Madam Speaker, I appreciate the question from the member for Windsor West. As he recognized, I mentioned the Auto Pact in my remarks as the first example of sectoral free trade between two large industrial countries.
Canada did benefit in a large way. His area of Windsor, my area of Oshawa, places like Oakville, Sainte-Thérèse, Mississauga and Aurora grew what became a Great Lakes basin of auto parts, auto supply and assembly.
There are a number of reasons we have seen Canadian competitiveness erode in the last few years. This negotiation is one of them. In fact, some of the best years, when that member was working in the auto industry, came in the early nineties, when we had record levels of assembly with the United States. I know the member was part of that at the time.
What we are seeing now is protectionism with the U.S. We should have made sure that auto was our priority from the start. The fact that our minister did not mention auto as a priority in her core objectives speech should concern Canadians. It should concern Jerry Dias, who was on the committee. Where was Jerry? That is a good question. Now the Liberals are putting him on other advisory committees, at least for the next few months.