Thank you, Madam Chair.
In Canada we are prosperous. We have a high standard of living because of our international trade. I think 65% of our GDP comes from trade, and the bulk of our trade is with the U.S.
Whatever the U.S. does on the economic front will certainly affect us. We have to be cognizant of that fact. I am glad that we are looking in detail into the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act and seeing the consequences for Canada.
In my view, in addition to this very important act, I think we should simultaneously consider the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, passed by the United States. That's a $280-billion act. Though it is popularly known as the CHIPS act, with $52 billion going into CHIPS production, $200 billion is going toward setting up 20 technology centres. They're CHIPS-related energy transition biotechnology centres.
Those investments are what the U.S. experts call “the most significant investment in industrial policy that the U.S. has made in the last 50 years or more.” That is also important. We have to look into how that affects Canada in various spheres of the economy here.
A few days back, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce stated, “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, a once-in-a-generation opportunity, to secure our national security and revitalize American manufacturing and revitalize American innovation and research and development.” Having said that, we are focused on the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act. The talk is on trying to match whatever the U.S. is doing.
During the last meeting, we had several witnesses, and I think two key points that were brought out were from the president of Canada's Building Trades Unions, Sean Strickland. He mentioned that we cannot “respond line by line”, but we should respond “smartly”. That is what I think we should focus on.
We are talking about the flight of capital and how Canada is losing all the money that will go into the U.S. At the same time, we are forgetting that a few weeks back, the U.S. military was exploring how it can invest in Canadian mineral projects and critical minerals. That was a surprise for many, but not to several of us. We know that the defence production sharing agreement from 1956 considers all Canadian companies to be U.S. domestic companies for defence purchases.
We have certain significant areas of strength in Canada. For the strategically important things we have in Canada, I think we can focus on and respond smartly to those sectors.
Recently, the Government of Canada signed an agreement with the Ontario provincial government for the Ontario regional table. This is the ninth regional table agreement that the federal government has signed with a province, wherein we try to align resources, work on the timelines and plan to work on the regulatory process so that we can jointly develop the smart electricity grid and the critical minerals supply chain, and we can do things related to nuclear technology and sustainable forestry.
I would like to ask Mr. Kennedy of the Business Council what his thoughts are on these regional tables. What are the key things for which we can adopt a team Canada approach, similar to how all the political parties in Parliament, the provinces and the industry bodies worked together when it came to the NAFTA renegotiation? In the same way, what can we do in the context of these regional tables? What are the key things we need to address jointly?