Well good morning. Well good morning and welcome to this morning's webinar. Our speaker today is Hugh Williams, President of IMPACT Canada and before I turn it over to you I just want to let you know that if you have any questions please submit it in the chat box at the lower of your screen. This webinar will also be recorded so you can watch it later on if you wish and with that I will turn it over to you. Hugh, thank you very much. Thank you Mike and you know those members joining us now but of course those members who will be watching it on a recorded basis, welcome. We're going to try to have a conversation a little bit about how the political dynamics have changed here in Canada which in some ways is Groundhog Day but there's important nuances for us to know about and then we're going to move into talking about you know what's really important which is AED's advocacy agenda and how we really represent your business issues most effectively in Ottawa and of course across the provinces because there's more and more federal provincial interplay. So we look forward to taking your questions but also look forward to your outreach if you don't happen to be catching this live to reach out to either Mike Dexter or my team or anybody on the AED team if you have questions, comments, suggestions. One of the great things about advocacy is you really lobby with your ears and for us on the AED team we're lobbying by listening to what goes on in Ottawa and then making sure we're part of that conversation and at the same point in time we've got to listen to what's happening with the members and to see what business priorities you have and how those translate into the most important advocacy issues and some sense of priority along that. So along the journey here we're going to share some graphics we'll tell you the story of how we're pushing forward on different issues and again really look forward to the extended conversation not just on today's webinar but as we go forward into the fall. So number one you'll all be aware that we had a federal election in many ways it was an unwanted federal election I think that's fair to say I think you know Canadians in the pre-polling showed that they didn't think there was should be an election and to some extent the Prime Minister and his team were poised to for majority government they were up eight or nine points depending on how you look at the polls and of course in the Canadian minority government situation you can design your own defeat you can go over to the Governor General and ask for an election which of course the Prime Minister did at that point it really looked to the Liberal team that they would have a runaway victory because they had such an extended lead over the opposition parties in terms of polling and usually when you hit that 39 to 40 percent area of popular vote or support that translates into a majority government across the country but what we saw during the first few weeks of the campaign is that support quickly dissipated and a lot of that was discontent around actually having a pandemic a lot of the Trudeau brand had been wrapped up in the concept of you know we need to stay home we need to not travel we need to we need to take precautions we've had a much more precautious approach here in Canada to the pandemic than our than our American counterparts and of course you know AD would do well positioned to gauge that and the results have been obviously on the on the health care side you know terrific and and much more you know much less of a health impact overall in Canada but the lockdowns have been significant the guidance from government have been significant in terms of keeping everybody safe so it was a little bit off brand that they called an election that you know all of a sudden you're jumping on an airplane you're holding rallies and a lot of internal polling that we were aware of really showed that Canadians you know just that didn't sit well with them and quickly we saw over the first three weeks of the campaign that the lead for the Liberal government dissipated it became a neck and neck race in terms of of popular vote I can tell you without you know telling tales out of school that the people that I spoke to who were on the Liberal campaign team described themselves rattled in the first couple of weeks the team is rattled or you know the team is a little bit shocked by the results but to the Prime Minister's credit much like his amateur boxing career you know he lost the the first round against Patrick, Senator Patrick Briseau pretty badly in his early boxing career but came back to to finish him I think this is kind of a similar result the Prime Minister gathered his team gathered his forces focused on the ridings where they could do well and then ultimately delivered a minority government result so the snapshot if I was to show you that you know the previous minority government results looks pretty similar to this and this is just kind of a makeup of where the house sits you can see that that you know really the the Liberals gained 159 seats what's important about that is they're just short of the jewelry mark they have to get over 170 seats to be able to have a free control of the parliament so that they can kind of relax in terms of parliamentary management with this result they are dependent on the opposition to pass any bill so they need a dance partner and you can see from that from the dance partner possibilities there that you've got the light blue there being the Bloc Quebecois with 33 seats or the NDP which you know pretty much returned the same result that they had last time with 25 seats either of which those dance partners can get any piece of legislation done and of course from a from a business perspective it's a little bit of a concerning notion that a liberal government that may want to run from a and and govern from a more centrist position has got to depend on either of those two parties to get things done of course they can do business with the Conservative Party to get things done and then during the last minority parliament there were lots of examples where the parties cooperated on all initiatives but either way they'll need support as as they go through things. I'll put a few snapshots of where the seat count comes from below there and in seats by province you can see that the you know that clearly the Atlantic provinces were important but you know Fortress Ontario, Fortress Quebec really are what delivered this this government to electoral victory and I can tell you from you know spending time with Liberal MPs I had an opportunity to have dinner with some Liberal MPs this past past week you know there was a real sense of oh we're going to lose this thing and then a sense of relief as they put as they pulled pulled it out and so now the government has to to to figure out how they rule under this new scenario. I thought it would be interesting to show you the popular vote by percentage is probably the easiest way to to read that. The Conservatives finished with 33.5% of the popular vote so they actually won the popular vote more people voted Conservative than any other party but of course the Liberal vote is much more efficient that means that that that while the Conservatives can run up big numbers in some writings across the country out west and otherwise where they win by a whopping you know 10,000 vote majorities those only translate into one seat where the Liberals were eking out a number of seats and doing it by relatively small margins and from the analysis that was done by the Hill Times on this there's about 98,000 votes across spread across you know somewhere around 100 writings that that cost the Conservatives their ability to win so it was a very slim margin of victory for the Liberals but they were able to deliver another government as opposed to losing which would have been of course a disastrous result from a Liberal perspective. Seats gained and lost that's just a quick snapshot to give you some sense of where where they were and again you can see that the Conservatives had you know 5.7 million votes whereas the Liberals had that 5.5 million votes and again the Conservatives winning that popular vote but overall not able to deliver the seats in a way that was efficient. You can see the net loss in that net gain of seats and again there were some seats that were razor thin close we had one writing where Brenda Shanahan won by 12 votes in a rural Quebec writing but the Liberals basically gained two seats, the Conservatives lost two seats, the Bloc you know gained one seat, the NDP gained one seat and the Green Party of course lost one seat but for them that's a catastrophic election because they were unable to run candidates all the way across the country. Their leader finished fifth in her writing and really from a popular vote perspective they were almost irrelevant. I think one of the things I wanted to show AD members is really the map of how the election is you know portrayed and if you look at this map of Canada and you go okay the Conservatives are the blue and the Bloc is the light blue, how did the Liberals possibly win the election? We look visually on there there's so much more blue than red and again although the Conservatives had a terrific showing you know short of winning government I mean kind of historic numbers where it's the first time a party has won the popular vote both under Andrew Scheer and Aaron O'Toole but lost the overall seat count so it's you know it's quite interesting dynamic when you look at that visually but why is this important? You know that from this that the Conservatives are dominating in rural writings and as we go down into kind of the important analysis here you can see that the important part of this is that the Liberal vote was delivered by three really key strongholds for them. If you look at the GTA, the Greater Toronto Area, it is crystal clear that there is a high vote efficiency for the Liberals there whether it's you know depending on how you do the count and whether you include St Catherine's but there's 50 plus votes in that region, writings in that region that they delivered. When you think of their majority at around about you know just short of that 170 mark again at 159 seats, 52-53 seats coming out of the Greater Toronto Region really represents about a third of their political power and you can see you know really visually here that in and around the area as you start to go out into Oshawa and more the rural writings it became more and more focused on a Liberal majority in that area. I think you look at the island of Montreal again a highly dense population areas the Prime Minister and his team ran up big numbers there. There's one NDP seat there but of course the Prime Minister is a member of Parliament from the island of Montreal as well. But you can see that they really ran and ran the tables there but again all of those rural writings outside there are the in more you know suburban slash rural mix writings, Blanville and others you know heavily block Quebecois. So again a huge concentration of power coming out of the island of Montreal and of course Greater Vancouver is the same story when you look at those 20 or so seats that were delivered in the lower mainland. So it's quite a story of a shift in a political power where the power base of the Liberals is clearly urban in areas where they picked up seats in Alberta for example those were both Calgary and Edmonton seats so no rural seats for that for for them at all. And so you have a caucus and a government who know that they delivered victory at the last minute after a close defeat so there's a lot of Liberal members that I talked to in the lead up to the election were you know very skeptical about the the approach during the campaign but then have turned to kind of a grateful tone that they've delivered enough seats to be to be successful going forward here. And there's a real recognition I think within the Liberal caucus again that those urban voices are going to be disproportionately powerful going forward. You know if you're in the business of selling you know farm equipment or construction equipment that is more of a rural base you're going to see an agenda that is driven by the cities that is driven by city members of parliament in a way that's disproportionate to other governments. I'll come back to some of those things here in a second but I did want to talk a little bit about the leaders. You know a lot of media pundits you know some of whom I know very well the journalists who have come out and said this will probably be Prime Minister Trudeau's last election. There was one very prominent former CBC bureau chief who came out and said this is definitely his last election as the head of the Liberals. I'm a little more in the camp that the Prime Minister has gained enough leeway to control his caucus and to control his destiny and if he wants to stay and run another election there's going to be nobody who pops their head up to try to replace him. He's got you know he they recognize that again his popularity in those major urban centers is what delivered the government and that he's delivered three successive governments the 2015 majority government and of course the two minority governments following thereafter. So that I think provides him with a great deal of latitude. The great irony of this of course is on the Conservative side Aaron O'Toole. I would say that you know they've gone to the mattresses over on the O'Toole team to try to hang on to power as much as they can which is a very difficult thing to do when you when you lose an election. You know the Conservatives are very famous for you know chewing up their leaders. Andrew Scheer won 28 more seats than they had in the previous election and won the popular vote and was still turfed unceremoniously. Aaron O'Toole looks like he may face that that mix again talking to a number of caucus members. There's a sense of dissatisfaction as leader he didn't do enough to listen to the individual MPs. There were a number of individual MPs who were the feathers were you know ruffled to say the least that they weren't aware of the plan the election plan before it was rolled out. Even when they had areas of expertise as an example you know in a particular industrial sector the policies that came out of the election plan weren't run by them. So it's tough to keep build loyalty in that regime and I think he's going to have a very difficult time holding on to power. There's some levers that he can use. He's cleaned house in the leader of the opposition's office and removed some key players over there. But I think what we'll see here is a brewing battle in caucus and I can tell you from readouts of that caucus meeting where the Conservatives gave themselves the MPs gave themselves the power to call for a leadership review. They didn't call for a leadership review but they've given themselves the power to do that. Really unhappy caucus on election day given all of the perceived advantages. Jagmeet Singh I think is one of those anomalies where you'll remember previously Thomas Mulcair delivered 44 seats for the NDP in 2015 and he was turfed as NDP leader. Jagmeet Singh has had two successive campaigns where he's delivered 24 and 25 seats respectively. This time around they spend a ton of money and I really mean a ton of money like 25 million. They mortgaged their building just down the street from here on Bank Street to be able to pay for their election and they haven't really been able to deliver tangible results as part of that big spend. But the one advantage that he really does enjoy is the members feel well represented by him. The caucus feels well represented by him. NDP members are proud to represent him, to have him as the representative. His call on a wealth tax, his move to the left appeals to the party base so I see him being quite safe in that position. Yves-François Bellanchet I think had a really lucky break with the English language debate that the moderating team kind of went at Quebec and he still had the opportunity to stand up as the defender in that particular context. I think he's well positioned for his leadership to maintain the bloc's power in that realm. Two of the more uncertain faces, I think Emma Paul, we know her destiny. She's announced her resignation as the head of the Green Party but actually hasn't left and that's mired in again legal challenges just who pays what in terms of the legal fees. But I think regardless of whether who takes the blame, the Green Party executive, the Green Party structure or her as leader, this is truly one of the most disastrous outings for the Green Party, particularly when climate change is such a priority amongst younger voters. If you looked at choices of those voters under 30, Erin O'Toole's consistently ranking pre-election as the fourth choice. Emma Paul was well ranked. Also if you looked at those voters in Port Blanc under 35, climate change was their number one priority but again they chose not to go to the Green Party. Maxine Birney I think is probably one of the more interesting storylines for us to watch going forward. He over delivered on popular vote of course in the low single digits. He probably cost the Conservatives when you do the analysis seat by seat in Ontario, the only place he would have cost them votes or seats, probably seven to eight seats if you factor that most of his supporters would have voted Conservatives if there hadn't been a PPC candidate there. I was speaking to one Conservative out in Nova Scotia who said listen we only got elected because there was no PPC candidate opposing us. So definitely a factor if he can continue to build or was just a flash in the pan based on his anti-vaccination stance that that'll be interesting to see. So just some final election wrap-up notes and I think they, you know, the reason I'm giving you these is they affect your business, they affect how this parliament will function and certainly affect Aedes advocacy as we go forward. The Liberals more suburban, more urban and suburban than ever before. Conservatives have become even more rural and will be the voice of rural Canada for sure. NDP have some definite challenges coming from their future. They've got a real challenge with respect to their spending, their ability to raise funds and they've got to ask themselves, you know, is it worth spending that much money and effort to end up in the same spot. The bloc will continue. The Greens are on the brink of collapse which is great news for the Liberals. I mean there's nothing better than a Liberal or Green collapse for Liberals. Again, creates those splits that help them and the PPC, the People's Party of Canada is going to be an interesting challenge to watch going forward. So as you're thinking about your business model, here are some of the challenges that the Liberal agenda puts forth. Number one, they have a huge problem that they're facing with debt repayment. The message they're getting from senior officials at the Department of Finance is we've got to cut off the spending before it goes too far. I mean we spent a ton of money in the pandemic but at some point we've got to be able to manage that in a way that's effective. The reason that's important is when you figure out those debt repayment, the debt and the spending equation, you've got to figure out how you get that back and there's a whole section at the Department of Finance which is trying to figure out, okay, how do we, without killing the economy, get tax revenue flowing to make up for those enormous debt repayment schedules that we're facing. I think if you're an AED member, you've got to be concerned about potential new taxes across the board. We'll talk about one of those taxes, the luxury tax, which is greatly expanded on vehicles overall. Largely good news for AED members but it gives you some sense of where the government is going on these things. Targeting wealth, I think, is a theme that you're going to see from this government as well. As I pointed out before, they're going to need to really rely on the NDP to get over the line on all of their initiatives and the NDP is going to want to extract something from that. Jagmeet Singh was heavy, heavy, heavy on, we have to tax the wealthy, we have to tax the more fortunate. You can see that he'll be pushing that agenda as the equation for their support. One of the interesting things about that when you look at things from an NDP perspective, even though Thomas Mulcair again delivered 44 seats, he was in a majority government and had little power. Jagmeet Singh had power in the last minority government because, again, he was the dance partner to get things done. Will he be the dance partner to get things done and what price will he extract from that? It's something I think all business should be concerned with. The 18-month minority government window is short and happens quickly. The elections happened, time is ticking. Why I say 18 months is the average minority government historically lasts 18 months. The previous minority government kept to that regime. I think it's possible that the parties could settle in and go longer than the 18 months, but if it doesn't, then you're back into an election rigmarole where the parties get impatient and Canadians are forced to vote again. But I'll go on record here saying I could see this parliament lasting some three years or more just because of the dynamics that have been set up between the parties. The NDP has to fundraise, they're in a position of power, why lose that? For Prime Minister Trudeau, they've gotten used to ruling in a minority, why roll the dice again? I think that's interesting. Again, the final point I would make on that is an upgrade of NDP and bloc power overall. So COVID supports. Obviously, COVID supports were a big, big item of expenditure, particularly important on the business side for AED members. We fought hard for that to make sure that businesses were included. One of the things that most AED members may not know is that the early version from Prime Minister Trudeau and then Finance Minister Morneau was that they were going to give business support, but only to the smallest businesses. And then they shifted from that position to, okay, let's make a cutoff based on taxable capital, which would have been disastrous for AED members in terms of eliminating any possibility of support just because you're carrying large inventory. And the cutoffs that when we were debating with Bill Morneau's team at the time were draconian. Very proud of our efforts to redraw those lines and point out that you had to support all elements of the economy. You couldn't make these very sharp lines that cut off AED members. I think we're also very proud of the fact that as the Canadian Emergency Wage Subsidy Program rolled out, we had very robust conversations with the Department of Finance and leadership in the minister's office about the importance of continuing to roll that program out. And as they started to move to cut the program off, to go to a scaling system so that you weren't having AED members or like-minded businesses who are 19% down getting nothing, but somebody who's 21% down getting a full subsidy. So a feathering that allowed scaling to zero so that businesses that were AED members who were on a declining scale could still benefit and have some certainty. I think that was the right move from government and certainly one of our huge advocacy focuses. But what you're going to see now, going forward, is a huge pressure to stop spending. I can tell you from meetings that took place yesterday between a client lead and the Minister of Finance, the pressure is really on to figure out how to stop spending. I can tell you that from conversations with leading finance officials, that's the mindset that they're in. They're concerned about federal government debt, they're concerned about the huge debt of the provinces. They have one promise out there which is a promise to help the hardest hit under the tourism time frame. That was a campaign commitment made by the Liberals on day one of the campaign. There's tremendous pressure now from Dan Kelly and some of the small business groups to see if they can expand that to all businesses. It's going to be interesting to see where that goes. But they have a competing pressure where they have to end the CERB benefit. The CERB benefit is basically the payment to individuals to not work. The Canadian Emergency Recovery Benefit, that program was cut and is slated to stop. There's a challenge that the Minister of Finance sees. When you bring down the CERB payments to zero, how do you justify maintaining payments to business? I think as we move forward, those subsidies to business are going to get very, very tightly constrained as we return to normal. I think the right economic move is going to be made on cutting CERB. It's yet to see whether the NDP play on that issue at all and make it difficult for the Liberals to do. But I think the mindset from the minister, the mindset from the department, and certainly Liberal MPs are hearing it from across the country, is you can't get anybody to work in your dealership. You can't get anybody to work in your small business. There's a disincentive, which is really hurting the economy. The other issue that I think that has really become front and center for this government is vaccine mandates. They're playing that on all federally regulated businesses and also for federal employees. In the lead up on the green room to this conversation in Ottawa today, October 19th, we don't have any semblance of a return to normal here at the federal government. All federal government employees are still at home. Downtown Ottawa is pretty empty, but we anticipate as Parliament returns later this year, there'll be a more robust return to that. Speaking of Parliament, how is Parliament returning to power? First of all, the cabinet stays in continuity during this election period, but a new cabinet will be named on October 26th. One of the challenges with that, of course, is that the prime minister lost essentially four cabinet ministers in the last elections to resignations and actual seat defeats. They're all women. He's got to work on the gender balance to maintain his commitment for gender balance. In the meantime, he's made clear that obviously he's staying as prime minister and Chrystia Freeland staying as deputy prime minister and minister of finance. The remainder of the seats around the cabinet table have yet to be advanced. The house is going to be returning November 22nd, which lines up nicely with our projected advocacy day for AED, which you'll all be invited to at the end of the webinar here. I think it's interesting that a lot of commentators, and I've just pulled one from the National Post, L. Ian MacDonald, who's not an overly vocal critic of the government, but certainly talks about the liberals appearing to be in no rush to build back better. Their theme is to build back better, but that money is not flowing from infrastructure legislation or really taking any action until November 22nd. There's incongruency between the desire to get government rolling and solve Canadian problems and the timeframe that's been picked for the election, a very long lag between the actual election date and the house return, particularly given that we're in the middle of COVID and particularly given that it's the same government coming back with essentially the same seat number. A lot of concern expressed by commentators on that front, and I should say by caucus members as well, who are anxious to get back and do people's business. How does that fit into our advocacy framework? I would say that infrastructure spending, smart infrastructure spending, is really one of the important elements of AED's advocacy. We're part of the Building for Recovery Coalition. One of the key messages we give with the building recovery is that the construction sector is ready to build and the time to deliver infrastructure spending is now. We need to keep pace with the historic spending coming out of the Biden administration that we see being wrestled through the house. If Canada doesn't spend smartly and quickly at the moment, we're going to risk falling behind on that critical infrastructure. Also, when you think about stimulating the economy coming out of the COVID downturn, the best way to do it is investing in long-term assets that benefit the public. At the moment, spending has stalled. The former Minister Catherine McKenna, who was the Minister of Infrastructure, part of our work with the Building for Recovery Coalition was to map how spending was taking place. There was really an incongruency between what was the announcement, the press releases about, hey, big money targeted for infrastructure, allocated for infrastructure, but actual shovels in the ground programs going forward. There was a lot of sheepish excuses. I have to say, to let you in on the inside back and forth, the Building for Recovery Coalition, which of course is AED, Canadian Construction Associations, the Association of Consulting Engineers were involved in big picture projects in the National Trade Contractors Coalition, which represents all the trades, really made the case that the numbers don't lie. At the end of the day, if programmed money isn't going through the door, press releases aren't going to get things built. We took a hard line with the government on that, and we'll be expected to hold them to account on this. We want them to deliver on those commitments and advocate for change so that money flows out the door in a much more robust fashion. Part of that is holding them accountable to deliver as part of the media narrative. I'm pleased to report that in addition to all the media coverage and social media that we've done on this front and direct advocacy with ministers' offices, chiefs of staff, and others, the media is starting to get it. I think John Iveson's piece here is a good example of that in that, just to read that here, how Trudeau wasted a chance to spark Canadian economic growth during the pandemic, more focused on wealth redistribution than on future prosperity. That's the key argument we have to make. It's got to be focused. The economic agenda of this government has to be focused on future prosperity through infrastructure. There's a number of voices coming to the table on that. It's not like the National Post is the most influential media voice for this government, but I can tell you from having breakfast with the new publisher and owner of the Toronto Star, you'll see a more business-focused environment coming out from a whole range of media outlets that are starting to focus on that we just can't be about shifting the pie. We have to be about growing the pie in a very real way. Again, just to give you some idea of the advocacy that AEDs takes leadership on, this is an example of our Hill Times advertisement that talked about the importance to get ready to build a building for recovery is the element you're going to see more robust efforts on that front. Right to repair is one issue I wanted to mention for you and put in front of you all as an issue. Right to repair is largely at the moment tied to cell phones and appliances. People are frustrated with the appliance world. I can tell you that there's a huge appliance waste issue where consumer advocates are making that as a point and electronic waste with handhelds, tablets, and those sorts of things, the inability to repair those products are front of mind with consumers. Where this hits AED members, and you're seeing this is a global issue, is that the aftermarket, anybody who's in the repair issue outside of the manufacturer-dealer relationship wants to capitalize on that public sentiment about appliances and cell phones to make the case that they should have greater access, greater opportunity, and really, in my view, an ability to infringe upon the investment, the intellectual property of that dealer-manufacturer relationship. So look for this issue to really be prominent front and center. It's not just a Canadian issue. We're watching what's coming out of the States. We have one of the members of our team now doing a really comprehensive research piece on this in terms of public sentiment, in terms of what legislated since happening in the US and the Canadian context. One of the private members bill by an MP named Brian May, who's a wonderful member of parliament. He's just a little bit misguided on right to repair, in my view, but he's chair of the Automotive Caucus. He has a big automotive interest in his riding toad as a manufacturer in Cambridge, but he has put forward a private members bill on the issue of improving right to repair. It passed earlier last year, but before parliament broke, with 330 to zero, which isn't a sentiment on the vote itself, but it was a vote to move it to the next stage of debate. That, because it's a private members bill, will be coming back and I think will be the center of attention. You have large interests on the aftermarket side now committing huge war chests to fight this issue. I think if AAD's voice is not at the table here, I think it's very possible that almost in an unintended way, as they go after cell phones and appliances, you'll see a broadening of this fight to include equipment dealers, farm equipment dealers, and of course, automotive dealers as part of that. AAD will be working with other entities on this going forward, but this has to be a grassroots priority for us to go with. I talked about taxes. One of the Liberals' commitments in the 2019 election was to impose a luxury tax on cars, boats, and airplanes over 100 grand, a 10% tax. This issue has been battled out, but interestingly, the original promise was about cars, highlighting the fact that if you can afford a Ferrari, maybe you can afford to pay extra tax, was the argument that the Liberals were making. The same thing with luxury boats and cars. The challenge, of course, is that they have now expanded that to mean any vehicle that's over the $100,000 mark. from a tactical perspective on that, it's very challenging. You can see that the government wouldn't want to allow someone to buy a regular Porsche and have to pay the luxury tax on it, but if they bought an SUV Porsche, they wouldn't pay the tax on it. Likewise, if you have a dentist who has a private entity, commercial company decides to buy a Porsche through that, if it's only personal vehicles, then how do you get that business purchase? The problem with that is CRA, Canada Revenue Agency, has gone to finance and said, listen, you can't leave us in the situation where we're trying to enforce what's personal and what's not. So, they want a blanket provision where they go after all vehicles over 100k and make sure that they hit all, not just individual purchases, but corporate purchases. So, that's clearly a problem, but they've done a few things and I think we've been in discussions with them about how this rolls out. They've clearly exempted off-road vehicles and just as some examples of what's exempted and by no means a blanket list, they've included in their consultation paper, combine harvesters and backhoes, but also they have a gross vehicle weight exception in that if you're over that 3,156 kilo range, that vehicle is going to be exempted. So, part of this will have to be over the next little while ensuring that nothing that AED sells that's part of the productive economy gets captured accidentally by luxury tax. Clearly an F-250, just as an example, would not be captured by the luxury tax because it's too heavy, but an F-150 that was primped up to the maximum could be captured. So, that's certainly important for the decision going forward from a purchasing perspective. The good news is that they've allowed the tax as only a marginal tax and by that I mean it's 10% on the amount over $100,000, so even on the most primped up F-150 as an example, if it was $110,000, you're not paying $11,000 in tax, it's just on the marginal rate, so it's an extra $1,000 in tax, so 10%, actually 20%, excuse me, so it'd be $2,000. They're applying that on the marginal rate of 20% instead of the 10%. So, lots of work to be done on that, but the big picture win is that they understand that commercial vehicles, off-road vehicles, construction vehicles, farm vehicles should not be included in that, but working on the fine print of that legislation is going to be a priority for us to make sure we get that right as we go forward. The next one, 100% accelerated depreciation, we understand that this is a productivity issue, we're engaged with the Department of Finance to try to make this an ask. It's early days with this new government to try to fit that in and one of the challenges of course is as they look for ways to, they're not losing potential revenue, this becomes a tougher ask, but it's part of that productivity agenda. If you're going to be spending money, do it on things that drive the economy. I think we were very successful in getting those asks with the Liberal government earlier with the Finance Minister Morneau as a central figure on that. Lots of work still to be done with the current Finance Minister on that front. So how can you be a part of that? We're certainly welcoming you to attend November 29th to 30th, come to Ottawa, be part of EAD's Lobby Day. I think it's important that you become a participant in that, we're going to be lining up in-person meetings for you with members of Parliament, but beyond that, we recognize that everybody can't make it and I know Mike would like everybody to be here and I think every company should be represented. If there's some challenge, we are going to be rolling out and continue to roll out a robust grassroots process so you can connect with your members of Parliament. When you look at the mix that I gave you earlier, the Liberals and supported by the NDP or the Bloc, our voice has to be there now more than ever and the grassroots voice are impressive. I know a number of the companies came to us during the Q's crisis, we were able to work with them to make sure that they were able to access the Q's funds and there were some really sticky cases there that we're very proud of delivering for EAD members, but the challenge is if we're not at the table telling the story of what we do with these urban members of Parliament, they won't know and it's harder to get those asks through and I think Mike Dexter says it best, I can see him nodding his head, if you're not at the table, you're going to be on the menu. So come to Ottawa, be part of it, we'd be glad to have you and with that I'll stop and stop the share and welcome Mike back into the conversation for Q&A or chat. Thanks, right now I didn't see any questions here, I just looked, I think there's one coming in, hold on one second, bear with me. With the right to repair, can you explain a little bit more about what the next step would be? Yeah, you have two competing problems that you have on right to repair, one is you've got this private member's bill that could be expanded or could be perceived to impact our sector, private member's bills have to go through a different process to get into government hands, but I can tell you from the last big right to repair fight that took place in 2011, there was a member of parliament who's still a member of parliament, Brian Massett of Windsor, an NDP member of parliament that really pushed the concept of right to repair, he had a private member's bill, which in the Canadian system is kind of a long shot to get done, but not impossible, but because he pushed that piece of legislation, the government decided to act and at that point in time, we were able to turn that into kind of a more voluntary system in terms of information sharing, as opposed to a draconian piece of legislation. So one of the risks that exists is that as this piece of legislation makes its way through, the government comes up with legislation and they move to a realm where they start to push that in terms of a piece of government legislation that could be quite problematic for members and one of the things that members of parliament have to understand is that it's not just the investment of equipment and technology that dealers are asked to make and dealing with their manufacturers, but it's even more than that, it's the time and energy that experts have to go through with it and that process, when it's opened up in a way, there's danger issues with it, but there's also business fairness issues with it. So there's copyright issues that go along with that, there's privacy issues, all of those issues have to be considered, it's not just a blanket, hey, we let everybody into the system. So there's privacy legislation going through at the moment and copyright legislation that's on the government's agenda, we'll have to make sure as each of those pieces of legislation go through that it's not a move by the aftermarket to really push an agenda that puts some tricks in there that really opens up this issue. On the private member side of the equation, we'll have to monitor that as it goes and make sure that if it passes, it's really targeted at where it should be, which is at the cell phone market and the appliance market where the problem exists, because there's not a consumer outcry, I'm talking to countless members of parliament on this, there's not an outcry that people can't get their cars repaired on the consumer side and there's not an outcry that people can't get their equipment repaired, the challenge is it's the aftermarket is looking for greater market share and I think that's really where we've got to make our case. I got a couple more questions, thanks for your presentation today, can you comment on the opinions of the Minister of the Safety and the Minister of the Workforce Development on this bill? Yeah, you know, I'm not aware of specific commentary in that in that realm, but I think that there's been lots of supportive comments from different voices around the cabinet table about the need for right to repair, I think, you know, I wouldn't put this as the highest priority of the government, but there's enough rumbling around it, enough spending that we're going to come see in the marketplace that's going to really push this issue. You know, just as one example, you know, as this issue heats up, there's several organizations in the States that want to see right to repair moved aggressively in the US, but they're using Canada as a testing ground to say, OK, how can we make things happen in Canada that we can show US legislators and vice versa, so that there's going to be big battles on that front. But we're in the fight and we're taking it, you know, in a measured approach because we don't want to also ignite a fire on this that takes this into a bigger issue. Let our opponents come to us and make sure that we've done the groundwork so that members of Parliament know that this isn't kind of a good and evil black and white issue. This is an issue of businesses that have invested heavily in this technology, heavily in the intellectual property, and that there's not a problem. This is really a problem in search of a solution or solutions in search of a problem. There's not a problem. I can see the next question there, if you want me to hit that. A few years back, the US folks put a presentation on a right to repair in the US, was more centered on being able to change the codes in software. Yeah, I mean, I think that's what's interesting about that is that it used to be, you know, relatively straightforward to repair a piece of equipment, much different in the 70s and 80s. We moved into a world now where for a whole host of reasons, the electronic codes, the electronic solutions are hugely part of the equation. So you definitely have seen that, certainly on the automotive side, that that debate has been part of that. I mentioned the 2011 agreement between the manufacturers and the aftermarket. There were parts of the aftermarket to allow that to happen. I think that nobody's looking for a system that makes it impossible for customers to be served. But there has to be, you know, respect for intellectual property and respect for business investments is where I put that. Yeah, thanks. OK, last one. Are there any are there considerations for Canadian government to exempt Canadian business employees from COVID testing after returning home from a business meeting from the US? Yeah, I can tell you that the deputy prime minister doubled down and as did the minister Blair on this issue, to administer public safety signals. So we've got to keep these tests in place to to to to secure our our safety. You know, here's the problem in a nutshell. If you're a fully vaccinated traveller and you go across the border and you return to Canada, you know, at the moment you have to pay for that PCR test, which is expensive and difficult. But there's also a government rapid test that falls on top of that. And the thing about the rapid test is that, you know, those they've had to publish those results. So, you know, as we've seen, people return to Canada who are fully vaccinated and had had a PCR test, which are two levels of of protections. The double check on that shows that it's it's point one five percent of the tests are showing that people have have a COVID positive. And that that doesn't even mean they have COVID, but that they're picked up in that rapid test. So, you know, you're talking about, you know, orders of magnitude like one in a thousand who might be who might be a be a problem. So I think that the you're seeing push from the travel industry, you're seeing a push from the tourism industry to make the point that none of this makes any sense, that if you're fully vaccinated, it is fully vaccinated. AED will be adding its voice to that equation over the over the coming days now that we have the border open. And to make sure that people can do business travel from a Canadian context, we've got to be able to travel to the US. We've got to be able to do business and we've got to be able to come back in an orderly, timely manner. So there's there's big pressure from other business interests that we're aligned with as well on this. You think of the automotive world and others where it just doesn't make sense to to to put this extra layer on business. And I just you know, one last point that I think AED is going to be able to play a special role. I was talking to Brian about this the other the other day. You know, you know, as a unique association that represents Canada and the US and there's there's you know, there's not that many of them. And so so when you have that voice to represent both sides of the border, you have a special understanding how important that relationship is from a business point of view. And I think the thickening of the border from a business point of view, from a personal point of view, but most importantly, from a global economic point of view, is the worst thing that can happen for the Canadian economy and also for the US economy. And I've spoken to countless congressmen, Congressman Jacobs, Congressman Higgins about clearing this up. So we're in the fight to try to get rid of those. And it's a long winded answer, but it's an issue I'm passionate about because, you know, honestly, you know, we're all for science. But, you know, it has to it has to also make sense. We can't have, you know, belts and life jackets just across the border. Awesome. Hey, Hugh, I have one more. This will be the last question. And can you provide your thoughts on the project approvals and indigenous land rights going forward as it relates to infrastructure specifically? Will we see any improvement in projects approvals for the federal for federal projects? Well, it's good. It's good that you asked me the easiest question last. I mean, you know, it's such an important challenge for for the government and a challenge for provincial governments as well. Obviously, a challenge for for business. And it's not just on the indigenous file. I mean, you know, the Keystone, you know, pipeline where you have approval, you have investment and then you have one government that approves in the US and then they cancel that that approval, you know, for what what was a major industrial push, I think is, you know, is indicative of how important it is, you know, to have the concept of of of approvals and a stable approval system, you know, really, really set. And in some cases, that involves getting the indigenous buy in. And there's a group called the who is partnered with on the larger concept of of of infrastructure, but the Association of Consulting Engineers that's championing this version of a national corridor so that you can have some parameters of how things get built without having it be, you know, subject to the whims of local politicians or, you know, just just the changes that might exist within within a particular indigenous group. So there's got to be a lot of attention paid to that. I think we're going to be front and center to those conversations, but it's got to be part of a larger business group. And nobody's going to listen to just AD on that. That's why we're working with the Construction Association and others on this. And I think one of the interesting things that you see. Is that, you know, you know, I speak to young NDP staff for the other day, so listen, all the oil in Canada should just stay in the ground. And, you know, I was like, well, do you like fresh, fresh vegetables in the wintertime? Do you like to like heat in your in your home? You know, it's kind of an unreal proposition, but there's, you know, a lot of individuals under the age of 30 who have that mindset. But all of a sudden, when gasoline prices are over $1.50, when you have the line five problem with Michigan, you know, threatening to cut off the the the the heating supply to Western Canada, I think Canadians have shown in public opinion that we've been involved with is, you know, everybody's for reconciliation, but we have to be able to do business and run a country together. And, you know, the the rail blockades that took place after the pandemic, the blockades that that take place on different projects aren't good for anybody. And I think there's there's there's a recognition building that we've got to find a more consistent way to make this happen. So I don't see a short term improvement on that, but I think it's you know, it's got to be part of the reconciliation agenda. And I see a lot of positive signs actually coming out of indigenous communities that are like, as long as we can be, you know, part of the the the benefit if it goes through our territory and done in a cooperative way, then then then we're then we're all in, you know, but where the challenges come and you're not to pick on one particular jurisdiction, the Wet'suwet'en case, that was banned, approved by the band leadership and, you know, individuals purporting to represent the band became involved in protesting it. So, you know, it's it's a complicated conundrum for sure. And I wish I had a more coherent answer, but that's kind of where I see it going. Awesome. Hugh, thank you very much. And thanks to everybody else for being on the call this morning. I really appreciate it. And if you have any questions, please reach out to me. If you weren't happy to answer them, if I can answer them, we can get you on the phone. We certainly can do that. And also, I look forward to seeing everybody at Ottawa on the 29th and 30th. Thank you all very much. And Hugh, thank you again. Great job today, as always. Appreciate it. Thank you. Well, Mike, we love to be on the phone with members. So as you say, if you have a problem, call, let us know. And I have to say the AAD team is, you know, you know, of all the groups we deal with, so member responsive that it's that it's incredible. And we really appreciate that front line contact with members to solve problems and proud of our track record to date. So, Mike, thanks for having me on. Thank you. Have a great day, everybody. Cheers.

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