Let me answer that, for sure, because certainly the big three are the only ones who have invested in R and D in Canada to date. We have multi-billion dollars now invested in research and development facilities right here in Canada. No other company has that.
When you look at the design and manufacturing cycles in our industry, plants really are only good for five years. This means that every five years you're reinvesting in the plant, and every time you reinvest, you do a number of things. You improve the environmental performance of that plant; in the interest of competition, you improve the productivity and competitiveness of the plant. So I would suggest that we may be somewhat criticized, but consider the nature of our business—that it's global in nature and that we must remain competitive. Many investments have been put in place.
We have gotten probably a disproportionate share of new investments in Canada relative to the United States, for instance. I would suggest that we've done actually quite well.
You ask whether it can be fixed. Right now, I think we have a number of tools at our fingertips here. We have the industry committee, and certainly I can remember standing shoulder to shoulder with many of these people at this table, promoting your report. Everything in that report needs to be acted upon and acted upon urgently.
In the auto industry specifically, you also have the tools at your fingertips. The Canadian Automotive Partnership Council developed a report called A Call to Action: A Canadian Auto Strategy. That report presents a vision. It presents a series of recommendations that are still valid now for our industry and valid for many other industries. We would like you to take it and perhaps look at it more closely in terms of an overall comprehensive automotive strategy, which would include investment supports.
I think we have the tools at our fingertips. We have to get on with the job and put in place an automotive strategy that places us here competitively for the long term, so that we from Canada can capitalize on what's going on around the globe.