Madam Speaker, that is a great question. I am a former steelworker. As a UBC student, I worked summers at Wrights Canadian Ropes, a steel mill. I earned my way through university. It is absolutely critical that we understand the needs of Canadian workers, that we implement policy in a timely way.
What happened here is that the concerns of the United States were not listened to. We had a Prime Minister who thought he could bluff the United States and pretend that we are going to go on our merry way and not worry about surges and about dumping. Then the United States said to Canada, “Okay, you are not listening to us. Even though you are a security partner of ours, we are going to trigger section 232, impose very harmful steel and aluminum tariffs that are going to impact steelworkers across the country and many other workers.”
This includes industries in my hometown of Abbotsford, like Mayne Coatings that uses extruded aluminum to manufacture what is called longboard. It made a $100-million investment in Abbotsford and suddenly, overnight, it was told the Prime Minister was not paying attention or being respectful to the Americans and tariffs were being imposed on exports into the United States.
That is what happened. It has been devastating for many companies across Canada.