International Trade committee  On that same issue, I think there's a skilled labour shortage in Canada, but there's a skilled labour shortage in all of the other developed countries involved in TPP, and it's worse just about everywhere else. One reason it's a great opportunity to expand trade relations with

International Trade committee  I want to quickly make sure of what I just said. I wasn't saying it's an opportunity for us to send our people to Japan. It's an opportunity for the Japanese to send their production here, where they can take advantage of the availability.

International Trade committee  Yes, that's right.

International Trade committee  Right now energy costs are a big issue. I was at the auto summit yesterday, and I think it was the one issue that just about everybody brought up. On the other hand, I would say you could make the argument that the Ontario government is also doing something that the rest of the w

International Trade committee  Very quickly, I would say that's the strategy Mexico has pursued, with the same results.

International Trade committee  I don't know that I would necessarily change the rules of origin. I think in terms of the phase-in, obviously the phase-in deal that Canada got was not as good as the phase-in deal that the United States got. Of course, that was a phase-in on a 6.1% tariff for Canada versus about

International Trade committee  It's Doctor, but call me Bill, please. Not even my mother calls me William.

International Trade committee  There are a lot of studies on TPP using what are called computable general equilibrium models, and most of them are irrelevant to my argument because those studies just generally compare a world with TPP to a world with no TPP, and I don't think that's the decision you are faced

International Trade committee  I don't have an estimation of that. Again, that's because it would come from a broad type of economic model, and I have not seen one that actually does the right counterfactual, which is to say, looking at a situation where the United States is in the TPP and Canada is not. Most

International Trade committee  I think there are already companies in this industry, and Linamar is certainly one of them, as we've just heard, that have been able to take advantage of trade initiatives.

International Trade committee  They're well established. I think the automotive industry in Ontario is already efficient. I think the challenges that it faces have to do more with differential costs than with a lack of efficiency. I think Ontario's labour force in the automotive industry is outstanding. Compa

International Trade committee  Thank you for the opportunity. My comments today address the question of whether the Government of Canada should ratify the Trans-Pacific Partnership in the case that the United States also ratifies it. If the U.S. were not to ratify, the TPP would effectively be dead, so there