Finance committee  I'll back up the bus, first, as I do want to just echo some of Daniel's earlier comments around the supply chain as an important part of it. The industrial strategy is something that's going to enable all those things to happen. Canada has a hydrogen strategy. It was produced almost three years ago.

Finance committee  First, when a company commits to a process—as you know, these things take five, 10 or 15 years to do—the challenge is that if the process changes halfway through, it means the business case has to be reshaped. I would strongly recommend that you grandfather projects that have started under the system they have.

Finance committee  Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with you today and provide input into the budgetary process. I'm going to focus on one particular subsector, even though we are globally competitive in five, where we see tremendous investment and growth. As noted, my name is Malcolm Bruce.

Industry committee  I'll start. I don't think anybody was suggesting that we list hostile state actors in the legislation. What we were thinking about was things like the precondition lists that are proposed as part of this bill, and we're not sure what they're actually going to mean at the end of the day.

Industry committee  The only thing I would love to add is that supply chains are very integrated on a global scale. There will be some resiliency and reshoring of certain supply chains around national interests, but think about the iPhone, which many of you hold. It's built primarily by a Taiwanese company called Foxconn.

Industry committee  Thank you. First of all, I didn't say “friends”. What I said was, the engagement with China is something we will continue to do unless we sever all ties with them. As I indicated, we had a 17% growth in our bilateral trade with them last year. It's now at $100 billion. We are engaging with China, so the question is this: Do we want to be in the driver's seat, or do we want to be driven by that relationship?

Industry committee  We need to be providing an enabling framework and not a constraining one. I say that in all sincerity. In the example I cited in my opening remarks, this company tried for four years to get through the regulatory process to be able to open a foundry. They spent millions of dollars trying to do that.

Industry committee  I'll let you answer first, Mr. Lee.

Industry committee  My only comment is that we have to do better than what we're doing now. I'm interested in seeing where this goes. The jury's still out, so to speak.

Industry committee  The first thing is that, if we agree that this is critical to our national interests, we need to look at the entire value chain and figure out where our friction points are and then mitigate against those so that we are able to build them here. I'll give you another example of the reason why we want to process material in Canada.

Industry committee  Thank you. It's an interesting question because when you think of what international needs are.... In China, they have an aging population. What they want to do is learn how our seniors system, believe it or not.... I know many of us in this country believe that it's broken, but in many cases, countries like China that are experiencing a vast aging of their population are looking to Canada for solutions.

Industry committee  Again, having been in the business of doing business with folks who want to invest in this country, the regulatory environment is a key one. If we are going to lay out conditions that are going to impact, for example, IP, we need to make sure that they're clear and transparent so people understand what those things are going to be when it comes to national security.

Industry committee  When it comes to an ally, there will be opportunities to speak to them. I think the point has been raised. Acts like the Patriot Act are a point of interest for many folks who are looking to access the U.S. market. They come to Canada to be able to store their data here but still be able to access the largest market in the world, which is the U.S.

Industry committee  I'm happy to start. The problem is that I don't know what those pre-filing conditions will be, because they have not been outlined in regulation yet. It's really hard to make a qualified answer to the conditions. To follow on Mr. Lee's point, anything we do that's going to add to the regulatory burden of companies' trying to invest here will be a disincentive, not an incentive, to people.

Industry committee  Less is more in this particular case, yes.