Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses for joining us today.
Mr. Guy, I'm going to start with the Canadian Chamber.
In your comments, you talked about the notion that $2 out of every $3 that Canada makes relies on us moving goods and doing so efficiently. The Port of Vancouver strike had a direct economic impact on Canada. We're talking not only about $800 million in shipments a day—I think it was $10.7 billion in total shipments—but as you mentioned, 25% of our trade was stopped.
We had a previous witness, David Adams of the global auto manufacturers, who had mentioned that the strike added a 60-day window to additional delays in the supply chain. I think that was verified by other witnesses, who said it backed things up by about three weeks in total. The whole supply chain was impacted. I don't think there's an economic figure that we can put on that.
Then there's also the reputational damage that was done to Canada. We've heard from our witnesses that businesses are looking for certainty. This strike, if anything, has led them to question Canada and the use of certain ports. Then we had a strike at the St. Lawrence Seaway as well. Now there's the potential of a strike at the Port of Montreal.
You had talked about the government and the notion of leadership.
Can you elaborate perhaps on how the government can get involved earlier on in the process to assist? I'm mindful of trying to balance the interests of both business and labour, but how can the government get into the process earlier?
If you look at the timeline, the employers asked to negotiate going back to the winter of 2022. It still resulted in a strike on July 1.
How can we bridge those differences in between in a way that we can get settlements to avoid this?