Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here.
Coming from Oshawa, I know that manufacturing is incredibly important to us in Ontario. With the study, I've become extremely concerned. We've heard some overall themes of concern, as repeated today, around the sense of urgency and certainty in policy.
Ms. Citeau, I believe you mentioned competitiveness.
We've heard from other witnesses that we have to stop these self-inflicted wounds. We've learned that we can't out subsidize the U.S.A. We had witnesses here before the fall economic statement. The auto parts industry said the IRA was the fix for the build back better bill.
We knew this was coming. It was passed on August 16. It was introduced in the United States, I think, last spring. Now we're finding out that a lot of this fix is going to be in the spring budget—a year after these messages have gone out to industry. It seems that's the problem. It seems that Canada is always responding and reacting instead of getting ahead of it.
Companies like Toyota were in front of us, and they've said that the window for investment is closing. They are concerned that firms will be penalized for choosing to build vehicles and batteries in Canada. The CME said the IRA could result in the flight of capital investment out of Canada to the United States. These things are understandable because if you're a company and you're going to make a once-in-a-generation investment, with the political climate in the U.S—the Republican Lindsey Graham made some statements—these incentives may only be there for a short period of time. We therefore wanted the fix in the fall economic statement. It looks like we're not going to get any clarity or certainty, at least not until the budget.
I'm very concerned. The Americans were even told that there's a naughty and nice list here in Canada. Some companies are naughty and get punished, whereas in the U.S. everybody is nice, so everybody can take advantage of these incentives.
I think my question would probably have to be to Ms. Citeau and Mr. Scholz.
What impact is the flight of capital flight out of Canada into the United States going to have on your industries?
Maybe we can start with Ms. Citeau and then talk to Mr. Scholz.