I'll definitely speak to the motion. Thank you. I just wanted to point out that it's disrespectful to misquote another member of this committee.
Mr. Bardeesy spoke at length about why he wouldn't support the motion. He talked about rushing into a decision, rushing into a resolution. I don't understand his point, because I have not seen a rush. Promises were made over a year ago. We were promised a resolution by July 2025. So far, we've had no movement. We've had no improvement. We've had only tariffs that have worsened and put a bigger burden on our companies, put a bigger burden on our economy and put a bigger burden on the ability of Canadian businesses to work and to provide work to their employees.
Businesses have already started closing. This is huge. Why would you talk about not rushing? Why would you not rush when we are at risk, in my community at least, of losing 48,000 jobs and of a total economic impact of 150,000 jobs lost?
I don't want to misquote Ms. O'Rourke, but I believe you said that Guelph is in a similar situation and that you do understand the impact on the companies in your community. I don't understand why you wouldn't want an immediate resolution to this. This is not something we can wait for. When these companies close, they're never coming back. You've heard testimony in that regard. Why wouldn't you want to act right away, right now, today? Why should you not want to request a meeting with your leader, the Prime Minister of Canada? You guys can request a meeting to let him know how imminently, negatively impactful this will be and how bad the situation is.
I talked about the numbers in my community. What are the numbers all across Canada? Do you know that if these companies fail, it's going to have a huge impact on our whole manufacturing sector in Canada? It's going to trip them up too. These companies make the tools that let manufacturers build and do their work, and they're closing and moving to the United States. They're being asked to think about pivoting. I mean, this is a huge problem. Do we want to rush? Yes. Is this a rush when we've been sitting on it for almost a year? We've been told since April of last year that there would be a resolution of this tariff problem by July 2025. We've been waiting. We've been praying. We've been hoping, and nothing's come along. It's just gotten worse.
If those negotiations had been held by the date they were promised, this wouldn't be a problem. These section 232 tariff increases would not be a problem today. Thus, is it important to rush? Is there an immediate need for the Prime Minister to address this? Shouldn't the Liberal members of this committee be taking that message to the Prime Minister? Do you think this is not something to worry about and rush? Spending over a year talking about relieving tariffs has not been a rush.
Therefore, I am in favour of and support this motion.