Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the member for Don Valley West.
I am always pleased to discuss Canada's most important trading partner. As parliamentary secretary for international trade, I believe that our relationship with our neighbours to the south is of the utmost importance.
Let us start with the numbers. Make no mistake, these numbers tell a very compelling story. Our two countries do over $2 billion in cross-border trade daily. Canada is the number one export market for the majority of American states. In fact, in 2019, Canada was the number one customer for 32 different U.S. states.
Over 74% of Canada's exports are sold to the United States. The U.S. is the single greatest investor in Canada. In 2019, U.S. stock investment in Canada was $455 billion, representing nearly half of all our foreign investment. However, when it comes to describing the importance of the relationship between Canada and the U.S., a purely economic analysis does not give the full picture.
Let me go back to September 11, 2001: the day that two planes crashed into the World Trade Center and another hit the Pentagon. Many other planes were in flight during that terrible attack, en route to the United States. Families returning from vacation, businessmen and women, students and other Americans were going home, but the Federal Aviation Administration closed U.S. airspace. In a phone call, former transportation secretary Norman Mineta ordered airlines to “get those goddamn planes down”, so those planes and their passengers bound for the United States needed a place to go.
They came to Canada. On September 11, 2001, 6,595 passengers and crew from 38 flights landed in the small town of Gander, Newfoundland. The story of the people of Gander opening their hearts and their homes to Americans is well known. It even spawned the highly successful Broadway musical Come From Away. It is, for me, the story of the Canada-U.S. relationship.
When Americans Clark and Roxanne Loper and their young adopted child were wandering through the local Lion's Club that was housing airline passengers, a Gander resident they had never met before asked if the couple needed a shower and a place to sleep. “There are no showers at the Lion's Club” the Americans said. “No, you can come over to my house and shower,” said the Canadian.
When Lisa Zale and her American business associate, Sara Wood, went to Canadian Tire for supplies and got to the cash to pay, the cashier asked if they were from one of the planes. When they nodded, the Canadian Tire employee said that anything the stranded passengers needed they could take, and the store was happy to provide it for free.
Local pharmacists supplied medicine to passengers who needed it. Canadian teenagers saw the many young children who were confused and scared, and organized a large party complete with games and cakes and costumes just to make them feel welcome and safe. I could go on and on. It is the story of Gander, Newfoundland. It is one of the many Canadian stories of 9/11 and for me it is the story of the Canada-U.S. relationship.
Before I go any further, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris on their historic victory. This is certainly a new chapter in our relationship, an exciting one full of promise and of hope.
Vice-President Harris spent her teenage years on the other side of the border from my riding here in Montreal. I met President Biden when he came to Ottawa for a state dinner as the vice-president in the Obama administration.
Mr. Speaker, I will not hide the optimism I feel right now.
Let us be honest. The last four years were by no means a cakewalk. The unique relationship between our two countries was tested, as the Americans imposed illegal and unfair tariffs, renounced international institutions, backtracked on environmental protections and lacked any predictability.
However, Canada and the United States have strong ties and relations. This government worked hard to maintain and protect this relationship and we were successful. We stood up for workers, for the aluminum and steel industries and for multilateralism, and we stood against protectionism.
All of this was at a time when the opposition was urging us to make compromises and make sure nobody got too upset. The current leader of the official opposition even suggested in 2008 that Canada should abandon its countermeasures in response to U.S. tariffs, because they were “not worth their symbolic nature.” There was nothing symbolic about our determination, and the U.S. lifting its tariffs proved it.
The motion before us today proposes the creation of a special committee tasked with studying all aspects of the economic relationship between Canada and the United States. While I am not convinced that a new committee is required to achieve that goal, I welcome any opportunity for parliamentarians to examine this important relationship. I had the privilege of studying the importance of our trade relationship with the U.S. at the international trade committee when it examined the new NAFTA, or the CUSMA agreement. The committee spent over 35 hours in intense study and heard testimony from witnesses from innumerable industries and sectors who explained how closely our two economies are bound together.
We have heard from automakers, dairy farmers, manufacturers, unions, first nations representatives, canola farmers, leaders from the chemical industry, cattle feeders, people from the music industry, chambers of commerce, the list goes on.
We have seen the direct impact of this relationship with the United States on all sectors and every region of our country. I am thinking about the mayor of Windsor, Drew Dilkens, who, in his testimony before the committee, told us about the more than 8,000 inhabitants of his city who go to the United States every day to go to work. He said that the parts for a car made in Canada crossed the border an average of seven times before leaving the chain of production. What a great example of the interconnectedness of our economies.
CUSMA is a victory for our aluminum industry. We got the tariffs lifted and a new guarantee of a minimum of 70% North American aluminum in the production of cars compared to 0% before. The agreement is also a victory for our cultural industries, which generate more than $53 billion annually. We succeeded in preserving the cultural exemption, protecting more than 75,000 jobs in Quebec alone. What is more, CUSMA includes a new chapter on the environment that will help ensure air quality and fight against pollution.
Canada and the United States enjoy one of the most productive, collaborative and mutually beneficial bilateral relationships in the world. It is not only our business community that feels this way, but all Canadians: those in Gander, Newfoundland, where so many literally opened their homes; those here in Montreal and the eastern townships in Quebec, where so many Americans vacation; those in Windsor, Ontario, where our respective auto industries intersect; and those across the country in Calgary, Alberta, and Vancouver, British Columbia, from which so many of our exports to the United States flow.
We are stronger together, and our two countries share so much more than the most deeply integrated economies. We share the values of democracy, freedom and human rights, and a deep and strong North American culture.