MPs listen to auto industry woes all night long

I'm sititng in Room 253-D in the Centre Block of the House of Commons where, a few minutes ago, a special subcommittee of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science, and Technology just got underway. This subcommitee has been set up to address the crisis faced by the automotive industry in Canada. We'll be here to 11 pm tonight listening to a broad range of witnesses from Ford, Mazda, unions, and a series of industry associations.

The chair of this committee is Georgetown (Ont.) MP Michael Chong. His riding is right in the thick of Ontario's car manufacturing area.

Also on this committee: Conservative MP Jeff Watson, the only car plant worker ever elected to the House of Commons; Conservative MPs Terence Young and Mike Wallace, from Oakville and Burlington respectively. Young has Ford's plant in his riding. Wallace has workers and plants for steel mills and auto assemblers. The Tories also have Mike Lake from Edmonton here. On the opposition side, it's Guelph's Frank Valeriote. Guelph has lots of auto industry including parts maker Linamar and Martha Hall Findlay, from Willowdale, used to represent Aurora, home of parts maker Magna. The NDP have Brian Masse from Windsor which,you might have heard, depends a lot on the auto industry. The BQ rep here is Robert Vincent.

In the early going, Ford is calling on feds to ditch their current scrappage program — which pays consumers who own a 10-year-old vehicle about $300 to scrap their car and buy a new one. Problem there, Ford says, is that most 10-year-old cars have a value of about $3,000. Ford says, boost the scrappage fee to about $3,500 and then you'll see some action. Ford — which is not asking for any government money, by the way — also says the credit crisis has got to be fixed. Ford hasn't securitized a car loan since 2006!

“First and foremost, we've got to clear up the credit markets,” Ford Canada CEO David Mandragon said.