Thank you so very much. I certainly appreciate that. Thank you for the time. I'll make it as worthwhile as I possibly can.
Thank you very much, witnesses, and thank you to the committee for allowing me to speak.
My riding of Essex sits very, very close to the busiest international border in North America. The movement of goods—commerce, if you will—truly goes hand in hand with the movement of people. What I mean by this is that here in Windsor-Essex, in manufacturing and auto and the space industry we are losing business. We are losing jobs hand over fist.
Earlier on, one of the witnesses—forgive me, but I forget who it was—mentioned that there's a process in place at the border. I'm not sure if that process is really very strong. What's happening is that we cannot get our American counterparts onto our shop factory floors in Windsor-Essex to look at a part. Just last week they literally took an electric seat out of a car and had to ship it over to Canada. That takes days. So we're losing contracts.
Has there been any discussion between the Canadian and the U.S. governments with regard to broadening the definition of “contractual obligation”? Our Canadian industries, manufacturing companies, are losing business because they are under contractual obligation to have people from the U.S. come to the shop floor, look at the part and approve it to the tune of maybe two hours. They then go back home and wait in quarantine for 14 days. I believe they should be essential. I'm wondering if there's been any discussion around really broadening that definition—again, we're not asking about busting the borders open—to allow for the contractual obligation.
I would ask either witness to please respond to that.