Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses for being here today. One of the things you notice on the current list of automotive production is that Canada has slipped. If you look at the nations that are gaining, most of them have either a state-funded intervention, or they have questionable labour practices, or they have questionable environmental practices as a nation-state. What I'm a bit worried about is the fact that we don't concentrate when we do trade agreements, or when we do get into importing and exporting of goods and services.
I would open this to our friend in Vancouver as well to quickly note, what do your companies do to advocate for fair trade—I will include Mr. Dias, as well—with regard to the so-called labour gap?
I've worked at Chrysler. My father worked at Chrysler, and my grandfather worked at Ford. I've heard in not only just my time here as a member of Parliament, but basically since I was in the plant shop at plant three and plant six at Chrysler, that the labour cost was a disadvantage to their doing business.
I've seen Canada go from number two in auto manufacturing and assembly to number ten. To combat that, I believe it has to be more than just complaining about the labour disadvantage. It's about what companies do to talk about fairer trade versus the importation of materials, goods, and labour practices that are used to subsidize those imports.
I would close with the simple fact that asbestos is still being imported into Canada and used for brake pads. That's a classic example. That subsidized, harmful environmentally degrading product is being put by Canadians onto vehicles that are driven around on our streets, to be ground down onto the street elements, and to be washed away. Why are we even allowing that to be part of our importation process? It doesn't make any sense.
Maybe we'll let our friend from Vancouver start, and then I'd like to hear from our witnesses here with regard to what suggestions they have and what everybody is doing to improve fair trade that are true comparatives.