Mr. Chair, I agree with what you say.
I would make reference to paragraph 5.88, which is our conclusion:
...we concluded that Industry Canada, the Department of Finance Canada, and Export Development Canada managed the financial support to the automotive sector in a way that contributed to the viability of the companies and the competitiveness of the sector...over the short and medium terms.
Generally, this is a good news story.
Mr. Chair, I would then make reference to paragraph 5.23. While I just noted that it is a good news story, there are certain areas where we saw that some more work could have been done. There were areas where there was limited analysis and limited information.
We recognized, as we state in paragraph 5.25, that, “The federal government made its decisions on financial assistance in a period of high uncertainty and within tight time frames.” We understand that. We think more work could have been done in terms of the analysis, maybe relying less on the material presented by the companies and doing a little more independent analysis of it, and perhaps doing a more independent challenge of the information that had been presented.
I think that a final restructuring plan would have been good. It would have provided a place where all of the details related to the restructuring could have been brought together in one place. It would have made it easier for the department and for Canadians to follow what had gone on in the restructuring, and would have made it easier for the department to report against the restructuring.
We have in appendix A, which I believe is at page 25 in my document, some suggestions related to going forward if there is ever another situation like this. We made suggestions related to the planning, monitoring, and public reporting related to such large interventions by the federal government.