Thank you, Chair.
Welcome to the team from the parliamentary budget office. As an economist myself, I want to just give a shout-out to the team. Whether it's on the digital services tax act or the alternative minimum tax, I will admit that I tend to read everything you've put out recently. I tend to—if I can use the term—“geek out” a little bit on the policy side and read it.
I just want to say thank you. I want to say thank you for the research that you do. When you are modelling things into the future, doing present-value calculations and putting inputs in there, sometimes it's not as easy, but you use the best data that you have available to you. I know you folks do a great job on a lot of the reports that you put out. I very much value this body, which is there for parliamentarians to use in their work.
First off, I want to comment on the CAMI plant. I know there was a comment made earlier. Actually, this is exciting because General Motors is moving the battery production from Ohio, where there have been some hiccups, to Ingersoll. In the second quarter, they're now creating 300 new jobs.
Where the actual assembly of the BrightDrop courier van is—they call it that—they're going to have the battery right beside it. Actually, it was even written in the National Post a few weeks ago—I think it was the National Post or the Globe, one of the two—how our plan, the government's plan to attract investments in assembly and battery production, has come together with the GM Ingersoll plant producing the BrightDrop. It's a great victory for Canadians. It's a great victory for the workers who work there, and we're going to create 300 new jobs.
One thing that's been very important to me, Mr. Giroux, is our response to the Inflation Reduction Act. I've argued that many times. We've seen it in budget 2023 with the investment tax credits. We hope to see the enabling legislation come with those, but also in response to being at the table and providing, as I call them, production incentives to Volkswagen, Stellantis and Northvolt.
If we hadn't responded to the Inflation Reduction Act, Mr. Giroux, as an economist and someone who looks at the numbers, would you say that our auto industry in Canada and the whole supplier continuum would be in decline?