In general, I think carbon pricing is something we've been supportive of. What I think is worrisome is that when I look at the government's intention, for example, to cap oil and gas production, I think that would be overkill and would actually deconstruct the carbon prici

Finance committee  We have not. What we've done is produce a policy document, “Innovate, compete and win” recently, which I think addressed the climate challenge from an economic perspective and a competitiveness standpoint. I encourage all members to read it.

Finance committee  I'll focus on one thing that's very close to my heart, which is innovation. I think every country that takes industrial policy seriously has innovative capabilities. In this country we have high-performing universities that do world-class research and we have great companies, but

Finance committee  We need to get it solved. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With great respect to the member, I think I've written at least four or five papers on industrial policy, innovation and productivity. We have a lot of solutions for these problems.

Finance committee  I did mention permitting. I did mention implementing tax credits that the government announced last budget.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, I think the debt anchor that the government has right now is not one that we're going to be able to meet, frankly. The debt-to-GDP ratio is going to go up this year and probably next year. Unfortunately for the government, it doesn't look like the fisc

Finance committee  Mr. Chair, absolutely. Structurally, these things cannot continue, otherwise our living standards will decline, unfortunately, as a country. I'm happy to see the wage increases for workers right now, but they're not sustainable if we don't have the productivity that comes with

Finance committee  Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair. To me, the faster we go back to price stability, which is 2%, the better it will be for the economy, for Canadians and for the government to get back into a position—to your point—where we can reinvest and grow the economy, and where we're

Finance committee  I think Governor Macklem was correct yesterday when he said that over 2% growth in spending for governments doesn't help him to bring inflation back to 2%. That's just a factual thing. I don't want to go into the politics of it. It's just math. We need to go back to 2%. I think

Finance committee  I would agree that they were major components to inflation rising, and all the ones you mention, I think, are correct.

Finance committee  It is for the elected government to decide where it wants to put its focus in terms of spending priorities. What I'm saying is that, going forward, the fiscal framework that has a structural deficit in the context of high interest rates and rising going forward will put these ver

Finance committee  The first solution is to grow the economy higher than what we have right now, which is stagnation. Because inflation was high, the Bank of Canada had to do a lot of work here, but going forward, a growth rate, a real GDP of 1% or below 2% , will make it very difficult for the gov

Finance committee  I certainly don't like the trend we're on. As I said in my remarks, the big game-changer here is that interest rates are now higher than growth rates. That will affect the primary deficit, which will just grow by itself. As I think Mr. Dodge explained to this group last week or

Finance committee  Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair. I think it's fair to say that we do have a growth problem in this country and a business investment problem, which is obviously linked to productivity. The way to remediate this problem is to have pro-growth policies and a pro-growth framew