Thank you, Chair.
I appreciate the chance to speak to this motion. This committee, as with other emergency meetings, has done good work. We haven't actually concluded the work of the committee. We had a shortened period of time with our second round of witnesses just now. I think it was the intent, at some point in this meeting, to get to some of the particulars around how we were going to do report writing, because I know the motion that we agreed to on this side, the original motion that struck this emergency set of meetings, was to report to the House. I think it's important that we look to do that work.
This motion seems to come in an odd way at an odd time, given that we were towards the end of doing the work of hearing from witnesses and then getting to the kind of report writing that I believe is necessary to do the work of reporting to the House.
I also argue that the motion here is a very partial, very incomplete and very misdirected approach that I don't think captures the spirit or the content of what we heard in this set of hearings and that we would want to, I think, continue to work through, including written submissions. I'll give some examples.
Even in our hearings today, we heard about the need to diversify to markets beyond the United States. We heard that in all three meetings in the study. I know that we're getting submissions that I think will fill out our understanding of the diversification that we're looking to achieve, diversification that, incidentally, is already starting to happen broadly for Canadian exporters. We know that Canadian exports to Europe are up 31% year over year. We know that foreign direct investment is at an 18-year high, so we know that diversification is a key aspect of this issue.
We heard from most witnesses, even as they were sharing their very frank and very significant challenges with the section 232 tariffs of April 2, that the need for diversification and support for that diversification were something that was requested and something that our government is already working on through the expansion of trade corridors and through the opening up of new trade agreements and new trade opportunities. We don't see that reflected in the motion.
We heard today and from other witnesses the very specific and real desire for other forms of relief, work-sharing arrangements and various forms of subsidy and tariff relief. Again, these are things that this government has been doing with the regional tariff relief initiative and through the RDAs.
We have seen a variety of supports, including through the workforce alliances and a number of supports that our government has proposed. I believe this study was filling out our understanding of the very specific needs.
Mr. Volpe, in his testimony today, referred to the age and profile of some of the mould-makers and manufacturers who are being captured in this April 2 initiative by the administration to the south, which we continue to believe is illegal and unjustified. We have been speaking quite clearly and loudly on that, yet the motion makes no reference to the calls at this committee, including today, for that form of relief.
The motion makes no mention of the defence sector. We've heard in a variety of places that the pivot towards defence investment, something we foreshadowed with our defence industrial strategy study, significantly informed the release through the testimony and through the briefings that happened while our study was taking place. I think it significantly informed the government's defence industrial strategy policy document that came out. We heard multiple times in these three sessions and other sessions, including during our productivity study, that defence opportunities are being created, including by meeting our two per cent NATO commitment that we've already met this year. We are reaching towards five per cent.
We know that there's a lot of excitement in some of the various sectors that were touched by this study and in some of the various witnesses we heard from in the last three sessions—there's an appetite to be a part of that defence diversification. Again, that's not something that happens overnight but something that we know from the testimony and from the other forms of supports that are available is going to be part of the response more broadly to this effort, yet the motion does not touch on this.
I wrote down a quote from Mr. Aalbers earlier today, who said, in response to a question by Mr. Ma or Ms. O'Rourke about tariff relief and support for workers, “I think that would be an assistance.” That is a very important testimony. It's very important that we have relevant, useful responses to this committee, which we can then take to the government.
We also see in this motion a desire to rush into an agreement—I'll just quote it—“that ends these tariffs, restores stability, and protects Canadian jobs and the long-term competitiveness of Canada's industrial base”. The actions we're taking are all about restoring stability and protecting Canadian jobs and the long-term competitiveness of Canada's industrial base. We heard from the testimony today that the impacts of these tariffs are being felt not just in Canada but also in the United States. We heard that these are counterproductive and harming the very U.S. industries the U.S. administration claims to be trying to reshore or repatriate investment towards and protect.
We had some very useful testimony that can and should be part of not only our advocacy, but also the advocacy by American business interests, which we know are unified in their opposition to this. We heard testimony today about the loss of 100,000 manufacturing jobs, yet the motion chooses to bypass all of that and seeks to have us rush into a deal that would not be in our interest.
I know that the motion calls on the Prime Minister to act. The good news is that he has been very engaged, including in the House of Commons, on these issues. He was very engaged just recently in a CBC interview, in which he said the following. I want to read this into the record, because it is from a CBC interview today:
A lot of countries rushed into deals with the U.S. They weren't really worth the paper they were written on.
In my riding, I have heard since March and April 2025 that Canadians made a choice for this government, this party and this Prime Minister because they trusted him to have our best interests in mind and to get the best possible deal for Canada. The Prime Minister is very perceptive when he observes that a lot of countries rushed into deals with the U.S. that “weren't really worth the paper they were written on.” What does he mean by that? It means they embedded—