Thank you, Mr. Chair.
From time to time, we get some political commentary happening in the committee, and I think we had that a while ago when Mr. Valeriote was talking. I'm going to take a second to answer his question regarding Canada's long-term plan.
We have a plan called Advantage Canada that was put in place a couple of years ago by this government, a broad economic strategy for Canada. Of course, we have a short-term plan, called the “economic action plan”, which we're implementing right now.
Here is some very quick commentary, first from Newsweek:
If President Obama is looking for smart government, there is much he, and all of us, could learn from our...neighbour to the north.
This is from the Daily Telegraph, in London:
If the rest of the world had comported itself with similar modesty and prudence, we might not be in this mess.
The Economist said:
...in a sinking world, Canada is something of a cork. ....The big worry is the fear that an American recession will drag Canada down with it.
And it went on to say:
Mr. Harper says, rightly enough, that his government has taken prudent measures to help Canada weather a storm it cannot duck....
And no less a person than President Obama, just a couple of weeks ago, said:
And, you know, one of the things that I think has been striking about Canada is that in the midst of this enormous economic crisis, I think Canada has shown itself to be a pretty good manager of the financial system...[and] the economy in ways that we haven't always been here in the United States.
That's just a quick answer to Mr. Valeriote's concern.
Now I have a few questions.
There's a lot of talk of restructuring, obviously, as we go through this process, and there's no question that one of the stakeholders at the table is going to be the CAW.
Mr. Stanford, maybe you can give some clarification. According to a presentation that I believe you gave in 2004, paid time off—this is time when people were paid for not working—cost the big three $10 per hour per worker actually on the job. This included regular time off as well as what's called “special paid absence” time off. Is that still about accurate?