Thank you to the presenters for the impassioned, knowledgeable, and experienced-based presentations you've provided us here today. We've heard from all of you from different perspectives.
Mr. Wildeboer, on your last point, you were talking about the growth of your company. Congratulations on all the success you've had since 2001. That's just tremendous.
The auto industry has been one of the very focal points of this TPP agreement. The reason is that this agreement started back in 2006, but Canada just got to the table in I think 2012. We were third to last to actually get to the table on the TPP. A lot of it had already been done, negotiated, etc. That was under the previous government.
Where we found ourselves, when we starting getting through the 6,000 pages of the TPP, was that on auto, when you look at the reduction of tariffs, Canada would have to reduce its tariffs within the first five years. For the United States, our greatest trading partner, our partner where most of our manufactured vehicles go from Canada, their reductions in tariffs will only happen 25 years down the road, and then 29 years down the road when it comes to trucks.
We heard from some other stakeholders like you within the industry, and comments have been made that we wouldn't be landing any more assembly plants here in Canada, because we would not have the climate to be able to do so. Being that our greatest trading partner and friend, the United States, has a competitive advantage on the tariffs, it would be much more likely that a plant would be landing in the United States and they would be getting all that work. Based on what you had to say, where you want to be close to those plants, what would that mean to the Canadian auto industry?