I appreciate that, but again, I have an issue with the direction of this entire discussion. I have an issue with INDU, even in the debate that is taking place in INDU as we speak, because in INDU, they're studying the motion to basically open up the contracts. I have an issue with that. I have an objection. I have an objection to the amendment. I have an objection to the motion. I have an objection to where both the amendment and the original motion are leading. I'm trying to explain why.
Mr. Chair, this is serious for my community. This is playing around, as I see it and as we see it in my community—as Dave Cassidy sees it, as Lana Payne sees it, and as the manufacturers see it. This is dangerous territory. That is what I need to make clear as we discuss this. I have serious reservations. I object to the original motion. I reject it. I have serious concerns with the amendment as well. Again, I object to where both of those are leading. It's a fundamental principle.
Again, I just don't understand why you can have the president of Unifor, the largest union in Canada, saying that this is wrong and egregious; how you can have the president of our Unifor Local 444, who represents auto workers in Windsor, saying that this is political theatre, this is political hay, this is egregious and this is wrong; and how you can have the CEO and the president of the parts manufacturers, the auto makers and the Chamber of Commerce saying that this is egregious, this is wrong and this is dangerous, and still as a committee we're completely ignoring all those voices from labour and industry and we're listening to Mr. Perkins.
We choose to listen to Mr. Perkins and Mr. Genuis and entertain their dangerous motion. I don't understand how we could do that. I really don't understand how we could do that. This is a serious motion. This is a motion that undermines the very hard work of the last four years to beat out other jurisdictions that were going after these investments, that were leaving no stone unturned and that were fighting tooth and nail to land these battery plants. We won those investments. Those were hard-won investments. In a lot of those investments, they were photo finishes. It was very close with other jurisdictions.
I take serious issue with the fact that this is something that was brought up at industry committee before the Christmas break. Mr. Perkins tried as hard as he possibly could to get this through. It was dangerous then, and it is dangerous now.
It's a matter of principle. He failed at industry committee to get this through, so now he's knocking on another door and seeing if he can get it through this committee. He wants to try a different door, see if he can get this through another committee, and use this committee as well to basically try to undermine and diminish the Honda announcement and the $50-billion announcement by trying to raise this issue.
It is absolutely important for us to reject that here, to put a stop to this here. An end to this circus here is what I want to see, because these are real jobs that are impacted in my community. I can tell you that this is something our Prime Minister has stated directly. He is meeting with the CBTU and is having those important conversations. We are having those conversations with NextStar. We are pushing to maximize local workers wherever possible.
The facts speak for themselves. In Windsor, 2,000 Canadian, local workers are building that battery plant as we speak. There are 70 Korean workers helping out to make sure we transfer that knowledge to train our workers, to make sure that the plant is up and running as quickly as possible so that two and a half thousand local, Canadian, unionized workers can begin building batteries for the North American market for generations to come.
This matters. This is serious.
I've lived in a community where we've seen 11.2% unemployment. You do not want to see 11.2% unemployment in your community. It is soul crushing. It is painful to watch when you see factories closing, when you see moms and dads out of work, when you see families ripped apart, broken apart because of that. When you see the mental health and the anguish, when you see families separated because mom or dad have to travel for 12 months of the year working in the oil sands, coming back from time to time on weekends, and the pressure that puts on families and on kids, when you see businesses in your downtown shuttered—a ghost town—when you see your population shrinking because young people are graduating and they're leaving in droves to find work elsewhere, you do not want to see that. I do not want to return to that. Our community has gone through hell.
To see a generational, historic investment like the battery plant, the thing we dreamt about—a $5-billion investment, 2,500 permanent jobs, 2,000 temporary jobs right now—and to watch the Conservatives playing games with this investment, blowing the circus up on this investment, makes me sick, and it makes me angry, and it makes me frustrated, because we should not be playing games with people's jobs and we should not be playing games with the future of communities like ours, like mine, working-class communities that have gone through hell in the last eight years.
I would ask my Conservative colleagues to take that into consideration when they are playing games with what is a generational investment for my community.
That's all I have to say on that issue. I really hope that my colleague in the NDP, Mr. Bachrach, understands where I'm coming from. I hope that we can count on his support to put an end to this circus and get on with the business of building battery plants and building batteries and building jobs in working-class communities like mine.
Thank you.