Thank you, Chair.
Before we broke, I was sharing some information about this book with the committee. It's by Dimitry Anastakis, a constituent of mine and an auto sector historian at the University of Toronto. If we had the chance for our special study to be more than three sessions, I think we would very much welcome the opportunity to hear from him because of his historical connection and his knowledge on this file.
The history here is important. In southern Ontario, the footprint of the auto sector is evident. If you're driving down the QEW towards Halton or driving east through the Durham Region on the 401, the plants are right there. Some communities in southern Ontario have their identities very much tied to those plants and these companies—the parts manufacturers or the major parts suppliers—including in Ms. O'Rourke's riding, in Ms. Borrelli's riding and in Ms. Acan's riding.
The footprint of the industry, though, is in some ways hidden. If you go into more urban areas or if you go to other parts of Canada where you don't have those plants visible right in front of you, you might not have as much appreciation for their economic impact. The export revenues and the impacts of the purchases we make of those vehicles might not be as evident.
I think each of us has probably heard people in our communities ask why we should support the auto sector. Some questioning happens, and I think it's our job, each one of us in this committee, to push back a bit on that. We need to bring the historical perspective that this has been happening in Canada for over 100 years. It's been an important part of the connectedness between Canada and the United States, through thick and thin. It's been part of the capital accumulation buildup, in southern Ontario in particular and in Quebec to some extent.
We're also seeing the broadening of that capital accumulation as this sector diversifies and becomes more connected with information technology, in particular with electrification. We're seeing not only that this sector is concentrated in southern Ontario, but also that it has a footprint across Canada. It goes from the inputs and the assembly work to things like software, charging infrastructure and the inputs of the materials themselves, where we have a comparative advantage in many aspects of the supply chain.
We have a capital endowment buildup, and one of the strong arguments for continued support is the capital endowment buildup combined with the expertise we have among Canadian workers, both unionized and not, in this sector. Those are the real advantages that we have built up through billions of dollars of private and public investments.
There are whole college and university programs and whole union locals dedicated to this work. There's also real pride of ownership. We heard Mr. Volpe, in his committee testimony, talk about the Dodge Charger lineup that he buys from. Our first family car was a 2000 Chevrolet Impala.