The pilot project, sir, has been created by the University of Waterloo, Conestoga College, and five automotive parts manufacturing members. We are one of them. We've spearheaded this. For example, golf carts are not made in our country. Did you know that? Golf carts are used by you—I'm sure by us as well—every single summer, but not one golf cart is made in our country. Why not? There's a Bauer automotive plant right where we are, and it's going to close down. The same stamping presses could make golf cart side cars, for example. You have to redeploy your assets to products that were not thought of before.
This pilot project is to show people how an automotive company in Guelph or in Cambridge...for example, the stamping houses.You need stamping for trusses in warehouses. Why don't they make those?
We've shown Minister Clement a complete presentation of how we can create 120,000 jobs in Canada by December 2010. This pilot concerns 1,000 jobs just in this area of Brampton, Mississauga, Cambridge, Waterloo, and Kitchener. So we need to show the government that the pilot works.
Alison Tait from Industry Canada, surface transportation, spent an hour with me this morning to walk through this pilot. They're all very excited. Minister Flaherty wants to put up money for it. The issue is that we need to implement it; we can't just talk about it.
The next phase of that, then, encompasses every municipality in this country, so the pilot can mushroom itself, with the fundamentals being created for training, for sales training, market research for new products, and redeploying of assets.
The way it works, very simply, sir, is this way. I have plastic injection moulding equipment making plastic bumpers for cars. My plant is 30% occupied today. I now look at rain barrels instead, for rain water collection. The exact same equipment is needed. In our industry, $1 million in capital investment creates $2 million in sales, which creates 10 jobs. In this example of redeploying assets, no capital investment is required and $100,000 for new tooling will create the same 10 jobs. So you've tenfolded the use of the taxpayers' dollars.
This is the idea of redeploying assets with the University of Waterloo's engineering service.