I appreciate that we're running over time, colleagues and Mr. Chairman.
I agree with 90% of what you said. It's very insightful; we ought to look to an energy policy and an industrial policy that encompass a lot of what you've indicated. Now that the work has been started, I would hope that this committee may find some value in exactly those kinds of opportunities that exist for the Canadian economy.
I have one question with regard to the auto sector. It is very competitive. I think we are the world's best. In fact, we could look at production and the cost of production here. Could we open up our exports into the Japans, and so on? I'm sick and tired of our being the only one that allows everybody in, and then when we try to get a Canadian product into Japan or anywhere else, we're restricted--maybe not by tariffs, but by non-tariff barriers that don't allow the Japanese to buy good Canadian-made cars. They want to, I know. Korea is a good example.
I think we ought to stick to our guns and say that we get reciprocity or you get nothing. At the end of the day, I think it's important, because they want that rich $350 billion market of North America. I think we ought to push back and essentially tell them to let us start selling our goods, and then we'll consider whether we ought to open up totally.
If we're going to continue to be the most competitive in the world in terms of the auto sector, I know on the human resources side that in seven to ten years we'll have 30% or 40% of our workforce retired, yet we've heard from the Chamber of Commerce and many others that although we can talk about capital or talk about technology, the fact is we have to be talking about human resources in this country.
What do you believe we need to do to make sure we can continue to be competitive through having the people and the skills we need to move forward?