Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to thank the witnesses for being here today. I think we have some of the best minds in the world in this virtual room, and I would like to call on you again.
For those of you who know me, I'd like to say a special thanks to David Paterson and Don Walker. We worked together—I thought your CAPC report was excellent work back in the day—to come up with the Conservative auto action plan, which was a sector strategy. What I'd like to say is that for the time, when that was there, that plan was a strategy that we could all see and move forward on. I think overall it was successful.
Today is different. One thing I notice with COVID is that Canadians, I think, are starting to realize the importance of having manufacturing and our supply chain but also essential goods, and whether it's for health care or for security, if we can't make it all in Canada, of having partners we can trust around the world to make sure we can get the products we need during times of crisis.
I want to talk to you about what the future plan looks like. We saw what the CAPC report said years ago, but now it's a different world. It's changing so quickly. In terms of the World Bank's ease of doing business, in 2015, when we left, I think Canada ranked 14th in the world. We're now down to 23rd, which is, by the way, closer to Russia at 28th, than our two largest trading partners. I believe the U.K. is eighth and and the United States is sixth.
Moving forward post-COVID, what do we have to do for the plan? The government didn't have the plan before COVID, but we need something very aggressively post-COVID. What does that new plan for supply chains look like? Perhaps Mr. Balsillie and Mr. Montpetit could also address the questions about supply chains and what this new plan looks like.