November 28, 2006

Economy

Construction group sees 'Advantage'

PATRICIA WILLIAMS

staff writer

The Canadian Construction Association (CCA) welcomes several policy objectives contained in Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s economic update statement to the House of Commons Finance Committee.

In addition to the regular fiscal update, the minister late last week released a 10-year economic plan entitled “Advantage Canada”, which sets out a number of policy goals the government will pursue over the coming years.

“Although short on details, the policy goals announced by Flaherty are steps in the right direction,” CCA president Michael Atkinson said in a statement Friday.

“We look forward to working with the federal government to ensure that these policy objectives will soon become tangible government policy.”

For the Canadian construction industry, the plan includes a number of welcome policy objectives, CCA said.

These include:

• Prioritizing an “infrastructure advantage” for Canada by ensuring a long-term comprehensive plan for infrastructure renewal. In addition, the federal government will make much greater use of public-private partnerships and will create a federal agency designed to facilitate the use of P3s — a specific recommendation of The Road and Infrastructure Program of Canada. The federal government also will commit to a funding strategy for a new Windsor-Detroit border crossing in the 2007 budget.

• Encouraging changes to immigration policy to bring in greater numbers of temporary foreign workers.

• Supporting an elimination of all inter-provincial labour mobility barriers by April 2009, if not sooner.

Flaherty also said the government will continue to look at capital cost allowance rates for business investment and better aligning rates with the useful life of the asset; reducing business paperwork by 20 per cent; and reducing corporate tax rates so they are among the most competitive rates among industrialized countries.

“The policy goals announced by Flaherty are steps in the right direction.”

Michael Atkinson

CCA

Because this is an economic update and not a budget, the plan does not contain specifics.

Specific announcements related to these objectives will be contained in next year’s budget.

Jeff Morrison, CCA’s director of government relations and public affairs, told Daily Commercial News that the three key elements from his association’s perspective are the focus on infrastructure, one of the government’s top five priorities and on corporate tax reductions and tax compositeness, particularly for small business, and skills upgrading and mobility of workers.

“The minister, in his speech, really underscored the need for boosting the number of skilled workers in Canada and we fully support that,” Morrison said.

Another organization with a stake in infrastructure investment is the Association of Consulting Engineers of Canada. President Claude Paul Boivin was not available Friday for comment.

In its October pre-budget submission, the association called for establishment of predictable, long-term funding in order to tackle the country’s growing infrastructure debt.

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