Thank you, Mr. Chair.
One important thing that put us in the situation that is missed is that our auto strategy has been basically defined by the United States and the Inflation Reduction Act. Those are the so-called free-market friends we have, and that exposes some of our trade dilemmas, and that shows the massive intervention that's done by the United States.
As New Democrats, for years we've been calling for a national auto strategy, one that is going to be planned and measured on the jobs and hours that we see from workers. This is the problem that we have with this situation right now. Quite frankly, when it came to light, there was one job that was applied for under the labour market adjustment program, but the reality that slipped through a lot of the different discussions at the time was that the contracts—we don't know, because as the member just outlined, we really don't know—didn't really provide the public with the proper information.
It's been a moving target ever since. On Monday, it was one. On Tuesday, it was 100. In the next few days, it changed from basically 1,500 to, I think, 900 now and maybe, potentially, could be up to 1,000. It's hard to know, because we don't know. That's a public expectation, where the dollars could go.
The industry itself has had a long history with regard to having government intervention. In fact, frankly, I want to touch a couple of things that took place. First of all, back in 1985, it was Chrysler that was rescued then with Lee Iacocca and others who saved the plant. There was massive public input into that. When we held onto the shares, it turned a return profit to the taxpayers.
Most recently, we went through a tough time with regard to General Motors and Ford. If you remember, the late Jim Flaherty said that we can't pick winners or losers. To his credit—this is not to his detriment—he switched his position later on and did an investment into General Motors. Unfortunately, the government of the day under Harper did sell the shares and shortchanged us in terms of that investment; otherwise, it would have paid bigger dividends. The ending there was that there was an intervention into the market at that time, and, again, this is not to denigrate Mr. Flaherty; it's to congratulate him for changing his position, which was very public at that time.
I'm a little bit concerned with some of the stuff on proprietary information, but I'm more concerned with the fact that we still have a moving target here when it comes to the contracts themselves. I don't support and didn't support an industry committee going into the secret chamber to get the information for that deal, because I know that uncertainty and question marks remain the biggest inhibitor when it comes to investment and confidence of the public.
There is some legitimate concern about the investment and some of these things that the Canadian builders trade unions have raised. That's where a lot of this came from, that there was some expectation that perhaps there would be some intervention.
I don't think we've ever seen this intervention with foreign labour coming in to retool a plant. Usually this happens in the tool and die mould-making industry, where workers go back and forth across the border. In fact, we've had trouble over the past number of years getting access to fixed machinery and so forth, so some of this stuff does take place.
I'm more worried with regard to the contractual elements when it comes to suppliers and so forth, and that's led to some of the challenges that we have.
When it comes to the motion here, I don't support the prelude to the motion and, similar to industry, I'm hoping that we take that out. I don't want to see us spend all night with the replacement by the Liberals with other types of hyperbole with regard to it. I hope that we get to the essence of it.
I'd like to hear more discussion in terms of how we ensure proprietary information. I think that the commercial provisions that are in the contracts do provide some protection, as the member has outlined.
My concern really resides in understanding the number of jobs and foreign workers who are coming into the plant, those who are training and then those who are staying in the community.
What is important for my community in terms of how it plays out to the rest of the country is how communities plan. We don't even know these targets. We have right now a housing shortage like many communities across Canada. There is some activity going on to take care of that, but there's no social planning when it comes to making sure that these investments include perhaps even long-term investments that provide social housing once the workers return home.
I know for a fact that I've been contacted by our local downtown businesses, and they have no hotel rooms whatsoever. We have people coming into our country and, if they are going to be provided and intend to come, we don't want conditions that are also going to create social strife and conflict.
I worry about the terminology that has been used in this discussion, because the reality is this: If some people are coming to take advantage of the situation or a job opportunity that exists, through no fault of their own, they come into an environment that's already polarized. My intent in all of this is to make sure the rest of the communities that face this, subsequently, can use this to their advantage. Perhaps there is still time in this equation, after 18 months of doing nothing to train workers. Perhaps there's a way to train some of the workers in the Windsor-Essex region, and in some of the other regions. They could come down and provide some of those job skill sets that would be valuable for the other places, later on. This is what I'm trying to do.
Do these things and restore public confidence. I am not complicit. Listen, we don't normally, in this place, release contracts on government deals. I've been here for 21 years. This is not the normal procedure.