Thank you.
Mr. Kovrig, thank you for being here. I want to acknowledge at the onset that you spent 1,019 days detained by the People's Republic of China, so you understand the threat of the PRC first-hand. I believe truly that Canadians owe you a debt of gratitude for the clarity you've brought to this issue since then.
You've testified at other committees and in interviews. You've written publicly that deepening economic entanglement with China is “not a long-term route”; it's a “dead end”. I think it's critical that Canadians understand what workers and the Canadian auto supply chain are facing right now.
I know you've looked closely at Europe in the past and their experience of letting BYD and other Chinese EV makers into the market. In the previous hour, we heard from the Minister of Industry that many Europeans are letting Chinese EVs into their market and that, in fact, it's a good thing. You've said it's led to “long-term structural industrial decline.”
Canada has roughly 125,000 auto jobs, many of them concentrated in Ontario. If the government doesn't get Chinse EV policy right, what does the European example tell us could potentially happen to our workers and our plants in our communities in the long run?