Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to my colleagues for their interventions.
I do want to say to the member for Windsor West—I think that is Mr. Masse's riding—that you mentioned that you were in the tool and die industry. I think my respect for you has risen even higher. As we know, all over Ontario, a lot of the shops that tool and die makers work in are mom-and-pop shops. It's a field that not many young people know about and not many people are going into. It's actually a great field to go into. You work in tiers of suppliers—tier one, two and three—and you can make a heck of a lot of money. It's very scaled.
Brian, hats off to you if you were in the tool and die business, because there are a lot of shops in Windsor, in the area you are from, and I have some family down there who are in that industry. It's something I applaud, and some of our firms' auto parts suppliers—whether it's Magna or Linamar—were founded on that basis, so kudos to you.
Chair, I want to speak to the main motion for a couple of reasons.
First off, as was noted previously, the Canadian auto industry has gone through many iterations and a very bumpy ride since the early 2000s. I do remember vividly the 2008-2009 period, which was the great financial crisis at that time, and what happened. I remember the intervention by the Obama administration, the removal of health care costs from the Detroit big three at the time, as they were called in the United States, and how full circle we've come today, with the intervention and, I would say, the collaboration between industry, labour and government to land the investments by Stellantis in Windsor, to land the investment by Volkswagen in St. Thomas, and to land a number of subsequent investments along the battery supply chain across Canada, from British Columbia to Ontario to Quebec to Nova Scotia and to many other places that will benefit.
With regard to foreign direct investment, I really hope we can focus this conversation on the foreign direct investment aspect, whether it's Toyota investing here—I just saw them outside—or folks from Ferrero Rocher, who have a plant in Brantford, Ontario, that employs 1,500 people in that community. That's because it's important to continue to attract foreign direct investment here in Canada. They're great jobs and they tend to be higher-paying jobs and to have higher benefits.
Many times when those plants are initially set up, there's obviously what I would call a transfer of knowledge, a transfer of technology, in which representatives from those firms will come to Canada. I see it in my riding in Vaughan. We have a huge manufacturing cluster, and folks will come in to install machines and train the local workforce on how to operate the machines and so forth.
I really fundamentally believe that on this frontier we are going along the same path. Canada does not have a footprint in the battery space currently. We are building that footprint with, frankly, foreign know-how. There's a thing called intellectual property that we're very well aware of, and we know that intellectual property transfers happen here in Canada via Stellantis and Volkswagen and Northvolt and others, and we're going to let that happen naturally. At the same time, I obviously share every member's concern that taxpayers' dollars will be utilized to encourage investment that is used almost completely for the benefit of Canadians. Whether it's members of the CBTU—the Canadian Building Trades Union—working to build the facility, whether it's the outside skeleton steel or the outside finishing, or whether it's the workforce that will be deemed to be the permanent workforce at the facility, which will as much as possible be made up of Canadian individuals, I think we all share that desire and that goal.
At the same time, I don't think it's healthy to get into a debate of any sort about whether or not we have foreigners from foreign companies coming here and taking jobs. I think that's a very unhealthy debate to get into. I don't think it's a debate that is healthy in any way. In terms of the number of companies operating for a year in Canada, whether they're from the U.S. or other domiciled areas that invest in Canadians, I think it's a big net benefit to our economy.
I will say with regard to the number that was revealed of 1,600 jobs, I personally don't know whether that number is correct. My understanding is that it is not a correct number.
We all know the way trade agreements work. For example, under CUSMA, I had the privilege of working in the United States, in New York city, for a number of years. I worked under an H-1B, and then I went under the temporary national visa, which you can easily get and easily work under if you're in a certain designated profession, and vice versa for U.S. professionals coming to Canada. We have programs that bring in foreigners to work in Canada, a global tech-high stream program. In less than two weeks, folks can be here.
Obviously there is a huge benefit from foreign expertise. There's a huge benefit from folks coming here with very specialized skills, whether it's a specialist coming in to work in a certain hospital, in AI or in other segments.
I don't mean to digress and I'm trying to get back to relevance.
I do share the concern from the opposition, from the folks across the aisle, with regard to making sure that taxpayer dollars being invested in a facility are invested wisely, because the reason we are here at this moment in time is not only the headlines. We all know that we obviously need to verify whether headlines are accurate. The number of jobs listed, from what we understand, from what we gather, is not accurate.
We also need to understand that in response to the Inflation Reduction Act, we had to put subsidies in place as a government, supported by virtually everyone in industry, to maintain our manufacturing footprint specifically within the auto sector. To build that electric vehicle supply chain, we needed to respond to the Inflation Reduction Act, and we did so through a number of subsidies that were put in place. We responded with agreements with a number of operators, and we will have a production footprint.
With regard to the motion itself, even the language of “structured a deal that prioritizes foreign workers over Canadian jobs”.... Anybody coming to work here in Canada has a Canadian job. Yes, we need to ensure that a majority of these jobs, if not all, are filled by Canadians. At the same time, be very cognizant of the fact that when the official opposition uses that type of language....
When Toyota set up its two plants in Cambridge and when Honda set up its plant in Alliston or companies that are foreign-domiciled invest in British Columbia, they create Canadian jobs. They will bring their workers over for a period of time and continually, because their head office is located overseas, to help make sure that the plant runs efficiently.
Perhaps I can give another example, Mr. Chair. On our break week, I visited downtown Toronto. I went to a foreign investment vehicle with a partnership here in Canada. It's called Eataly, an Italian food operator with stores throughout the world. They employ 500 workers, Canadians for the most part, at their location at Yonge and Bloor in downtown Toronto.
Yes, there are a number of individuals with Italian citizenship who work there from the parent company. Again, the investment that was made in partnership with Canadian investors—a significant one—has opened up 500 jobs in downtown Toronto. They opened up a new location in Sherway Gardens, again creating another 200 or 300 jobs for Canadians. This, to me, is about jobs, jobs, jobs. This is ensuring that Canadians get those jobs and work towards that.
When federal dollars are involved in an investment to attract investment here to Canada, I do share MP Masse's concerns and MP Perkins' concerns and those of any Canadian citizen that those jobs go to Canadians, but we must recognize that foreign multinationals or foreign companies will need to bring their expertise over to help get the facility up and running, especially and particularly when completely new technology is being put to use.
With that, Chair, I'm going to stop there. If I need to continue making a statement with regard to....
To go back, for those of you who may or may not know, I've covered this sector for over 20 years. I was one of the lead analysts at a rating agency covering the auto parts sector. I initiated coverage in all of the auto parts sector, folks. I was an analyst covering the OEMs for three years. I covered it on the bond desk for Scotia and all of the Canadian dollar debt issuers on the auto sector.
I've been to the Detroit auto show many times. I've travelled both in Europe and Asia to meet with the executives of BMW, Mercedes, Peugeot, and at the time Fiat in Torino. I do know the sector extremely well.
As a result, today I'm quite proud and I applaud what the government has done to create an entire sector. In it you see a continuum of everything in the supply chain from the auto parts suppliers to how we need to get the mines and those critical minerals away from China and delivered to our battery manufacturers and assembly plants here in Canada. I dislike using the cliché words of “transformation”, “transitional” and all of that stuff, but it's a really big development of an industry here in Canada for many generations. Let's hope it's for as long as possible. There are always these Schumpeterian creative destruction forces alive in the economy, which I love, but for many years and decades to come, it will provide great jobs.
Mr. Généreux, I think you're from the province of Quebec. Quebec is benefiting from this. I remember when we had the Sainte-Thérèse auto plant in Quebec. Hyundai was there for a while, and GM was there. Now we're seeing investment return to the province of Quebec within the auto sector, which I think is just phenomenal and fabulous news.
I think when we speak about that sentence of “prioritizes foreign workers over Canadian jobs”, I get a little dicey about that. I think these are Canadian jobs. They're for Canadians and we need to make sure that they have the opportunity to fill them, but when we need to bring in the foreign expertise to these plants, we all understand that this is the way the business world works. That's the way labour works. Canadians can be trained up to understand how this technology works so they can do the job that these individuals have been doing for literally many years back home. That intellectual property exists within the human capital of these individuals, and they can continue on that march.
Chair, I want to turn it over. Others may want to chime in on the notice of the motion. I do have much more to say, but at the same time we'll stop right there.