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Results: 701 - 800 of 851
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
You referred to Scandinavia, Germany and China, where there is a lot of innovation in the area of clean technologies.
Is it too late for Canada? Will it be possible to do that here?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
British Columbia and Alberta chose another system. Will it be possible to have an array of clean technologies with that approach?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much to our witnesses, including our witness who is joining us long distance. It has been really valuable for the committee to hear directly from people running businesses.
Ms. Bak, I was really interested in the comment in your presentation about Canada being invited for years to second technical experts to the World Bank. Can you explain a little more what that invitation has been and why you think it is so important that we do it but haven't been doing it so far?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much for that. I know our analysts were listening. I think that would be a good specific point to raise.
I was also really interested in your reference to the fact that a lack of a clear national environmental strategy means that Canada has been losing out on specific agreements, like the U.S.-Mexico deal. Again, I wonder if you could elaborate on that a little. Where, in your view, should Canada have been and what have we lost?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Do I have time for one more question, Mr. Chair?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Okay, great.
Ms. Materi, I was really interested in your reference a moment ago to the Asian infrastructure bank. As you know, Canada is not a member. Should we be?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Okay, thank you very much.
I just have a final question for our three witnesses who are here.
We heard some really interesting testimony from an entrepreneur from British Columbia. As a woman starting her own company, she said she was surprised to discover she had greater problems getting access to capital than she would have done had she been a man.
To our three women witnesses, have any of you experienced that? Do you have any ideas on what we can do to help?
Ms. Jackowetz, you look—
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
You've seen how excited my colleague Murray is to have the great Victoria companies. Since I'm the MP for Toronto Centre, I'm going to start with the Toronto companies. It's great to have great entrepreneurs from Toronto here too.
Mr. Bar-Ziv, I thought your points about trade being a global competition were extremely well made, and you clearly have experience, not only in this current company, but in your past life, as you put it. Based on that experience, what are a couple of the best practices that you've seen from other countries in supporting their entrepreneurs in global trade that we should be doing? Is there something you've seen Israel doing? Is there something you've seen the U.S. doing? I don't know, maybe Finland is great at it.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Okay, and you think we're not doing that enough now?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Now to make that work, you've cited the Israeli example. Something Israel has been very good at is a cluster strategy and something sort of similar to what Glen was talking about, but really focusing on what it sees as the country's core strengths and building out from there.
Do you think Canada needs to do that? Are we in danger of sort of spreading the peanut butter too thin across too many different areas?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you.
Dr. Laslo-Baker, I was interested in everything you had to say. I have small kids too and I'm going to yell at them when I get home for not inspiring me to found a brilliant, successful company. In particular regarding your point about the difficulties that small trading companies can have getting credit, I'd like to ask you not so much about the government side of things but how you feel about the attitude of Canadian banks. We've heard from other witnesses at the committee that they feel that maybe those conservative lending practices that served us quite well in 2008 aren't so fabulous if you're an entrepreneur, especially one doing international trade. Has that been your experience?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Sorry, Ms. Grewal, we've hit five minutes. Is that okay?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much.
As you may have noticed, Randy has transformed himself. He had to step away, so he's asked me to be your chair for the last 45 minutes. Randy and I share an intense interest in farm implements and their trade into eastern Europe.
Next up is Murray Rankin for five minutes.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
We're going to have to leave it there, and thank you for that excellent question.
I'm going to allow myself some editorial comment. I also thought that was an excellent report by the Conference Board. Thank you for that hard work.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Okay. We heard it here first.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Allen, you have five minutes.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Should we let Mr. Stebbins follow up?
An hon. member: Yes.
The Vice-Chair (Ms. Chrystia Freeland): Please, Mr. Stebbins, go for it.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you for those great questions. I think we're all especially grateful that you followed up on the women and banking comment that we were all very interested in.
Mr. Carrie, the floor is yours for five minutes.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
You have 45 seconds left.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Okay. That's a nice note on which to end your five minutes, isn't it?
Okay, Ms. Liu, please.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
I think that is a lovely note on which to conclude those sets of questions.
Normally when we have only one panel in this committee we tend to wrap up around now. Do I have the consent of the committee to do that?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
Mr. Ron Cannan: Thanks for building these relationships.
The Vice-Chair (Ms. Chrystia Freeland): There you go.
On behalf of all of us here, thank you very much to all of our witnesses. As usual, it was great to hear from Mr. Hodgson, but I think it was particularly inspiring for all of us to hear from these great Canadian entrepreneurs.
An hon. member: Hear, hear.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
We're waving to Mr. Stebbins as well.
Mr. Shawn Stebbins: Thank you.
The Vice-Chair (Ms. Chrystia Freeland): The committee is now adjourned.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I want to start with Mr. Williams.
I was interested in your comment about the harmonization of duties. That's a very big task. Are there any sort of pieces to it, first steps, that would be helpful for you and that you could see as feasible?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Okay, thank you very much.
I have a question, again for you, Mr. Williams, and also for Mr. Cartmill. I think it probably doesn't apply to Ms. Malo so much.
This is on your comments about credit for your export work and how hard it is to get from Canadian banks and also Canadian government institutions. Based on your practical experience, what could we do to make that a little easier?
Mr. Williams, you could maybe go first.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Cartmill, do you have any comments on that?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Okay, thank you very much.
My next question is for the three witnesses.
Last Monday, we heard other witnesses say that there was a problem, since Canadians can have only one passport. That is a challenge for entrepreneurs who have to travel a lot for their work.
Would it help you to have two Canadian passports?
We heard from some of our witnesses on Monday that it's a real barrier to business to only be able to have one passport. They know that if people in other jurisdictions, for example in Britain, need to have two passports because of travel, they can get a second one.
Would that be useful?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
I think the comment from our witnesses was that they travel to countries where it takes a long time to get a visa. If one of your passports is in the embassy, you are blocked from travelling during that period.
I wonder if Mr. Williams and Mr. Cartmill encounter that.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Williams, do you have any comment on that?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much. It's a shame that our chairman can't ask some questions, because he's an expert in—
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
—some of these export areas, agricultural technologies to Kazakhstan.
I want to start by saying thank you so much to all the witnesses here today. As MPs we can sometimes lose sight of why we're here and what we're doing in Ottawa. Even though we've had a broken-up set of conversations with you, I have to say that for me, and I'm sure it's true for everybody else on the committee, hearing your stories of the innovative entrepreneurial work you're doing and how ambitiously you are breaking into world markets from across the country is incredibly inspiring. I think it is the view of the whole committee that it is our job to make your lives easier, ladies and gentlemen, and we are so committed to doing that. You guys are what makes Canada great, and I'm proud to be here to listen to you.
Specifically, I was very interested in the point about having two passports for people who travel for business. I was an editor at the Financial Times for many years, and British journalists can get two passports.
Is this something the other witnesses think would be a good idea? Is it a problem you have encountered?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
It seems like a small thing. Maybe we could get all-party agreement on it. Maybe it could be one of our recommendations, a really specific, concrete small thing we could do.
Another very specific thing that I think Mr. Deveau mentioned was greater ease in getting visas for potential clients, investors, and people who are coming to Canada.
Can you expand on that a little bit?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Currently the programs only go the other way.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
This is a question for Ms. Kehler.
One thing this committee is going to be talking about—I hope we'll get around to it—is the free trade agreement between Canada and Ukraine. That's something there's a lot of support for in this whole Parliament.
You talked about Kazakhstan. Have you considered doing business with Ukraine, and would you consider it even in these turbulent times there?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
The dominant fact today about the oil industry and therefore pipeline safety is the fact that it's experiencing a sudden and rather deep downturn.
Do you have any concerns that the economic pressures the oil industry is facing might have an impact on pipeline safety and on the ability of companies to meet some of these financial demands laid out in the act?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you.
As I understand it, the bill would set up a consolidated revenue fund that would be available to pay for claims that a company is unable to satisfy in the event of a catastrophic spill. Is that right?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Can you say how it's the case and how it's not the case, and give us some insight into the thinking around it?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Can you give us any sense of what the considerations would be that would go into figuring out a reasonable period of time for industry to pay back Canadians?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Labonté, in one of your answers you referred to the fact that this comes as part of a broader universe of different forms of transport and safety levels of those different forms of transport. That was especially interesting to me because in my riding of Toronto Centre there is very heightened concern about rail safety because of the rail line that passes through this very dense urban riding.
Could you give us a sense of how the safety measures set out here for pipelines compare with the level of safety and regulation for transport by rail? Have you thought about it in the context of that bigger puzzle?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
I'd like to follow up on some of the questions that Monsieur Caron and Ms. Charlton were asking specifically about the three-year time limit.
Let's imagine a situation in which the billion-dollar limit has been reached and then, after the three years, new claims arise. How would those claimants be covered?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
If I may say, in defence of that line of questioning, surely part of the job of legislation is to imagine various hypothetical situations and to cover them.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
But I thought I just understood from the first part of the answer that, if I made a claim after the three years, I would be okay because negligence had already been established, and now I'm understanding that's not the case.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Do I have another minute?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
I'll go back to Ms. Charlton's point about volumetrics versus type of goods.
Again, in my riding, on rail safety, my constituents are extremely concerned about certain types of oil being transported by rail, especially in their case the Bakken. Are there any particular types of oil transported in pipelines that you are particularly concerned about? I heard your arguments about volumetrics being the best metric, but is there something which there should be a special level of scrutiny around?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to start with Mr. Walker. Thank you very much for being here. I'm a big believer in impact investing in the B corp movement and I'm delighted to have you speak to all of us. If you could pass on my best wishes, and I think those of the committee, to Mr. Emery, who I know can't be here because there's been a death in his community.
I would like you to talk a bit more about B corp legislation. You've said that the B corp movement is doing well in Canada already without that legislation. What difference does legislation make? Why is that something we should care about?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Walker, I'd like to follow up on one fact you mentioned in your presentation. You said something about 17% of consumers not trusting manufacturers.
Can you elaborate on that. Where does that come from?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much.
Do I still have time, Mr. Chair?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Ms. Ramji, thank you very much. I'll talk fast, and I'll ask you to answer quickly too if you can.
I appreciated very much your specific recommendation about expanding the Dose of Valley program. Are there specific cities in India, China, Europe, or Brazil you think we should focus on?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Super quickly, last question.
Jim Balsillie has complained in public and to me that a problem with the Canadian start-up universe is that as soon as great companies like yours get founded in Canada and show success and start to scale up, they get bought up by the Googles and the Facebooks of the world, and that we don't really create Canadian digital champions.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Is that going to happen to you guys, and how can we stop it from happening?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'd like to start with Mr. Lang.
I won't ask you to brag about your great west coast weather. I have my dad visiting from Alberta this week, and I've already heard enough western bragging about our terrible climate.
I was really interested in the point you made about the difficulty in commercializing our research in Canada. That's something I hear about a lot. Can you talk more specifically about what we're not getting right in that space and what we could be doing to do it better?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
In your experience, which country, or maybe which cluster of universities, really gets this right? Is there a best practice that we should be following?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much, Mr. Lang.
I'd like to ask Mr. Reynolds a couple of questions.
What share of your business is done with the United States?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
How effective is NAFTA for you? Do you feel that for your U.S. customers, doing business with you is essentially the same as it would be with a U.S. company, or are there still some barriers? Is it a little bit harder for you than it would be if you were across the border?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Do you think we're going to be seeing any impact from companies like yours? We talk a lot about the impact of the weaker dollar.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
So you can take more days off now?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
You spoke very specifically, Mr. Reynolds, about how to hit some of the goals we have on getting small and medium-sized enterprises more involved in exporting and in trade. There's going to have to be an expansion of the resources available to them. It's clear that you've thought a lot about this. Do you have a specific sense of how many additional resources and what kind we need?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
You can just say a number.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Colleagues, can we begin? I think we have a quorum now.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the study of the positive effects—and maybe not only positive effects—of the global markets action plan.
I'm delighted that we have such excellent witnesses speaking to us today. We're going to start with Andy Gibbons who is the director of government relations for WestJet.
Thanks for being here, Mr. Gibbons. We'll give you ten minutes to begin and then we'll ask you many brilliant and inspired questions.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much, Mr. Gibbons. You were exactly on time. You and your team did an excellent job.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
You were three seconds over. That's pretty impressive.
We have one more witness. We are now going to hear from Mr. Mike Darch of the Consider Canada City Alliance. He's joining us by video conference from Miami, which I'm sure is much warmer than here.
Thank you very much for joining us, Mr. Darch.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much, Mr. Darch, for a really interesting presentation, exactly on time.
On a personal note, thank you for not lording it over us too much with the excellent weather I'm sure you're going to enjoy later this afternoon.
We'll now go to questions, gentlemen. Your first questions will come from Ms. Laurin Liu, please.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Okay. Mr. Gibbons, you have about 30 seconds to answer
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Now we will hear from Mr. Mike Allen, please.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Darch, I'm so sorry. Can you just wrap up your sentence because we've gone over the time.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much.
I would like to ask the indulgence of my colleagues on the committee. It is normally the Liberals' turn to ask questions for five minutes. If anyone would like to pose as a Liberal, we could do that. But it might cause fewer problems to have me do it.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
I was teasing.
We'll time me strictly, and I'd like to start with a question for both Mr. Gibbons and Mr. Darch. We've heard in other testimony to the committee some concerns about CATSA, and some real concerns about how while there may be a bottleneck now, it could become more acute in the summer, and about how there are some funding issues.
I see you nodding, Mr. Gibbons. What are your thoughts about that?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
What is the issue?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
You said it's not this and it's not that. What's your concern and what could we as a committee try to do about it?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you.
Mr. Darch, do you want to add anything to that?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you.
Mr. Gibbons, you emphasized in your testimony that WestJet does its heavy maintenance in Canada. Can you talk a little bit about why you've made that decision, and whether economically it is making sense for you? Are there any government policies that could encourage other airlines to be doing the same?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
I'm going to cut myself off there just short of five minutes. I think Mr. Cannan has some questions.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
We're going to have to leave it there, Mr. Cannan. I'm sorry.
Thank you very much, Mr. Gibbons.
We have 10 minutes left to go, so I'm going to suggest that we give Monsieur Morin trois minutes.
Mr. Morin, you have the floor.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Okay, we're going to have to leave it there.
Merci, monsieur Morin.
Thank you very much, Mr. Gibbons and Mr. Darch.
Mr. Darch, I hope the video conferencing experience was great. I know you would have preferred to be here with us.
Thank you both very much for that excellent testimony.
We'll now suspend for a few minutes before our next exciting session.
The meeting is suspended.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
It's 4:30, so we'll resume our committee meeting.
We are going to have the pleasure of hearing from Mr. James Cherry of Aéroports de Montréal, and then Mr. Jerry Staples of the Halifax International Airport Authority.
Mr. Cherry, the floor is yours. You have ten minutes.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much for that testimony, Mr. Cherry.
Now we will hear from Mr. Jerry Staples of the Halifax International Airport Authority.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much, Mr. Staples.
We will now move to questions. We are going to start with Ms. Liu, who has seven minutes.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Okay.
I'm sorry, Mr. Cherry, and Ms. Liu, you were almost a minute over, so we'll have to leave it there, but thank you very much.
Now we're going to hear from Mr. Gill.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
I'm sorry, Mr. Staples, we have to leave it there. We've almost hit eight minutes.
Thank you very much, Mr. Gill.
May I again ask the indulgence of my fellow members of the committee to ask a couple of questions on behalf of the Liberal Party?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
The Vice-Chair (Ms. Chrystia Freeland): I want to start with you in particular, Mr. Cherry.
You used some strong language in your statement—it's okay, you're surrounded by MPs; we like strong language—talking about airports and the airport industry being a cash cow because of the tax regime.
I would love to get you to expand on that, and also to give us a sense of how it would need to change for you to feel that Canadian airports are competitive, particularly with U.S. airports, which are an option for so many Canadian travellers.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Would that neutral position for you be just not having to pay rent anymore?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
I saw you nodding your head, Mr. Staples. Do you have a ten-second point you would like to add?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much, gentlemen. We're going to have to leave it there, because I have to be extremely strict with myself.
That was just under five minutes, for the benefit of the rest of the committee.
Now we'll have seven minutes of questions from Ms. Grewal, please.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much, gentlemen.
We've just gone...almost up to eight minutes. I'd like to ask the committee for their shared view. We agreed last week that at the end of today's meeting we would spend 15 minutes instructing our excellent analysts on the report that they now need to write, or perhaps be instructed by them about it.
We could go ahead and do that now, or we could have a few more questions. What's the view?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
But would we like to do one more round of questioning or go straight to the report?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Okay. We wouldn't get to me anyway, so that's okay with me too.
Thank you very much, Mr. Cherry and Mr. Staples, for fascinating testimony. We really appreciate your time.
Our meeting is now suspended, and we will go in camera.
[Proceedings continue in camera]
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much, and thank you, Ms. Campbell and Mr. Myers, for some great presentations.
I'd like to start with Ms. Campbell and pick up on your China point. I have two questions about China. What would it take to conclude exactly that sort of bilateral agreement, and to what extent is the lack of a reciprocal 10-year visa deal, like the one the U.S. has with China, an obstacle to Canada doing business?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Sorry to interrupt, but it's great to have a woman witness. We should make a point of having more of those.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
I saw you nodding, Mr. Myers, as I asked about China. I'd like to give you a chance to pitch in. In particular if Canada were to get to a bilateral agreement with China ahead of the United States would the companies you represent see that as a competitive advantage for them?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
We have 60 seconds left. Ms. Campbell, I was really struck by your emphasis on the U.S. trade relationship and describing it as primordial; great adjective.
You talked about Buy America, which I think is a real issue for a lot of us. I'm happy for Mr. Myers to take this quickly also. What specifically should we be doing to get past that?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Okay, well thank you very much, Mr. Eng and Ms. McKee, for joining us. I'm the MP for Toronto Centre, so you are incredibly important to my constituents.
Mr. Eng, I hope you're feeling comfortable speaking before this committee because, as it turns out—although neither of us represents Edmonton—your two vice-chairs today both have Edmonton roots.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
So, we all have that in common.
I thought your presentation was terrific and I really was delighted to hear both your ambitions about Pearson being the premier North American airport and the global context in which you see those ambitions. That is terrific, and it's our responsibility to do everything we can to help you.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
I'd like to start with a very specific question. We heard from Calgary airport some concerns about CATSA and real concerns that the airport was building up the infrastructure to move, in a hassle-free and quick way, lots of business travellers, but that CATSA staffing was simply not up to it. We heard real concerns about underfunding of CATSA and, in particular, that we're going to hit a bottleneck in the summer. Does that ring true to your experience?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Of these bottlenecks that you've referred to, which is the biggest problem for you? What should we be focusing on to try to help fix this for you?
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