Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm really pleased that you're here because there is a wealth of history in what you've said to us, and we need to learn from that history.
My riding is in Toronto, and in fact, either Toronto's or Canada's first airfield—I'm not sure which—is in my riding. It's the Trethewey property, and that was in 1911, I think, when they had an airfield there.
And of course I'm wearing a pin that's the Avro Arrow, so there is some Canadian history that is less stellar. I'm also aware that there's a museum that's closed and an historic property that is being destroyed at 65 Carl Hall Road that must give you some sadness.
But I want to come to the Bombardier example that we talked about. Bombardier is now building incredibly advanced wings in Northern Ireland. Not here in Canada, but in Northern Ireland, and Mr. Holder and I went to see this, and I was absolutely blown away by the use of new technologies. However, their view—it was quite surprising—was that they're not a manufacturer. They are an engineering firm, and they leave the manufacturing to subsidiaries, or it's an afterthought. The last time the CFO of a company told me that they were not a manufacturer, they were an engineering firm, it was Nortel, and it's something I'm very alarmed about.
Bombardier is also in the process of building factories in low-wage jurisdictions because free trade agreements allow them to build their products offshore and still sell them in Canada and elsewhere. So it's not necessary to have a Bombardier plant in Mr. Adler's riding in the future.
Like with Aveos and other recent announcements of a loss of Canadian aviation infrastructure, is the government's hands-off approach going to be harmful to our continuing as an aviation player? I won't say we're a superpower, but at least we're a player in the aviation world.