Canada’s economy, trade infrastructure need work: Beatty
Canada needs to step up its effort to grow the economy through improving its regulatory regime and investment in trade infrastructure, Canadian Chamber of Commerce President & CEO Perrin Beatty told a breakfast with heavy construction industry members November 17.
Beatty was the keynote speaker at the MHCA annual Awards Breakfast Friday, which was attended by Premier Wab Kinew, MTI Minister Lisa Naylor and Canadian Construction Association President Mary Van Buren.
The breakfast at the RBC Convention Centre attracted about 200 members of MHCA and business association representatives.
Beatty said regulatory complexity is driving away foreign trade and investment.
“No one in business today has to be told that our current patchwork of overlapping regulations and taxes is time-consuming, unpredictable, and inefficient.”
Smarter regulation benefits environmental, social and economic protections and drives economic growth, which spins off revenues to government necessary for social services, he said.
“But we can only achieve that growth if we have reliable supply chains capable of getting goods to and from market on schedule,” Beatty stressed.
Beatty also spoke to the need for a national, strategic trade corridor investment plan.
Beatty, Van Buren and Gary Mar, President of the Canada West Foundation, and WCR&HCA President & CEO Chris Lorenc met with Premier Kinew November 16 in the Premier’s office, seeking his support for a Canada Trade Infrastructure Plan. The Premiers’ Council of the Federation in July endorsed the principles of CTIP, and called upon Prime Minister Jusin Trudeau to hold a First Ministers’ meeting on strategic infrastructure, including trade corridor investment.
Kinew, at the meeting, committed to moving ahead on CTIP. Some 66% of Canada’s and 53% of Manitoba’s economy depends on trade.
“Without modern trade infrastructure, goods can’t get to market, and critical inputs can’t be imported to be used in the production of goods here in this country,” Beatty said. “Without them, production shuts down or prices increase. Real-time supply chains require efficient infrastructure to operate.”
A World Economic Forum survey of global competitiveness found Canada’s rank for quality of transportation infrastructure fell from 10th among nations in 2009 to 32nd, in 2019, behind Azerbaijan.
Canada needs to rebuild its international reputation as a reliable trading partner and as an attractive place to do business, he stressed.
Van Buren told the gathering the CCA has worked on drawing attention to the need for revitalized investment in trade infrastructure, including calling for a national infrastructure assessment and campaigning with the CTIP coalition for a strategy.
The business associations pressing for CTIP include the CCC, CCA, Canada West Foundation, Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters, Civil Infrastructure Council Corp. and the WCR & HCA.
Van Buren noted CCA is pressing for reforms to the federal immigration system to increase the entry of skilled labour to address the construction industry’s workforce shortages.
Those messages regarding workforce shortages and national infrastructure investment were central to CCA’s recent Hill Days, which brought together representatives of local industry associations across Canada to meet with cabinet ministers, senior federal department officials and MPs on Parliament Hill, she said.
MHCA President & CEO Chris Lorenc thanked both Beatty and Van Buren for their dedication and work in the last year or more with the coalition to move the campaign for a CTIP to the federal level.
To read more about CTIP, and to join in the campaign, click here.
