Thank you very much.
Good afternoon, Madam Chair, Parliamentary Secretary Bendayan and members of the Standing Committee on International Trade. As I sit in my office right now at Windsor City Hall, what you can't quite see—you'll have to trust me, and you can pull up your Google Maps—is that about one and a half kilometres out the window behind me is the city of Detroit and the United States.
I want to thank you, because I think it's appropriate to have this opportunity to provide some comments on Bill C-4, the Canada, U.S., Mexico agreement implementation act.
Now I don't need to tell anyone in the room that Canada is a trading nation, that our prosperity, growth and success are largely reliant on our ability to trade with other countries. I'm the mayor of the City of Windsor and also a member of the FCM Big City Mayors' Caucus. My community is home to 240,000 people, and we are set in a region of nearly 400,000 people. Our city is the largest border city in Canada. The local economy is intricately tied to that of Detroit, Michigan, and the United States.
We are home to the busiest commercial border crossing between the United States and Canada. In fact, the Windsor-Detroit border crossings handle more than one-third of all Canada-U.S. land trade over four points of entry: the Ambassador Bridge, the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, the CP Rail tunnel and the Windsor-Detroit Truck Ferry.
The importance of trade with the United States to this area is further punctuated by the fact that one of our nation's largest infrastructure projects is under way, that being the construction of the Gordie Howe bridge linking Windsor and Detroit, Canada and the United States. This project has survived the test of time through four Canadian prime ministers and four U.S. presidents, representing Democratic, Republican, Liberal and Conservative parties. It has made it this far because smart people on both sides of the border understand the value of smooth and efficient border crossings and the value of trade for our economies and what it means for jobs. Nowhere is the value of secure, efficient and safe movement of goods and people so important than to the Windsor-Essex area, likely more so than anywhere else in Canada.
Windsor is proud to be the automotive capital of Canada and home to the largest cluster of tool, die and mould-makers in North America. Our two largest private employers are the Fiat Chrysler assembly plant, home to the Dodge Grand Caravan and Chrysler Pacifica, and the Ford Motor Company, which operates two engine plants locally.
Windsor-Essex is also home to the largest auto cluster in North America, with more than 300 local companies engaging in engineering, designing and manufacturing of cutting-edge industrial systems and products for clients across the globe. This is an industry that supports thousands of well-paying, highly skilled jobs, and one that comprises 30% of our regional GDP.
The auto sector is vital to the economy of Windsor-Essex, but it's also vital to the overall economy of Canada as well as various regional economies throughout the United States. Our local supply chains are still tightly integrated. Based on geography, businesses are able to take advantage of the best elements that all three countries have to offer. There is no better example that I can think of than this: Parts put into a car produced in Canada cross the border an average of seven times before that car rolls off the end of the production line. That, I think, is a great example of how tightly integrated our economies are.
The amendments to the new Canada-United States-Mexico agreement will help strengthen and protect well-paying jobs and will help our companies stay highly competitive in a global economy. That's truly how our employers compete, on a global basis. The agreement's updated rules of origin, increasing the regional value content threshold for cars up to 75% from 62.5% ensures that a higher majority of car parts, such as engines and transmissions, for example, originate in North America, in cities like mine.
The new agreement also introduces new requirements to help ensure that at least 70% of a producer's steel and aluminum products originate in North America. This agreement has the potential to generate increased automotive production in North America, of course, including cities and areas like Windsor-Essex, as well as additional sourcing opportunities for Canadian parts producers, many of which have local footprints in Canada.
I'm not going to sit here and tell you that this new agreement is perfect. It's not. Future revisions to trilateral trade agreements with Mexico and the United States should strongly consider better labour mobility for highly skilled workers, so that positions like robotic technicians, machine learning specialists and other new economy workers can seamlessly travel within the trade zone to meet the changing demands of employers as they and our economies evolve. The 8,000 people from my city who cross the border every day into the United States to work understand how important mobility is for their livelihoods and for that of their employers.
There's an old axiom taught in many law schools that says the best agreement is usually the one that leaves each party thinking they could have done a little bit better. There's no doubt that is the case in this negotiation and revision to our trade agreement. However, the incremental improvements achieved through the process far outweigh any negative aspects.
Political and economic environments juxtaposed with the benefits of this bill lead me to offer my full support to the federal government. On behalf of the people in Windsor—Essex, I encourage Parliament to move quickly to ratify this deal. I personally thank Minister Freeland for her efforts on behalf of all Canadians.
Thank you, Madam Chair.