Mr. Speaker, the Windsor-Essex county community was a major beneficiary of the auto pact. The term we always heard about the auto pact was managed trade and fair trade. We did not hear the same for free trade. The auto pact allowed Windsor-Essex county to develop, what was in fact historically a huge development, the auto industry in our area.
As my friend pointed out, we lost that agreement last month, again because of a trading arrangement ruling. Our residents are very concerned about the consequences. We no longer have a fair trading arrangement.
Let me use one example. The Mexican jurisdiction, that economy, is building cars in significant numbers now. To compare the arrangements, on average a worker in Windsor in one of the large auto plants is earning in excess of $20 an hour. With benefits and all the rest it is roughly $30 an hour. The same auto worker in Mexico, building the same type of vehicle, is being paid on average $1 an hour. That is not fair trade. It may be, by some of the other definitions we have heard of trade, free trade. However, it is not fair trade.
The Mexican economy seriously undermines the position of labour in Canada and does little, if anything, to advance the cause of labour in Mexico.