We spend a lot of time working with the federal government and the Ontario government. It includes Unifor, it includes the five automotive companies and the assembly plants here, and it includes the suppliers. I think I indicated that to you. I have some material on that. We spend a lot time talking with the governments.
Ultimately, you're successful on the basis of your competitiveness. If we're not competitive here with assembly plants, we're not going to have assembly plants. When you look at that, you have to look at all-in cost, infrastructure, the cheques that are written, the tax policies, the cost of labour, and, among other things, access to other markets with free trade agreements.
One of Mexico's strengths is not its low wage rate: it's the fact that it has 55 free trade agreements across the world. It's a great place to locate, because you can trade your goods everywhere. That is something we should emulate here in Canada in terms of that.
In terms of the U.S. versus Canada, there's no question that we were not the primary consultant with the United States. They spent a lot of time with Japan.
With respect to the growth of assembly plants, most new assembly plants are going into Mexico. They're going into Mexico because they do a good product, because their all-in competitiveness is there, and because of their access to free trade agreements. That is something we are working very hard with the members of all your parties to effectively make some positive decisions on. Bramalea needs a paint line in order to be competitive for the next two generations, and Oshawa needs a product mandate. That is something we're working very hard on.
Despite where you are on the political spectrum, or whether you're in business, a retiree, in a union, or whatever, we're not negotiating over anything if we don't have an industry. We have pushed way above our weight in the auto industry over the years. We still do 14% to 15% of North American assembly with 8% to 9% of population. I'd like to preserve that. I think every Canadian would want to preserve that. That's the type of thing we have to look at.