Thank you, Mr. Chair.
To start, I'm going to clean up a couple of issues here.
First, southern Ontario, where I come from, has one of the highest unemployment rates in the region and across this country, even compared with the United States. Actually, we're having our manufacturing jobs literally obliterated. In fact, the only reason we had more auto production happening outside of Ontario, compared to Michigan, for the first time ever, was because Michigan was retooling their plants. They were down.
What's happened is the Ford Motor Company, for a recent example, is actually cancelling plants in Windsor, Ontario, as well as in other parts of Ontario, and it is actually putting new product in Michigan. So what happens when that new product goes to market is we will have a greater gap between the two, coupled with the border...and the issues of lack of progress on that. We have significant decisions that have already been made that are going to cripple the industry even further.
I do want to talk, though, and get a specific response about one of the issues that I think is unconscionable. The current Minister of International Trade, the former Minister of Industry here, promised me on two occasions that he would have a national auto policy, one that would be actually tabled in the House of Commons. He backed away from that completely. In fact, he has misled, I believe, this committee and also me, in the House of Commons, under questioning, and he is now pursuing a deal with Korea in terms of free trade.
How do you view that this is going to affect your industries? I'm absolutely shocked that we would continue to go this route, given the current status quo we have right now.