Thank you, Mr. Minister, for being here today.
I'm glad you talked about the Windsor-Detroit border crossing. It's very important. Unfortunately, your government signed an agreement that requires us to pay, even on the Detroit side. So as we speak here right now we're actually buying land in Detroit and we'll have to build a customs plaza for them because of the agreement that was signed, with no money coming from Michigan or Washington.
I do want to talk about auto, though. You talked about the thousand jobs that are going to Oakville, but we lost over 1,500 jobs that could actually have gone to Windsor. I asked the Library of Parliament to do research—I commissioned them; they're independent—on who has a national auto strategy. That's the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Australia, Sweden, Mexico, China, India, Malaysia, and Nigeria.
Most recently, your government was in negotiations with Ford, and your member for Essex said this:
Ford Canada owes Windsor an explanation. They should break their silence and inform Windsor of their decision, and explain why they wouldn't offer enough in exchange for what would have been historic federal and provincial support.
So I ask you, do you agree with the member for Essex? What was that federal and provincial support in terms of the Ford investment that was actually going to come to Windsor, but eventually was negotiated in public on the front pages of papers?