International Trade committee  You mean outside of the auto business? Are you wondering about the impact on our industrial businesses?

International Trade committee  We don't see any negative impact from the agreement for either our agricultural harvesting equipment business, headquartered out of Winnipeg, or our access equipment business Skyjack, headquartered here in Guelph. We don't see any downside risks for either one of those businesses.

International Trade committee  Yes.

International Trade committee  I personally don't have concerns that there's going to be a holdup at the border. I think that when anything new comes in there's potentially some uncertainty, and it takes some time to kind of get your arms around that. There may be some potential issue, but I personally don't see that—and our team doesn't—as a major risk.

International Trade committee  That's my understanding of it.

International Trade committee  Good evening, and thank you. First, I'll say a few words about Linamar. Linamar is a diverse advanced manufacturing company. We are about 70% in auto parts, and about 30% in a variety of industrial equipment, such as access equipment and harvesting equipment, as well as commercial vehicle parts and energy components.

International Trade committee  Good evening, and thank you very much for the invitation to take part in your consultations. I'll say a few words about Linamar. Linamar is a diversified advanced manufacturing company of about 70% in auto parts, and 30% in a variety of industrial products such as access equipment, harvesting equipment, commercial vehicle parts and energy components.

International Trade committee  I'm all in favour of moving quickly. I think that's another key way that we compete, by being able to move fast, to be nimble, and make things happen quickly. I would always prefer to move quickly.

International Trade committee  As I was mentioning earlier, if you look at Canadian content requirements under NAFTA, they're zero. There is no requirement for this work to come to Canada. Admittedly, it's a bigger bucket with smaller players. You can leap to the conclusion that you're going to get more, but really there's no requirement for that work to come here, and there isn't any requirement for it to come in TPP.

International Trade committee  Are you talking about in terms of protecting IP?

International Trade committee  Exactly. I think the other benefit is that if you have harmony in terms of rules, then you have fewer individual rules to follow and requirements to meet. Not having harmonious regulation adds costs to a whole bunch of different industries where they have to follow these rules, follow these rules, and follow these rules.

International Trade committee  Yes, absolutely. The availability of skilled labour continues to be an issue. We're doing an enormous amount to try to develop people right here. We have more than 600 apprentices working for us globally, in our organization alone. We're growing quite rapidly. We've been growing in double digits every year, and having strong technical people is absolutely key to the innovation that I was discussing earlier from a process perspective and that continues from an improvement perspective.

International Trade committee  Absolutely, we absolutely should be continuing to try to bring automotive volume here to Canada and continue what is a thriving industry.

International Trade committee  You are asking why the Canadian plants are not seeing increased production?

International Trade committee  Yes, it depends a little on the product that you're making, obviously. Products that are gaining market share are going to be growing in volume, so it's a bit about that as well. That said, certainly we haven't seen major additional investment coming into Ontario over the last several years, although there have been examples of it.