Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I just want to return, first of all, to the context. When we're talking about restructuring, it's easy with the passage of time to remember precisely how difficult the time was when this decision was being made. Unemployment in Oshawa, for example, in 2009 was at or above 10%. In Windsor I remember it being as deep as 15.3% at the depths of the recession, and that was without losing the auto sector and all of those related jobs.
It's not just numbers. It is, of course, families, and what that could have meant to them. Windsor, I dare say, would have been a ghost town. This is what the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor said in its study of the U.S. auto bailout. They said that a collapse of GM and Chrysler “would have produced a Depression Era economy in much of the upper Midwest.” I think our Prime Minister at the time suggested that if the industry had gone under, it would have blown a gaping hole in the Canadian economy. That recession could have been significantly worse than it was. We are talking about how the restructuring was implemented precisely because this government actually authorized the funds to be used.
I appreciate the talk of support by members opposite, but the reality is that the authorization for these programs came from Conservative members standing up on that, including funding for the auto innovation fund in 2008 and in 2013-14, as well as through restructuring in the budget of 2009. We don't get results if we don't in fact advance the money.
Regarding the report on the auto innovation fund, Mr. Jennings, we already established that risk assessments that were completed may be exhaustive in some ways. I asked whether the additional criticisms of the Auditor General have already been incorporated into the risk assessment framework of the department. You suggested that has been done.
The program has a number of safeguards. I point to page 18 of the Auditor General's report. There are three safeguards identified there, if I'm correct. The funds are disbursed only after the recipient has invested its own money. That's a significant safeguard. That support is unconditionally repayable. Can you explain what that means?