International Trade committee  Good afternoon. As I reach down to push the button here, I see we have a plastic housing on our microphone. That, as well as the plastic inside your car, came from a mould. My name is Tim, and my partner Jon and I are from the Canadian Association of Moldmakers. Thank you for hav

International Trade committee  It's prohibiting us from entering the market right now.

International Trade committee  They're a little less, but close.

International Trade committee  We expect to see both tariff and non-tariff barriers, but I would throw out the challenge that, if you get rid of the tariff barriers, we'll work on the other ones.

International Trade committee  High school and the skilled trades are the two things that we're looking for. You can get a job in our industry, like many, without much of an education, but if you wish to rise in the levels of technology, skilled trades, CNC machinist and mould-maker are two of the skilled trad

International Trade committee  Yes, absolutely.

International Trade committee  We've already embraced them. It's part of our manufacturing process now, and 3-D printing and additive manufacturing is a very large and increasingly growing segment of our business. We work pretty closely with a number of places such as Fraunhofer, for example. In our big trad

International Trade committee  Yes to both. There are local sources for it. Because of our proximity to the U.S. and Michigan, it's obviously an area for us, because, as Jon alluded, our business has grown up. In 75 years, we've built a very strong supply chain, geographically local as well as in the near ar

International Trade committee  In terms of our competitive advantage, I'll give a bit of a quick history lesson. Our industry grew out of European immigrants in the post-Second World War era. It was artists who migrated to southwestern Ontario. That said, when the dollar went even and we had the 2008 crash, C

International Trade committee  We don't believe that's the right way either, and we don't cater to that market. There are countries in the world that do cater to that market. That's not something we address. In terms of what we're looking for, as I mentioned earlier, more developed markets, or markets where th

International Trade committee  Eighty per cent of what we do is not used domestically. Eighty per cent of the product that's made by our members is exported. The world is getting smaller, and we're exporting to more and more countries. As Jon mentioned, we don't have a great foot in South America at this poi

International Trade committee  Thank you, Jon. Again, thank you for the opportunity today. In terms of whether you've touched something plastic, you can look around the room and see lots of stuff. We basically take two raw pieces of steel, carve out two halves, put them together and squirt liquid plastic in