Madam Speaker, I did say that, so I retract it.
I will continue to advocate that people need to fix this deal to bring it to an improved place. We have to measure it against what it was in the previous deal. We currently have some serious problems with it.
The original free trade agreement had significant consequences for a riding like mine, Windsor West, and manufacturing in particular. When the free trade deal was signed by Mulroney, the problem was that the manufacturing sector was destroyed. There were 400,000 jobs lost in manufacturing. It was one of the things that was exposed as part of doing the deal.
What we lost under the free trade deal was the Auto Pact. The Auto Pact was a special trading relationship we had with the U.S. for the manufacture and sale of automobiles in the United States, the world's largest market at that time. That built our robust industry. In the riding I represent, the Ford family and others who had factories and plants on both sides of the border invested heavily in Canada because of the Auto Pact.
After we signed the free trade agreement, that special relationship we had was challenged in the WTO by Japan, and it was struck down. Instead of fighting that WTO decision, the Chrétien government accepted it. Since then we have gone from number two in the world in auto assembly to number 10.
This current deal has some higher thresholds for automotive components, construction and assembly, but the sad fact is we are not doing the jobs much anymore, so it does not matter if the quota is raised. That is why, in the absence of a national auto strategy, something we have implored the government to develop, we will have further erosion, concerns and problems.
The original deal was sent by the Liberals to Washington, and the subsequent deal was fixed by people in Washington with respect to labour rights to give us some better protections. However, we have still seen plants close and move to Mexico. We have also seen new opportunities being created in Detroit, two miles across the river. In the Windsor-Detroit region, General Motors just closed a plant in Oshawa and is now building electric vehicles and a battery plant in the U.S.
What is amazing is that the Liberals often brag about $6 billion in auto investments since they have been in government. When they had a super-majority government and support from us and others to do a national auto strategy, they never did anything about it, but they brag about that $6 billion. Most of that was actually plant refurbishment that was being done without them anyway.
If we compare that investment to others, Detroit alone is up to $16 billion of investment. There we have rejuvenation and a fight for jobs taking place, and it affects workers and their families. It is very significant for their future because the new age of automation in auto is here, and Canada does not even have a battery plant.
In our city of Windsor we produced the award-winning Pacifica hybrid vehicle, and the government left it off the incentive list for the new eco rebate program. The Prime Minister came down to Windsor, toured the plant that I worked in, stood on the line with the men and women who were building an award-winning vehicle and asked them to subsidize foreign vehicles for other Canadians. We could get a foreign vehicle from that list, yet the vehicle produced in their own community, which pays taxes into the coffers of the government, was left off the list.
What was unbelievable about it was that because it is multi-passenger, this vehicle is cleaner and greener, and we still had to fight to get it on the list.
Our point for this process is to look at this trade agreement. We need to move it to committee and examine it. If we think we are just going to sign it and all these jobs are going to come, it does not happen like that.
If we look at when we sign all our trade agreements, we often go into trade imbalances. We have significant trade imbalances from many of our deals. We hear all the time about all the jobs that are going to come, but they are never value added and they always come with a big subsidy from the government because there is no plan. That has to change. It is time to fight for our manufacturers.