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I had the pleasure of sitting down with Minister Pierre Poilievre this week to chat (mostly) about his role as the Ottawa senior minister, responsible for the national capital. The interview was the subject of my weekend column, which you can find here.
Of course, not everything from our conversation made it into the column, so here’s an edited transcript for your perusal. A couple of notes, however. To be fair to Poilievre — who in addition to being the 35-year-old MP for Nepean-Carleton, is also the minister of employment and social development, as well as minister of state for democratic reform — his comments didn’t need too much editing. He chose his words carefully.
I, ahem, can’t say the same for myself. At one point, I go into a diatribe basically about why he’s wrong on his stance on the Memorial to the Victims of Communism. I have edited my “questions” quite a bit.
One last thing, because there are some things you sometimes just can’t glean from the printed word: we had a congenial talk, despite our disagreements. Those who know Poilievre solely from his public persona as a fierce partisan may find that surprising, but your constituents don’t usually re-elect you four times if you’re a complete schmuck.
Here we go.
JC: How do you view your role in terms of capital?
PP: I’m very humbled by this opportunity. I don’t take it for granted, believe me. These offices are lent, they are not given. They have to be earned every day.
My approach to it. I want a professional relationship with the mayor and his council, and I think we have one. That said, I’m acutely aware that I don’t work for institutional Ottawa. I work for everyday folks in the capital region. While I’m going to listen to politicians at other levels of government, I’m going to constantly remind myself that I work for the everyday citizens on the ground who are not even involved in politics.
So, what does the Somali immigrant family think? How can we make their lives better? What does the middle class family in Barrhaven think? How can we them get ahead? What about the owner of Osgoode Tires? How can we make his business succeed? These are the questions I’m going to try to ask myself as I represent the national capital region.
JC: You’re now also responsible for the National Capital Commission. When did you first become aware of the NCC?
PP: When I first got elected back in ’04, I felt like I was a city councillor because I was forever dealing with some hyper-local issue that the NCC had created in my backyard. Whether they were declaring the ditch along Limebank Road to be a national-interest land mass that couldn’t be developed, and therefore the city couldn’t expand Limebank Road, or they were charging rent to the Queensway-Carleton Hospital or they were preventing the farmer on Fallowfield, from volunteering his afternoon to cut the lawn on the Merivale St. Monica’s Catholic Church because apparently you’re not supposed to cut the grass in greenspace, there was forever a frustration.
But I have found in the last five to 10 years, the NCC has turned all of that around. I get almost no complaints anymore about decisions of the NCC. I find they return calls from everyday people on the ground, they solve problems quickly and they deserve enormous credit for how responsive they’ve become to local concerns and complaints.
JC: What to do you attribute that to?
PP: I think they just got the message about six or seven years ago that they needed to serve the community. Sure they have a national mandate, but that doesn’t mean they need to be a nuisance to the local residents. And they know that. I think (CEO) Mark Kristmanson runs the NCC like a small business person would run their daily operation. He treats people like customers who deserve respect. He’s running a lean operation and he gets things done. I think they’ve got the attitude right and everything else has followed.
JC: Leaders in Ottawa are cautiously excited about the public transit plan announced in the federal budget (promising to invest $750 million in 2017 and 2018, and $1 billion permanently every year starting in 2019). I think it’s fair to say that until now, there hasn’t been a huge amount of enthusiasm for Ottawa’s Phase 2 LRT plans. Is that fund meant for project’s like Ottawa’s, or for all transit plans across the country?
PP: I think the details are still being crystallized. The fund was only announced a week ago (April 21). Royal Galipeau (the Ottawa-Orleans MP) has really become our expert on light rail and Ottawa transit. I know he’s currently examining the fund’s applicability to Ottawa’s situation. I’m looking forward to seeing the fruit that his work will bear.
JC: Do you know much about the parameters of the fund?
PP: It’s basically a mass transit fund. We have a fund for small communities already, and this is one that’s going to focus on the mass transit needs of larger centres.
JC: So is it fair to say that this fund is meant for substantial projects?
PP: Yes.
JC: What’s your view on that sort of federal investment, especially with regards to Ottawa?
PP: I think that Ottawa’s got to get it’s fair share, and I also think that whatever we do has to be affordable because we have made the solemn commitment that we will not be raising taxes.
JC: What does fair share mean?
PP: I think we’ve been getting our fair share, and more even. Under John Baird, we had $600 million for the first phase of light rail, we funded a third of the Strandherd-Armstrong bridge, Royal Galipeau secured funding for the Ottawa River Action Plan, so I think that on the whole Ottawa taxpayers have fared very well under the Conservative government. And I expect that will continue.
But if you look to Toronto, where under the late Jim Flaherty, the government handed over $660 million for three subway stops. You wonder how these decisions are made, how funds are meted out.
PP: But we have $600 million for Ottawa already, and that was just Phase One.
JC: That’s was ages ago!
PP: Oh yeah, yeah. The project isn’t even done yet!
JC: But we’re thinking ahead — planning! I know you talk about Mr. Galipeau being involved in local decisions, but Mr. Baird was too. For example, he pressed for money for the National Arts Centre overhaul. And you are the new Mr. Baird. So how involved will you be in these sorts of decisions?
PP: My goal is to have a professional relationship with the city to ensure that our residents get their fair share, that we keep taxes low, and that our investments produce results for real people. That is really my role here. That said, I’m not afraid to rely on the expertise of others. Like I said, Royal Galipeau has been involved in municipal questions now decades and I I turn to him for a lot of guidance and advice on how we can secure results.
JC: Results for real people — that’s a pragmatic-sounding approach that most would agree should be the goals of politicians. But when you’re dealing with the NCC, they’re looking at protecting the national character of the capital. Is this greenspace nationally significant? What do we do with LeBreton Flats, one of the last public spaces in downtown Ottawa? How do you decide what’s appropriate?
PP: I have no problem seeing business play a role in developing these public lands into something that’s attractive to the public. Whether it’s the Windmill development (on the old Domtar lands) or LeBreton Flats, I think it’s very positive we’re asking businesses to come forward and using the free market to get customers and constituents the best outcome possible. We’ll have an open competition. I’m not going to influence its outcome, but I do think the NCC has made the right decision to open it up for proposals and make the one that’s in the interest of both our locality and the nation. That’s the approach that they’re taking.
JC: Are there any instances where you’d say, “This is a project of national significance that’s worth public money”?
PP: What do you mean in particular?
JC: There are some projects like the Museum of Science and Technology where it’s not appropriate for business to fund it. Are there times where, whether it’s to protect or enhance the character of the national capital, that public money should be spent? In what instances is that appropriate?
PP: I believe the government should do the things that people cannot do for themselves. For example, major public infrastructure projects are delivered by government by and large. I thought it was appropriate that the three governments kicked in for the Strandherd Armstrong bridge. I can tell you that the quality of life has improved exponentially in that part of town.
Every week I use it two or three times.There was really no private-sector solution for that.
JC: Let’s talk about the Memorial to the Victims of Communism. Is there any sense that the federal government will respond to criticism over its location and scope? That’s a project where the public is putting money into it, even though it was a private group proposing the project.
PP: The group will have to manage the costs to make it affordable within the budget.
JC: The government is also putting in some money (about $3 million of the estimated $5 million cost). Why is that appropriate in this case?
PP: We actually put money into memorials and monuments right across the country. I don’t know of a major monument in Ottawa that does not have some public funding, so why shouldn’t this one?
This is something governments have done for a very long time. Look, this is partly a Canadian story. We have eight million Canadians whose origins are in countries that are oppressed by Communism. Our soldiers fought Communism in the Korean War. Communist regimes murdered 100 million in the 20th century, and it’s altogether fitting and proper that we should record that history and make it available for public display.
As for the location, I think that it’s entirely appropriate. We need to state some misconceptions that have formed. It’s not going in front of the Supreme Court — a lot of people don’t realize that, though. Reporters are saying “next to,” and people picture it’s going in front of it.
The alternative is another government building for lawyers. I haven’t had anybody in my downtown constituency tell me downtown Ottawa needs another government building in which to house lawyers. I guarantee you that such a proposal would cost more money and would have significantly less meaning to the nation’s capital. So out of those two options, I have no trouble supporting the Memorial for the Victims of Communism.
There are millions of Canadians who want this memorial built. Their voices are under-reported. That is a perfect example of the disconnect between institutional Ottawa and real Ottawa. I believe that the thousands of people in the city who have their family origins in countries formerly oppressed by communism want this monument. It is sacred and important to them. I am going to stand up for them.”
JC: I have a couple things to say on that. (Poilievre’s staff tries to say we need to wrap it up, but the minister brushes them off, insisting that our conversation continue.)
It’s a bit of a straw-man argument to say it’s either one or the other — the memorial or the federal court building. Maybe we shouldn’t build a new legislative building, maybe we need a new plan, but to put a very significant monument there, it changes that part of the Hill permanently, without consultation, without anything.
(I go on for a few minutes here, about the memorial was originally meant to go at the Garden of the Provinces, which I thought was more appropriate and which Jason Kenney approved of in 2010 a press release. Also I challenge the premise that millions of Canadians want this memorial at this location — I get letters from readers saying their families actually suffered under communism and they don’t like this monument — so unless we conduct a poll, who’s to know? I’ll spare you all the details, but at the end, Poilievre says: “So what’s your question?” We both laugh because, well, fair enough.)
JC: Do you really think that people want this particular memorial in that specific location? I think there’s a difference between the actual monument and the idea of the monument.
PP: I think that if people have to choose between a government building for lawyers versus a monument of historical importance that will be visible to people who are driving on Wellington Street, but also protect the integrity of the Parliamentary precinct and Supreme Court, I think they would choose the latter.
JC: Do you think that’s really an honest choice?
PP: I actually think that is the choice. And I think that is ultimately what this comes down to.
JC: Alright. What are your plans in near future?
PP: One area we need to focus on in the city is to promote private-sector employment. We saw during the 1990s decades of excessive growth in the size of government and that led to massive job cuts.
JC: But that went up again, under the Conservatives).
PP: Right, and what we have to do now is ensure that we keep the cost of the public sector affordable so that we never go back to the imbalances that grew out of the ‘70s and ‘80s.
JC: I’ve heard some leaders at the city talk about how we need some sort of transition plan. Thousands Ottawans have left the public service. We see it in transit ridership numbers going down. Is there a plan?
PP: I think there is actually a positive corresponding trend. The tech sector is slowly making an impressive comeback. Now, this is obviously a North America-wide phenomenon, the NASDAQ has more than doubled in the last decade, so there’s obviously more investment in the tech sector and I believe this time it’s real, it’s not just hype.
What can the government do to encourage or help these companies?
In Ottawa, depending on how you count them, we have between 17 and 19000 high-tech companies now. 1400 of them have less than 50 employees. I think that’s positive because the sector is far more diverse now. It’s not just software, it’s communications, it’s cyber security, it’s life sciences, it’s all sorts of different high-tech enterprises. I think we have an enormous opportunity here. We’ve had three major IPOs in the last two and a half years — Halogen, Kinaxis and Shopify— this is investment that creates jobs in the community. What can we do? Three things. Trade, training and tax cuts.
We have 130 embassies and consulates in the city. We’re one of the only economies that has both free trade with the US and with the European Union, and those are the two biggest economies in the world in GDP. We have a multi-cultural population that gives us inroads in growing markets like China and India, so we need to take advantage of that.
On training, the tech sector…I want to make sure the tech sector takes advantage of the Canada Job Grant. You get a $10,000 grant from the government to tailor-make an employee and then keep that employee on the payroll after the training is done.
JC: What about the criticism that that basically just gives public money to companies who were going to hire someone anyway?
PP: I think the terms and conditions are structured so you don’t have that kind of loss. I was at a company in Toronto just two weeks ago. They make hardwood floors but they were training up eight of their employees on a new software to manage their inventory and all of them are going to do better in salary, so as a result the government get a higher tax receipt and the employee gets a higher income and the company gets a higher-trained workforce. I think that has applicability to our tech sector in Ottawa.
And then tax cuts. As I said, about 1,400 of our tech companies have less than 50 employees. The small business tax cut is a very big deal. (The budget calls for lowering the small business tax cut from 11 to 9 per cent.)
On the large corporate side, we have a 10-point advantage on the Americans and on the small business side, it’s hard to compare, but we have a much lower federal level than we did before
So this gives a lot of economic freedom for a company to grow.
JC: The $500,000 revenue threshold for small businesses seems low. Do you think it should be increased?
PP: It used to be $400,000 so we have increased it. For those companies with higher revenues, we’ve lowered the corporate tax rate from 22 to 15 per cent.
The Wall Street Journal (with Heritage Foundation) says Canada now has the fifth freest economy in the world (actually sixth) that’s five places ahead of the U.S. (again, actually six).
Bloomberg says we’re the second-best place on earth in which to do business.
So I think we have a dynamic free-enterprise economy in Canada with a heavily trained workforce in Ottawa in particular. Ultimately, the tech boom — regardless of how it ended — did train a lot of talent in the city. I’m spending a lot of time talking to Terry Matthews … so our policies can keep moving in the direction his sector needs.
JC: But do you think that when public servants lose their jobs in, say, the environment department, are those jobs transferable to the tech sector?
PP: In a lot of respects, that’s what the job grant is for. It gives people that extra $15,000 in training ($10,000 from the feds, $5,000 from the employer) to get them job-ready for positions that actually exist. The old training model of sending someone off to a university or college and get your certificate and then start circulating your resume, is not the right approach. We want trained people for jobs that are promised to them after they complete their training.
The other thing to keep in mind is that we have opportunities as a local tech sector to save the government money. As we digitize and move towards common technological platforms through shares services, local businesses and employees have the ability to deliver a lot of that work. That makes the government more efficient but it also creates more opportunity for our city. I think we’ve got a bright future in the tech sector and we need that. We cannot be exclusively a government town.
jchianello@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/jchianello
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Of course, not everything from our conversation made it into the column, so here’s an edited transcript for your perusal. A couple of notes, however. To be fair to Poilievre — who in addition to being the 35-year-old MP for Nepean-Carleton, is also the minister of employment and social development, as well as minister of state for democratic reform — his comments didn’t need too much editing. He chose his words carefully.
I, ahem, can’t say the same for myself. At one point, I go into a diatribe basically about why he’s wrong on his stance on the Memorial to the Victims of Communism. I have edited my “questions” quite a bit.
One last thing, because there are some things you sometimes just can’t glean from the printed word: we had a congenial talk, despite our disagreements. Those who know Poilievre solely from his public persona as a fierce partisan may find that surprising, but your constituents don’t usually re-elect you four times if you’re a complete schmuck.
Here we go.
JC: How do you view your role in terms of capital?
PP: I’m very humbled by this opportunity. I don’t take it for granted, believe me. These offices are lent, they are not given. They have to be earned every day.
My approach to it. I want a professional relationship with the mayor and his council, and I think we have one. That said, I’m acutely aware that I don’t work for institutional Ottawa. I work for everyday folks in the capital region. While I’m going to listen to politicians at other levels of government, I’m going to constantly remind myself that I work for the everyday citizens on the ground who are not even involved in politics.
So, what does the Somali immigrant family think? How can we make their lives better? What does the middle class family in Barrhaven think? How can we them get ahead? What about the owner of Osgoode Tires? How can we make his business succeed? These are the questions I’m going to try to ask myself as I represent the national capital region.
JC: You’re now also responsible for the National Capital Commission. When did you first become aware of the NCC?
PP: When I first got elected back in ’04, I felt like I was a city councillor because I was forever dealing with some hyper-local issue that the NCC had created in my backyard. Whether they were declaring the ditch along Limebank Road to be a national-interest land mass that couldn’t be developed, and therefore the city couldn’t expand Limebank Road, or they were charging rent to the Queensway-Carleton Hospital or they were preventing the farmer on Fallowfield, from volunteering his afternoon to cut the lawn on the Merivale St. Monica’s Catholic Church because apparently you’re not supposed to cut the grass in greenspace, there was forever a frustration.
But I have found in the last five to 10 years, the NCC has turned all of that around. I get almost no complaints anymore about decisions of the NCC. I find they return calls from everyday people on the ground, they solve problems quickly and they deserve enormous credit for how responsive they’ve become to local concerns and complaints.
JC: What to do you attribute that to?
PP: I think they just got the message about six or seven years ago that they needed to serve the community. Sure they have a national mandate, but that doesn’t mean they need to be a nuisance to the local residents. And they know that. I think (CEO) Mark Kristmanson runs the NCC like a small business person would run their daily operation. He treats people like customers who deserve respect. He’s running a lean operation and he gets things done. I think they’ve got the attitude right and everything else has followed.
JC: Leaders in Ottawa are cautiously excited about the public transit plan announced in the federal budget (promising to invest $750 million in 2017 and 2018, and $1 billion permanently every year starting in 2019). I think it’s fair to say that until now, there hasn’t been a huge amount of enthusiasm for Ottawa’s Phase 2 LRT plans. Is that fund meant for project’s like Ottawa’s, or for all transit plans across the country?
PP: I think the details are still being crystallized. The fund was only announced a week ago (April 21). Royal Galipeau (the Ottawa-Orleans MP) has really become our expert on light rail and Ottawa transit. I know he’s currently examining the fund’s applicability to Ottawa’s situation. I’m looking forward to seeing the fruit that his work will bear.
JC: Do you know much about the parameters of the fund?
PP: It’s basically a mass transit fund. We have a fund for small communities already, and this is one that’s going to focus on the mass transit needs of larger centres.
JC: So is it fair to say that this fund is meant for substantial projects?
PP: Yes.
JC: What’s your view on that sort of federal investment, especially with regards to Ottawa?
PP: I think that Ottawa’s got to get it’s fair share, and I also think that whatever we do has to be affordable because we have made the solemn commitment that we will not be raising taxes.
JC: What does fair share mean?
PP: I think we’ve been getting our fair share, and more even. Under John Baird, we had $600 million for the first phase of light rail, we funded a third of the Strandherd-Armstrong bridge, Royal Galipeau secured funding for the Ottawa River Action Plan, so I think that on the whole Ottawa taxpayers have fared very well under the Conservative government. And I expect that will continue.
But if you look to Toronto, where under the late Jim Flaherty, the government handed over $660 million for three subway stops. You wonder how these decisions are made, how funds are meted out.
PP: But we have $600 million for Ottawa already, and that was just Phase One.
JC: That’s was ages ago!
PP: Oh yeah, yeah. The project isn’t even done yet!
JC: But we’re thinking ahead — planning! I know you talk about Mr. Galipeau being involved in local decisions, but Mr. Baird was too. For example, he pressed for money for the National Arts Centre overhaul. And you are the new Mr. Baird. So how involved will you be in these sorts of decisions?
PP: My goal is to have a professional relationship with the city to ensure that our residents get their fair share, that we keep taxes low, and that our investments produce results for real people. That is really my role here. That said, I’m not afraid to rely on the expertise of others. Like I said, Royal Galipeau has been involved in municipal questions now decades and I I turn to him for a lot of guidance and advice on how we can secure results.
JC: Results for real people — that’s a pragmatic-sounding approach that most would agree should be the goals of politicians. But when you’re dealing with the NCC, they’re looking at protecting the national character of the capital. Is this greenspace nationally significant? What do we do with LeBreton Flats, one of the last public spaces in downtown Ottawa? How do you decide what’s appropriate?
PP: I have no problem seeing business play a role in developing these public lands into something that’s attractive to the public. Whether it’s the Windmill development (on the old Domtar lands) or LeBreton Flats, I think it’s very positive we’re asking businesses to come forward and using the free market to get customers and constituents the best outcome possible. We’ll have an open competition. I’m not going to influence its outcome, but I do think the NCC has made the right decision to open it up for proposals and make the one that’s in the interest of both our locality and the nation. That’s the approach that they’re taking.
JC: Are there any instances where you’d say, “This is a project of national significance that’s worth public money”?
PP: What do you mean in particular?
JC: There are some projects like the Museum of Science and Technology where it’s not appropriate for business to fund it. Are there times where, whether it’s to protect or enhance the character of the national capital, that public money should be spent? In what instances is that appropriate?
PP: I believe the government should do the things that people cannot do for themselves. For example, major public infrastructure projects are delivered by government by and large. I thought it was appropriate that the three governments kicked in for the Strandherd Armstrong bridge. I can tell you that the quality of life has improved exponentially in that part of town.
Every week I use it two or three times.There was really no private-sector solution for that.
JC: Let’s talk about the Memorial to the Victims of Communism. Is there any sense that the federal government will respond to criticism over its location and scope? That’s a project where the public is putting money into it, even though it was a private group proposing the project.
PP: The group will have to manage the costs to make it affordable within the budget.
JC: The government is also putting in some money (about $3 million of the estimated $5 million cost). Why is that appropriate in this case?
PP: We actually put money into memorials and monuments right across the country. I don’t know of a major monument in Ottawa that does not have some public funding, so why shouldn’t this one?
This is something governments have done for a very long time. Look, this is partly a Canadian story. We have eight million Canadians whose origins are in countries that are oppressed by Communism. Our soldiers fought Communism in the Korean War. Communist regimes murdered 100 million in the 20th century, and it’s altogether fitting and proper that we should record that history and make it available for public display.
As for the location, I think that it’s entirely appropriate. We need to state some misconceptions that have formed. It’s not going in front of the Supreme Court — a lot of people don’t realize that, though. Reporters are saying “next to,” and people picture it’s going in front of it.
The alternative is another government building for lawyers. I haven’t had anybody in my downtown constituency tell me downtown Ottawa needs another government building in which to house lawyers. I guarantee you that such a proposal would cost more money and would have significantly less meaning to the nation’s capital. So out of those two options, I have no trouble supporting the Memorial for the Victims of Communism.
There are millions of Canadians who want this memorial built. Their voices are under-reported. That is a perfect example of the disconnect between institutional Ottawa and real Ottawa. I believe that the thousands of people in the city who have their family origins in countries formerly oppressed by communism want this monument. It is sacred and important to them. I am going to stand up for them.”
JC: I have a couple things to say on that. (Poilievre’s staff tries to say we need to wrap it up, but the minister brushes them off, insisting that our conversation continue.)
It’s a bit of a straw-man argument to say it’s either one or the other — the memorial or the federal court building. Maybe we shouldn’t build a new legislative building, maybe we need a new plan, but to put a very significant monument there, it changes that part of the Hill permanently, without consultation, without anything.
(I go on for a few minutes here, about the memorial was originally meant to go at the Garden of the Provinces, which I thought was more appropriate and which Jason Kenney approved of in 2010 a press release. Also I challenge the premise that millions of Canadians want this memorial at this location — I get letters from readers saying their families actually suffered under communism and they don’t like this monument — so unless we conduct a poll, who’s to know? I’ll spare you all the details, but at the end, Poilievre says: “So what’s your question?” We both laugh because, well, fair enough.)
JC: Do you really think that people want this particular memorial in that specific location? I think there’s a difference between the actual monument and the idea of the monument.
PP: I think that if people have to choose between a government building for lawyers versus a monument of historical importance that will be visible to people who are driving on Wellington Street, but also protect the integrity of the Parliamentary precinct and Supreme Court, I think they would choose the latter.
JC: Do you think that’s really an honest choice?
PP: I actually think that is the choice. And I think that is ultimately what this comes down to.
JC: Alright. What are your plans in near future?
PP: One area we need to focus on in the city is to promote private-sector employment. We saw during the 1990s decades of excessive growth in the size of government and that led to massive job cuts.
JC: But that went up again, under the Conservatives).
PP: Right, and what we have to do now is ensure that we keep the cost of the public sector affordable so that we never go back to the imbalances that grew out of the ‘70s and ‘80s.
JC: I’ve heard some leaders at the city talk about how we need some sort of transition plan. Thousands Ottawans have left the public service. We see it in transit ridership numbers going down. Is there a plan?
PP: I think there is actually a positive corresponding trend. The tech sector is slowly making an impressive comeback. Now, this is obviously a North America-wide phenomenon, the NASDAQ has more than doubled in the last decade, so there’s obviously more investment in the tech sector and I believe this time it’s real, it’s not just hype.
What can the government do to encourage or help these companies?
In Ottawa, depending on how you count them, we have between 17 and 19000 high-tech companies now. 1400 of them have less than 50 employees. I think that’s positive because the sector is far more diverse now. It’s not just software, it’s communications, it’s cyber security, it’s life sciences, it’s all sorts of different high-tech enterprises. I think we have an enormous opportunity here. We’ve had three major IPOs in the last two and a half years — Halogen, Kinaxis and Shopify— this is investment that creates jobs in the community. What can we do? Three things. Trade, training and tax cuts.
We have 130 embassies and consulates in the city. We’re one of the only economies that has both free trade with the US and with the European Union, and those are the two biggest economies in the world in GDP. We have a multi-cultural population that gives us inroads in growing markets like China and India, so we need to take advantage of that.
On training, the tech sector…I want to make sure the tech sector takes advantage of the Canada Job Grant. You get a $10,000 grant from the government to tailor-make an employee and then keep that employee on the payroll after the training is done.
JC: What about the criticism that that basically just gives public money to companies who were going to hire someone anyway?
PP: I think the terms and conditions are structured so you don’t have that kind of loss. I was at a company in Toronto just two weeks ago. They make hardwood floors but they were training up eight of their employees on a new software to manage their inventory and all of them are going to do better in salary, so as a result the government get a higher tax receipt and the employee gets a higher income and the company gets a higher-trained workforce. I think that has applicability to our tech sector in Ottawa.
And then tax cuts. As I said, about 1,400 of our tech companies have less than 50 employees. The small business tax cut is a very big deal. (The budget calls for lowering the small business tax cut from 11 to 9 per cent.)
On the large corporate side, we have a 10-point advantage on the Americans and on the small business side, it’s hard to compare, but we have a much lower federal level than we did before
So this gives a lot of economic freedom for a company to grow.
JC: The $500,000 revenue threshold for small businesses seems low. Do you think it should be increased?
PP: It used to be $400,000 so we have increased it. For those companies with higher revenues, we’ve lowered the corporate tax rate from 22 to 15 per cent.
The Wall Street Journal (with Heritage Foundation) says Canada now has the fifth freest economy in the world (actually sixth) that’s five places ahead of the U.S. (again, actually six).
Bloomberg says we’re the second-best place on earth in which to do business.
So I think we have a dynamic free-enterprise economy in Canada with a heavily trained workforce in Ottawa in particular. Ultimately, the tech boom — regardless of how it ended — did train a lot of talent in the city. I’m spending a lot of time talking to Terry Matthews … so our policies can keep moving in the direction his sector needs.
JC: But do you think that when public servants lose their jobs in, say, the environment department, are those jobs transferable to the tech sector?
PP: In a lot of respects, that’s what the job grant is for. It gives people that extra $15,000 in training ($10,000 from the feds, $5,000 from the employer) to get them job-ready for positions that actually exist. The old training model of sending someone off to a university or college and get your certificate and then start circulating your resume, is not the right approach. We want trained people for jobs that are promised to them after they complete their training.
The other thing to keep in mind is that we have opportunities as a local tech sector to save the government money. As we digitize and move towards common technological platforms through shares services, local businesses and employees have the ability to deliver a lot of that work. That makes the government more efficient but it also creates more opportunity for our city. I think we’ve got a bright future in the tech sector and we need that. We cannot be exclusively a government town.
jchianello@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/jchianello
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