Thank you very much.
Thank you to all the witnesses this morning. It's been very interesting to see the various dynamics, and I thank you for that.
Good morning, Mr. Mayor. Of course, I'm coming straight to you from Ottawa. By the way, folks, he is literally sitting in the Florida of Canada, and I will vouch that indeed behind him is Detroit.
You're welcome for that one, Mr. Mayor. I have a couple of questions for you this morning, sir.
First and foremost, thank you for representing FCM and the big city mayors. That's really exciting for this committee and me to see. I've noted that the FCM and big city caucuses are enthusiastic about the new NAFTA.
If I could be so bold to suggest it, Windsor—Essex is truly a microcosm of Canada, in that whatever Canada has to offer, quite frankly, we pretty much have the same thing to offer, be it the auto sector, agriculture, commercial fishing so to speak, mining, and the list goes on and on. We are very much in a unique situation here. We kind of have the pulse of what's going on from coast to coast to coast.
That being said, it certainly does appear—I'm speaking specifically to CUSMA right now—to be good news for the auto sector, of course, and it's good news for our region, both Windsor and Essex, given the importance of the automotive sector to our region.
Let me also say that we are the party of free trade, and we certainly do not intend to hold up this agreement. However, let me also be very clear that it's important that we do our due diligence. I don't know if you know this, but I would hope that you do. You'd be interested that despite repeated requests, we have still not received an economic impact statement. Why is that vital? We're getting down to crunch time. We need to make some very serious decisions, and quite frankly, it makes it very difficult to do our due diligence without that.
One example, to illustrate the kind of data that is needed, is an issue of significance for our region. Labour has supported the clause that requires 40% of cars produced in Mexico be completed by workers making at least $16 an hour, $20 Canadian. There's an assumption that automotive manufacturing jobs will migrate north, and that would be good news for us, of course, if that assumption proves correct. However, because of the lack of analysis, we don't know how many jobs are expected to be created in Canada. An economic impact study would provide a frame of reference for us to track those numbers.
Obviously, if the City of Windsor, as an example, were to do a P3-type of an agreement with someone, certainly staff and council would ensure that they knew the economic impact on the City of Windsor.
On behalf of the FCM, has the FCM done an economic impact statement of the new NAFTA, and does it intend to monitor the impacts going forward?