Trade is a great question. If you go back 15 years ago, Canada had about a $20-billion trade surplus. Today, we have a trade deficit. I will argue that has happened as a result of choices, poor choices.
If you take a look at the recent trade deals, Korea came into effect in January 2015. Since then, trade exports from Korea to Canada have gone up 8%, and those from Canada to Korea are almost down 4%.
Our big winner was beef. They found one cow in Alberta with mad cow disease a month into the trade deal, and we haven't shipped beef since. That's who we're dealing with. We get to play nice on the global scene while others mess around.
Korea exports over 100,000 vehicles a year to Canada, and we ship about 100. That deal is not going to change, and yet this is Canada's number one export. With the TPP, the Japanese ship 159,000 vehicles a year to Canada, and we ship about 500 back. They have no tariff for vehicles coming into Japan, but they have a closed market, and the TPP deal obviously is going to make it even worse.
We have to take advantage of Canada's assets, and what's our biggest thing? We have a skilled workforce. Why? We have high education, medicare, and we have so much going for us that we need to take advantage of it.
One of the issues that was raised, and that I want to finish on, is the whole issue of labour costs. Five per cent of the cost of a car is labour.