Mr. Speaker, yesterday the World Trade Organization issued an interim ruling ordering Canada to scrap the auto pact, the latest casualty of the Liberal government's liberalization at any cost trade policy.
The auto pact is a model of fair managed trade providing auto manufacturers with duty free access to Canadian markets on the condition that they make significant investments in Canadian jobs and communities.
The auto pact has played a key role in the creation of family supporting jobs in the manufacturing sector. Auto companies working within the rules of the auto pact employ eight times as many workers in Canada as those who do not.
The Liberals say they care about the auto pact but it was these same Liberals who negotiated the rules which the WTO is now using to kill the auto pact. It was these same Liberals who assured Canadians that the auto pact would be safeguarded.
It is incumbent on the Liberals now to find a way to uphold the principles of the auto pact and support Canadian jobs. It must appeal the WTO ruling, rethink its uncritical and simplistic commitment to free trade, and failing all this, develop equivalent policies that reward auto manufacturers for investing in Canadian jobs and communities.