Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm going to start with a quote here:
If Canada is to succeed in making the cars of the future, we must embrace greener, more sustainable technologies. These technologies will create the well-paying middle-class jobs of the future. Advanced research and development projects challenge today's autoworkers to enhance their skill set. By having a workforce with skills that are in demand and the technologies that will shape the future of the industry, Canada's auto sector can secure its place in the global supply chain of tomorrow.
That was Honourable Navdeep Bains, then minister of innovation, science and economic development.
The reason I raise that is that I'm still a little bit concerned about accountability. That was with regard to, in 2019, the $3 million that the federal government gave to Nemak. Nemak was a former supplier to General Motors in Canada. It's a Mexico-based company.
What happened there is what we're trying to solve or at least have some accountability around. That $3 million led to the innovation on the site, then supposedly 70 jobs, which later on led to Nemak taking that innovation and moving it to Mexico. We lost an additional 200 jobs. It was left to John D’Agnolo of Unifor Local 200 to take this to arbitration to protect the workers.
What have we learned in that scenario? When I look at Medicago and other places, I'm really concerned. I mean, we have to be in the game when it comes to automotive innovation, there's no doubt—especially when you look at what the United States is doing—but we essentially used $3 million of federal money to ship 200-plus local Unifor jobs to Mexico.
What have we learned from that lesson? That's not too far away.