The Canadian Chamber of Commerce is firmly in support of this free trade agreement. We think it can be a high-quality agreement with an excellent trading partner, one whose GDP per capita is $20,000 per year. We've got a partner who can afford to buy some of our goods.
As well, we might consider that with the tariff barriers removed, isn't there an opportunity to attract a Korean car manufacturing assembly plant here into Canada? They've got them in the U.S. Why would we not be more attractive here?
We can look at all the negatives we want and we can cite all the statistics we want on both sides, but Canada needs to be a trading nation. We already recognize on all sides that we are. The balance of economies and growth is switching to Asia. If we do not have these agreements with Asia, and our competitive partners in Europe and the U.S. do, we will be disadvantaged. Not many businesses can stand a 10% hit to their bottom line just due to the tariff alone.
So we have to remove these barriers. Then businesses need to figure out how to adjust and compete and become global.