:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and colleagues.
Merry Christmas. It's great to be here.
I know that I'm here on main estimates but I know this is a time at the end of the fall session where a lot of topics are obviously open for discussion. I'm here to talk about the issues that are of curiosity to you. With that in mind, I'm going to talk about a number of things in my opening remarks and then, of course, I'll pass it on to you for questions.
My deputy minister John Knubley is here with me, along with assistant deputy ministers Kelly Gillis, Mitch Davies, and Phil Jennings.
When I last appeared before this committee, as you know, I spoke about our government's plan for the digital economy, our future in space, and our commitment to creating jobs and opportunities for Canadians.
[Translation]
Today I am pleased to speak to you about the important work that our government has been doing since then to deliver on our top priority of creating jobs and economic growth for Canadian families.
[English]
Of course, the growing economy means having a clear, measured plan for the digital economy. Canadians live in an increasingly digital world where access to high-speed Internet means access to e-commerce, video streaming, employment, distance education, and health services. The lack of high-speed Internet denies rural Canadians the same opportunities that most of us have come to expect in our daily lives.
That's why this past summer I launched the connecting Canadians program. Under this program we will connect 280,000 Canadian homes in rural and remote regions with high-speed Internet access.
[Translation]
Access to high-speed Internet will open opportunities for the North and remote regions of the country. We often need to remind ourselves that Canada is the second-largest country in the world in size, but 37th largest in terms of population.
[English]
To be able to provide high-speed Internet access and connect 98% of all Canadian households in a country that is as large as Canada is truly an ambitious target, but I am pleased to say that Industry Canada is now accepting applications for projects under this program, and we expect to announce the first recipients in the spring.
I would also add about the connecting Canadians program, the rural Internet policy that we put in place—and I appreciate the support from the opposition parties when we announced it—when it's spoken about on the international scene, for example, among the Internet champions of the EU, it is seen as an international standard of achievement that is without parallel.
Connecting Canadians also involves making the right decisions to ensure that Canadians have access to vital resources, like wireless spectrum. Last March I announced the results of a 700 megahertz spectrum option, the highest quality spectrum for wireless services ever auctioned in Canada. The total revenue generated from this auction was $5.27 billion, proving critics wrong and earning the most ever for a wireless auction in Canada.
Since then our government has taken deliberate action to offer consumers more choice, lower prices, and better services in our wireless sector. We have delivered on our promise to cap wireless domestic roaming rates. We have introduced legislation to end paper billing fees. Next year we will be making more spectrum available to Canadians than ever before by holding two more spectrum auctions with the AWS-3, a 2,500 megahertz band.
This is of course on top of the initiatives that we've had on tower-sharing policy, and on top of the initiatives that we've had in concert with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities on community engagement whenever cell towers are built.
With all of this taken together, we know that these actions have had a positive effect on our wireless industry. In fact, there is more competition today, and wireless rates have fallen 22% since 2008, according to the Wall report.
[Translation]
One area of the economy where we have seen tremendous growth since the recession is in manufacturing. Throughout the fall, I have met with representatives of some of Canada's leading companies to learn more about how we can do better.
[English]
Manufacturing accounts for more than $166 billion of Canada's GDP, representing about 10% of all of our economic activity. The industry employs close to 1.7 million Canadians, and almost all of them enjoy full-time, well-paying jobs.
One of the most important and certainly one of the largest manufacturing sectors is the auto industry, which is seeing positive results. In fact, recently Canada posted the largest trade surplus on auto exports since the start of the recession.
Our government support for the auto sector has focused on projects that secure high-value jobs and deliver long-term economic benefits to Canada. Last month Ford announced the creation of 1,000 new jobs at its Oakville plant, thanks to our government's investment and partnership with the firm.
We are confident that Canada's suite of policies, low taxes, global trade opportunities, investment policies, investment in infrastructure, such as twinning the Detroit-Windsor border crossing, and the establishment of a skilled workforce will keep Canada's auto sector among the global leaders. Canada is a great place to build cars.
[Translation]
I would also like to briefly talk about our aerospace industry, which is another cornerstone of Canada's manufacturing sector. It comprises over 700 companies, is responsible for more than 170,000 Canadian jobs and contributed $28 billion to Canada's GDP last year alone.
Canada ranks third in the world in terms of civil aircraft production. Aerospace manufacturers export nearly 80% of their products to diverse markets around the world. And we will continue to support this key sector of our economy through the technology demonstration program and the strategic aerospace defence initiative.
[English]
Earlier this year I also announced a new space policy for Canada, a framework that will guide our future in space. Since then some of Canada's very own companies were involved in making history by contributing to the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission.
[Translation]
Canada's success in space is something to be extremely proud of.
To build on this success, I recently announced the creation of the Space Advisory Board. Members of the board—including Colonel Chris Hadfield and former Canadian Space Agency President Walt Natynczyk—will provide expert, unfettered advice to our government on Canada's role and future in space.
[English]
Mr. Chair, when Canada's Agreement on Internal Trade was signed in 1994. Canada had free trade agreements with two countries in the world: the United States and Mexico. Today Canada has free trade agreements signed with 43 countries around the world, constituting 52% of the global marketplace. As Canada signs on to more international agreements, we must ensure that Canadian companies and Canadian consumers have the same opportunities here at home. We have too many barriers to commerce, to trade, to mobility, and to growth within Canada.
[Translation]
Over the last 10 months, I have engaged businesses, premiers, provincial and territorial ministers across the country about the urgent need to free up trade within Canada.
Our proposal for change is called “One Canada: One National Economy”. This proposal outlines two paths to advance a modern internal trade framework. One involves making targeted reforms that address priority areas of concern, including labour mobility and education credits.
[English]
The other is more comprehensive, a complete redesign of the agreement to bring it in line with recent international trade agreements. At this summer's Council of the Federation meeting in Charlottetown, Canada's premiers agreed unanimously to undertake a comprehensive renewal of the outdated Agreement on Internal Trade. I look forward to working with my provincial and territorial counterparts to see this through.
Mr. Chair, our government has promised Canadians that we would return to a balanced budget by 2015. We promised Canadians that, if they entrusted us with a majority government in May 2011, our principal focus would be the Canadian economy. By focusing on the priorities that I've outlined today, we will continue to deliver jobs, opportunities, and economic growth for Canada's economy.
[Translation]
I am happy to take your questions now on any of the matters I mentioned in my speech,
[English]
or other matters that are of interest to committee members. Thank you very much.
:
Hillary Clinton's comments were built on the study that was reported on the front page of
The New York Times, which we as a government were very quick to trumpet, which was the declaration that Canada has the strongest and healthiest middle class in the world.
But it's true, I think it's fair to say, not only on some of the items that you mentioned, like ending pay-to-pay billing in the wireless sector, or for example, anti-spam legislation, or the bringing into force of the Fairness at the Pumps Act, which we've done as well, or the drive for more competition in the wireless sector which puts more money in people's pockets, or even frankly, things like augmenting the universal child care benefits, that people have a little bit more money in their pockets to make choices about how they want to live their lives.
These policies, lassoed together, provide tremendous benefit to Canadian families. As you know, not including the new UCCB benefits that we're planning on bringing into force in the new year, the average Canadian family of four has $3,500 in their pockets which they didn't have prior to 2006. We're very proud of that. It's not one big national monumental policy that has arrived at that; it's a series of policies, which bit by bit shift government policy, to the benefit of the average Canadian family. It's principally, of course, middle-class families, those with kids, who have benefited from this suite of policies.
The Canadian economy in general, and by extension of that, average families....The greatest challenge the Canadian economy and all of us face is actually very simple and it's straightforward. It can be defined in one word and that's “complacency”. The assumption is that we will always have better, that we will always grow, that we will always have a better quality of life, and that everything will be fine in perpetuity. That is the greatest challenge that we have in Canada with our economy: complacency.
We have to ensure that we remain competitive, that we continue to grow, that we're establishing opportunity in world markets, that we're developing our resources in a responsible way, that we're managing the Canadian economy as effectively as we can, that we continue to consult, have our eyes open, be mindful of what the rest of the world is doing in auto policy and try to match it in a competitive way.
We have to be mindful that the rest of the world is catching up to us in aerospace and space policy. We have try to stay ahead of the curve and move forward. Complacency is the greatest challenge that we have. We need to make sure that we're vigilant.
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Sure. It starts, of course, with driving at more competition in the wireless sector. I know there were many voices out there that said that it can't work, it won't work, there isn't capacity, and there's no real market demand for this, but of course that's not true.
When you actually look at the hockey stick curve of the voracious increase in consumption of wireless services by Canadians, frankly, and in almost every age cohort, by the way—it's not just a young person thing—you see that there's increasing demand all across the country. We know, of course, as the government, that in those jurisdictions in Canada where there is an aggressive fourth wireless player that is challenging the incumbents, the large, biggest three telecom providers, there's a greater mix of choices of services that are offered in the marketplace, prices are generally down, and there's greater market and consumer satisfaction with the offerings in the marketplace. This is a good thing.
By the way, as a country, we should be very proud of the wireless services that we have in this country: Rogers, Bell, Telus, EastLink, MTS, SAS.... All these firms provide incredible services. When you compare the quality of wireless services that we have in Canada to those in almost any other country in the world, we do extraordinarily well. Where we are challenged is on the question of pricing and making sure it is competitive and that Canadians can afford the quality services that we do have. That's where the government's responsibility is.
When we have an end of analog television, we transition to digital television, the spectrum becomes available, and we put it into the marketplace, as we did with the 700 megahertz auction, or the AWS auction of 2008, or AWS-3 in the new year. When we dispense of the spectrum and put it into the marketplace to meet the market demand for wireless services and for these firms to deliver on the capacity side, we should do so, and try to kill multiple birds with one stone and put in place the opportunity for more competition in the wireless marketplace, which is what we've done.
We now have the spectrum capacity in every single region of the country for there to be four wireless carriers in every single region of the country. There was informed opinion that said this was impossible and never would happen. Well, it actually has happened, and it is being realized, and the spectrum capacity is there.
Now we have firms in every region of the country that are looking to engage the marketplace with the highest quality spectrum ever put in place, so that we will have more choice and more competition in the market. This is a good thing. It's good for consumers. It's good for business, good for education, and good for health services, and ultimately it will lead to a shrinking price point for consumers so they can have access to the best technologies anywhere they live. This is a good news story for Canada.
:
Maybe I'll come back to it, but it is essential.
Keep in mind everything I just said about wireless Internet. Set that aside, and remember that about 85% of all data downloads are still done through wired, fixed Internet. I'll give you an example that tells you everything that you need to know about connectivity in rural parts of Canada.
In September, I was with the Prime Minister in Pond Inlet, the third most northern town in North America. We went into the library/archive/city hall/computer lab for the entire village. On the wall was a poster in all capital underlined letters that said, “Anybody who is in the computer lab, stop using YouTube”, because whenever they use YouTube, they slow down the entire village, and nobody can get their e-mail, and nobody can talk to anybody, so they should stop using YouTube.
This is a village that's very remote. You can imagine that at difficult times of the year, with difficult weather, to get health services in there, to get connectivity in there, and to get learning opportunities up in the north, let alone e-commerce and all the opportunities that could exist through greater connectivity, it is essential that they have high-speed Internet.
Now, through our connecting Canadians program, they will have access to five megabits per second Internet speed, as a floor, which allows for a streaming YouTube video anywhere in the village. That's a phenomenal standard that will be mirrored all across the country. That's something we're very proud of.
:
I know that concerns have been raised, and that's why we have an organization called the Canadian Automotive Partnership Council. I essentially co-chaired a meeting with Brad Duguid, my provincial counterpart. We met last Monday on this very subject, to talk about 2015-16, and moving forward, about how we maintain a competitive advantage in the auto sector, so your question is timely.
As an example, we have put forward $750 million of investment into the auto sector, and that money is made available. I can tell you that we have a number of conversations happening right now with a number of firms about possible investments in order to not just maintain but expand footprints for the auto sector in Ontario, with benefits spilling beyond the province of Ontario.
We have been a good partner with GM. I know Kevin Williams has just left GM. They have a new president whom I'm looking forward to speaking with very soon about what the plans are for the future, but we're quite confident. It is said again and again, particularly by GM, that they want to make cars where they sell them. If you look at the sales numbers and how GM is doing in Canada, they seem to be going in the right direction.
The auto sector is one of our largest manufacturing sectors, and we do want to make sure that we are investing this money effectively, but look at the whole suite of policies that we have as a government. We're twinning the Detroit-Windsor border crossing. We're working on the regulatory question with the United States so we have a twin regulatory regime in Canada relative to the United States. We've lowered corporate taxes from 23 down to 15 points, giving us, on average, a 13 point corporate tax rate advantage over what's offered in the United States. We have a productive, educated, and thoughtful workforce that is doing great things in plants all across Ontario. Added to that are the investments available through the Province of Ontario in the form of a grant. There are $750 million on the table for investments from the Government of Canada through the automotive innovation fund.
We are working together across all party lines and across all ideological lines. When you have me, Brad Duguid, Jerry Dias, the OEMs, and everybody working together to align our policies to make Canada as competitive as possible, we are going to stay as a serious player in the auto sector for a very long time.
:
This has been a nagging issue for a long time. There's nothing new about this. Frankly, saying it's been a nagging issue for a long time understates it.
As we look at the great picture up there on the wall in front of us, you know that the Quebec conference of 1864 led to the Charlottetown conference which then led to Confederation in 1867. We're looking at the Fathers of Confederation right here in this beautiful painting.
The job of Confederation is not done, in my view. We always need to remind ourselves that at the time Confederation, there were four provinces that came together and created a federal government. It wasn't a federal government that created provinces and dispersed powers. They created the federal government. We live in one of the most decentralized constitutional structures in the world. It shows itself in a lot of very good ways, but also in a lot of challenging ways.
When I say the job of Confederation is not done, I mean that we allow more economic activity, east and west within Canada, for Americans, for South Koreans soon, and for Europeans ultimately when CETA is brought into force than we allow for Canadians to have access to the Canadian marketplace east and west. I'll give you an example: government procurement. All provinces and territories, which is to say NDP, Liberal, and Conservative provincial governments all across Canada have consented and agreed to the Canada-Europe free trade agreement.
Within the Canada-Europe free trade agreement are included provisions that allow for Canadians to have access to government procurement all throughout Europe. It's a fantastic and brilliant opportunity for a country of 35 million people to have access to a 500-million-person market and all the government contracts at the national, state, and local levels all across Europe. It's a great opportunity for Canada. But the inverse is true. The Europeans have access to government contracts at the national, state, provincial-territorial, and local levels within Canada.
The issue is, Canadians don't have access to Canadian government contracts at all levels of the Canadian economy. Therefore, for example, a young person who lives in Brussels who might have a brilliant idea for a mobile app for the collection of parking fees can sell that to governments within Belgium, within France, within Germany, and have access to those markets and government contracts. They can sell it to Brandon. They can sell it to Lethbridge. They can sell it to Vancouver. They can sell it to Sept-Îles, Quebec. But a kid from Brandon, Manitoba can't sell it to Saskatoon, Vancouver, or Sept-Îles, Quebec. We're allowing more market access for Europeans and Americans than we're allowing for Canadians to have access to the Canadian marketplace, and that needs to change.
I've been beating this drum for almost a year now trying to take advantage of the political fact that in Canada we have a federalist government in the province of Quebec, we have a government that's been re-elected in the province of Ontario that has worked very well with the Government of Canada on some files including Canada-U.S. trade access, the beyond borders agreement, and winning the Detroit-Windsor border crossing, and we have a good working relationship with Minister Duguid on this file. We have elected governments in all parts of the country now—all parts of the country—that are willing and prepared to have a conversation about this.
I've been beating this drum now for almost a year, and we got the subject of internal free trade reform on the top of the agenda at the Council of the Federation this past summer. It was great news that the provinces agreed to have four premiers—McNeil, Wall, Wynne, and Couillard—to sit on a committee as a subcommittee of the Council of the Federation and to come back to the council with a brand new internal free trade agreement that all of them will consent to, of course with the Government of Canada as well.
We've taken a number of steps in previous budgets. We will have new items in next year's budget as well that will try to grease the skids towards more forward progress on the issue of internal free trade.
I'm very proud to be beating the drum and making noise and to be working cooperatively with again, the NDP, Liberal, and Conservative provincial governments all with the goal of making the Canadian economy more efficient so we have more trade opportunities within Canada.
I can point to a number of examples, a number of goods and products. I mean the second largest country in the world in size and the 37th largest in population terms is Canada, but we don't have national standards east and west on transportation. We don't have national standards on fuel. We don't have national standards and agreed-to regulations on tires for trucks, which is the largest industry in Canada for employment. For getting goods east and west, we don't have national standards on that.
We're on the cusp of our 150th birthday and we still don't have cooperation and agreement on these standards. It's ridiculous, and we need to do better. I'm going to keep driving progress forward, and I'm confident we'll get there.
:
Thank you, Mr. Minister, for being here today.
I'm glad you talked about the Windsor-Detroit border crossing. It's very important. Unfortunately, your government signed an agreement that requires us to pay, even on the Detroit side. So as we speak here right now we're actually buying land in Detroit and we'll have to build a customs plaza for them because of the agreement that was signed, with no money coming from Michigan or Washington.
I do want to talk about auto, though. You talked about the thousand jobs that are going to Oakville, but we lost over 1,500 jobs that could actually have gone to Windsor. I asked the Library of Parliament to do research—I commissioned them; they're independent—on who has a national auto strategy. That's the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Australia, Sweden, Mexico, China, India, Malaysia, and Nigeria.
Most recently, your government was in negotiations with Ford, and your member for Essex said this:
Ford Canada owes Windsor an explanation. They should break their silence and inform Windsor of their decision, and explain why they wouldn't offer enough in exchange for what would have been historic federal and provincial support.
So I ask you, do you agree with the member for Essex? What was that federal and provincial support in terms of the Ford investment that was actually going to come to Windsor, but eventually was negotiated in public on the front pages of papers?
:
Again, I'm happy to contrast that. I'll calm myself down.
I think you saw a perfect example of the contrast a second ago. Does anybody who is entirely sober really think that an international firm that is thinking about a multi-billion-dollar investment in Canada is actually going to consent to entering into a negotiation with the Government of Ontario, the Government of Canada, and the City of Windsor, that they're actually going to come to the table and have a conversation with us if they have to have a completely open and transparent exposure of all of their thoughts when they're trying to compare what the opportunity is in Windsor versus Mexico, or Windsor versus South Carolina, or Oshawa versus an opportunity in the southern United States? It is ridiculous to think that's an effective way to go.
We have to make sure that we are getting the best value for Canadian taxpayers. We have to make sure that, yes, we are supporting the manufacturing opportunities within Canada, but it is ridiculous to think that the approach to take on this stuff is just to surrender any leveraging we have in order to get value for Canadians and to actually land these investments.
Jerry Dias, who is a serious person who understands how negotiating is done, who was actually at the table, will rebut everything that the NDP has said on this file. He will tell this committee, if you invite him to this committee, that the Government of Canada has done everything it possibly could do to try to land that investment from Ford.
Now, I appreciate that Brian Masse is defending Windsor because he's from Windsor and all that, but I think we have a broader obligation as the Government of Canada to recognize that these negotiations are done in a more effective way to ensure that you get best value for Canadian taxpayers. Any assertion that we lost the investment is a laughable assertion by anybody who says that out loud.
More broadly on manufacturing, there actually is very good news, I think, overall. Manufacturing sales have bounced back. They're up 25% since the start of the recession. Manufacturing employs, as you know, close to 1.7 million Canadians. We do have good news out of Honda. We do have good news out of Magna and Linamar. We do have good news out of our food processors. We do have good news out of pharmaceuticals. We do have forward progress in a lot of areas of the Canadian economy, but of course we do face challenges from some low-cost jurisdictions elsewhere in the world. We will continue to work with this committee, work with Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, so that we can move forward on the initiatives that I know this committee has studied and recommended to the government, which found their way into this year's budget.
Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters said, for example, about budget 2014 that “the budget contains a number of measures that will assist manufacturers and exporters in finding and training skilled workers, lower regulatory compliance costs, and help win major new automotive investments in Canada”.
Those who are the experts in how manufacturing can best be supported by the Government of Canada have put forward ideas. We have listened and we have implemented them in our budget. They have, in turn, supported our budgets. We're very thankful for their support.
:
Let me respond to your statement.
Yes, that is always a concern. There is always a need. As I just said, one of our greatest concerns as a government, in our economy, is to make sure that future prospects are as good as they are today, and that they will always be good. We must always strive for policies, commitments, investments and approaches that protect the middle class and families.
[English]
That's why, yes, of course I said that, because we want to make sure. I come from a community where the average price of a house was about $250,000, about 15 years ago, and today it's close to $700,000.
Incomes haven't gone up proportionately at that scale, but the cost of living has gone up, which means property taxes have gone up, car insurance has gone up, cost of heating your home has gone up. Everything has gone up. This is why we want to make it easier for the middle class and actually put a little bit more money in their pockets, and lower taxes.
The difference, frankly, between us and your party is that we actually follow through. We put $35,000 more in the pocket of the average Canadian family—
:
Canada has the best job numbers in the G7 since the recession. We have the lowest taxes in Canada in 55 years. We stand alone at having a balanced budget in 2015. We're providing $4.6 billion in new tax relief for Canadian families starting next year. I'm very proud of where we are.
Again, reverse engineer where we are to where we would have been had we not taken the steps that we did. We wouldn't have a GST at five points. We'd have a GST at seven points. Canadian families wouldn't have $3,500 more in their pockets. That money would be sitting here in Ottawa to be disbursed through an assortment of government programs. We wouldn't be anywhere near a balanced budget. We wouldn't be anywhere near implementing the Canada-Korea free trade agreement, nor giving Canadians access to 500 million new customers for their goods, services, and products with the Canada-European Union free trade agreement. None of these things would be happening.
The automotive innovation fund, which has created those thousand new jobs in Oakville, above the thousand jobs that were created as a result of that investment, that automotive innovation fund never would have existed.
So, I'm very pleased with where we are. We are growing as an economy. It was estimated we were going to grow at 2.1% this quarter. We're now growing at 2.8%. We have, as I said, the best job numbers in the G7. Eighty-two per cent of those jobs are full time, and 78% of them are high-paying jobs. We're continuing to go in the right direction.
I'm very pleased with the reports that we get back from observers who point time and time again.... When you have Shinzo Abe, Angela Merkel, President Obama, and Hillary Clinton, whom you cited earlier, all saying that Canada has the approach that the world should look to and that they should aspire to copy, I think we're doing the right thing.
I think equally it's true that the public knows this, which is why you see, frankly, the official opposition and their party collapsing in public support, collapsing in their provincial governments, and collapsing in federal support in the federal byelections.
:
I'll give you a general answer and then turn to Phil to talk about the particular sectoral activity that we've got on under way.
In general it's the productivity problem and it's been this way for many years. If one of my predecessors, Kevin Lynch, were here, he would be telling you exactly the same story that I'm about to say. For many years Canada has been, as we indicated earlier, very strong in terms of its basic discovery research and very strong in terms of its highly qualified personnel, but where it falls down is under investment in terms of business R and D, in commercialization, and bringing ideas from a lab to the marketplace.
This has been the focus of many studies, but most recently the Tom Jenkins report which I referenced earlier.
The initiatives that I referenced earlier, for example the transformation of NRC to focus on a more business-led applied research approach, is part of the attempt to address this weakness that has been in Canada for many years in terms of commercialization.
The government's investments as well, in terms of $40 million on incubators where we're trying to encourage the growth of startups, which are high growth and oriented to the marketplace, is another area where for example we're trying to address this weakness in the productivity side of things in relation to business R and D and investments.
I'll let Phil talk specifically about the sectoral approaches that we take. Phil is the assistant deputy minister responsible for the sector that deals with all of the individual sectors. It's called the industry sector and that's what they work on.
:
To start at a high level, investments in innovation is a key part to how you can address the productivity challenges. What the government has been doing, and partly through advice that we're providing, is trying to figure out how we can get better outcomes from the money that we support in terms of investments that are made by the private sector.
We're trying to, as John was mentioning, turn early stage R and D into commercial products that are developed and manufactured in Canada.
When David Emerson did his report on aerospace, one of his key conclusions was that there was a lack of federal programs in the space between basic R and D and commercialization, or what he called the valley of death. There's a lot of federal programming at the front end and some in the back end. One of his key conclusions was that we needed to have more programming that allows companies to make those difficult and costly, and leap of faith investments between the early to that.... He recommended, and the government did adopt that recommendation, to create a technology demonstration program. It's about trying to bring those innovations and trying to increase productivity.
The other part of it is about trying to get better value for the dollars. One of the key criteria for that program is about trying to demonstrate that you're working with a supply chain and that you're also working with academia. You're trying to make sure that the R and D has better value than just to one firm and you're trying to widen that out.
That's just one sector. In space through the same report, but in a different volume, he recommended that the Canadian Space Agency double its investments in terms technology and investments in industry. That recommendation was also adopted by the government.
In the auto sector, which was talked about earlier, the initial tranche of money, $250 million that was announced in 2008, was over-subscribed and the government has since made two announcements about topping up that fund. That's geared towards trying to bring better innovation in the auto sector. A number of OEMs and some key Canadian suppliers have taken advantage of that to increase our productivity.
I would like to ask a question about the spectrum auction, and why the critics underestimated it. Before I do that, I'll just make a quick comment.
The minister highlighted that there are 43 free trade agreements now. Previously, under the decade of darkness of a previous Liberal government, I think there were three. Obviously, it was not a high priority for the government of that day. The NDP, of course, has a track record of not supporting free trade agreements. I think we've seen a tremendous growth in the free trade agreements, because it has been a priority of Canadians to improve trade.
We highlighted the Detroit-Windsor bridge. That highlights the priority of the government for trade, and not just trade into the U.S., our biggest trading partner. I'm from the Vancouver area, and Vancouver is one of the major gateways for trade into Canada and trade with Asia. We've announced the free trade agreement with Korea, and we'll continue with China and Europe.
Trade is growing exponentially under this government. That means lower costs of goods, lower taxes for Canadians, and a bright, bright future if we continue to head in this direction.
One of the major accomplishments that I am so pleased about is the spectrum auction. That means more choice for Canadians. It also means lower prices for Canadians. I know Canadians like that. I am constantly hearing how happy they are with the lowering of prices.
Why was the amount that we would get from the 700 megahertz spectrum auction underestimated? I believe it was $5.27 billion that we got from that. Why was it so underestimated by the critics?