Thank you gentlemen for your presentations today. It's always good to hear all sides of an argument, so we can make an educated decision when it comes to the final ratification of TPP.
I've heard a lot of things around the table here that seem to be at cross purposes. I understand Canada is a trading nation with a small population—that's been brought up—of only 35 million people. We do export a tremendous amount of our manufactured goods and our raw resources. Without the ability to trade them, we wouldn't have the jobs that go along with them. We have to have trade, and I agree with you that it has to be fair trade, and not free. That's why we continue under NAFTA or WTO, and take the U.S. to court, and take other countries to court, the same as they do to us. There's a big point that's been made about how we've been sued 38 times, the vast majority of which have come out to Canada's benefit. Over that time frame, $171 million has been paid out of $5.5 trillion worth of economic growth. We're always going to have these squabbles. Two-thirds of that $171 million was Danny Williams' privatization of Abitibi—and of course the federal taxpayers are on the hook for that. It's not a bad news story, it's quite good.
When it comes to the auto sector, we do a tap dance when it comes to any of the major manufacturing global supply chains, I'll call them. Canada exports five times as many new vehicles as were imported from Japan, because it's a global supply chain. You can't just look at what goes to the U.S., and certainly we're in competition with them. Our current auto tariff, as you're pointing out, is 6% and TPP will phase that out over five years. The Canada-South Korea agreement, which the NDP supported, phased it out over two years, and we're starting to see some talk of investments from Korea into the Canadian market. It's the same as we've seen with Japan. They've put more investments into Canada in the last little while than Ford, Chevrolet, and Chrysler put together. There are 50 affiliated parts plants working now in Canada that are Japanese. There's been some talk about Chinese parts going to permeate, because.... But China is not part of the TPP. You guys need to get that part straight: it's only the TPP countries that will be allowed to take part in that lower number coming into our auto sector. When you put all the facts on the table, I don't see how we can stay out of TPP and maintain our ability to trade on the global stage.