Thank you very much.
Chair, through you, I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge Brian's advocacy and hard work when it comes to the Windsor region. I very much understand your concerns around the corridor between Windsor and Detroit.
But specifically around CAPC, if I may, I've had an opportunity to meet with members of CAPC. This was during my visit to the Detroit auto show where I met with global executives and OEM heads to speak to them directly about investment opportunities. I think the key part is this. How do we brand Canada? How do we create opportunities? How do we demonstrate that we're serious about investment in the automotive sector? And we are.
I think the point I made earlier is very relevant, because not only do we extend the automotive innovation fund by an additional three years. The profile change sends a clear signal that we were very serious about making sure that we wanted to be part of the production cycle for these OEMs going forward. Not only the OEMs, Minister Chagger and I had the opportunity in Kitchener a few days ago to make that investment in the automotive supplier innovation fund, and there were multiple companies from Windsor that received funding.
Again, the idea is to say, five years from now where is the industry going to be and where do we want to be? Because when I went to Detroit, it wasn't necessarily horsepower. It wasn't necessarily about how big the vehicle was. It was about software and it was about technology and it was the autonomous vehicle.
Rapid change is taking place in the industry, and we want to make sure that we're at the head of that game. We want to make sure of Canada's position as an innovation hub, so we're working very closely with the OEMs to say we're serious about it. One example is GM. I met with Mary Barra, the chair of GM, and we made it very clear that this is an area we have leadership in and we want to make investments in.
It's very important, because it's not simply about the OEMs, but it's the supplier base. If you look at the footprint in Canada, we have 700 suppliers that feed into the OEM. Then above and beyond that, we've created unique partnerships with universities and colleges, 40 of them, that do research directly with the sector.
We have this comparative and competitive advantage and it's focused around innovation. This is a priority for us and that's why the automotive innovation fund and the automotive supplier innovation fund are two really good tools that we're going to utilize. We're not simply announcing them. We want to make sure those funds are available for industry.