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Ontario’s premier has a penchant for appointing committees. Kathleen Wynne is big on committees. Whenever an issue comes up on which the premier feels she needs a greater understanding, she sets up a committee. It’s easy to mock, but at least it’s an acknowledgement that the government doesn’t feel it already has all the answers.

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Her latest outreach isn’t for a committee per se, but for an expert. A committee of one. This expert needs to know about the auto industry. Not just the stuff everyone reads in the papers, but someone with insider knowledge and a keen grasp of the industry’s direction. As Economic Development Minister Brad Duguid put it: “We want global intelligence to determine, for instance, what are the next five or 10 mandates that are going to take place globally over the next five or 10 years … What we’ve lacked in the past has been sector knowledge that you probably can’t get from the government that you need to get from the sector itself.”

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This is good, positive stuff, except that Ontario has had an auto industry for half a century. In fact, this year marks the 50th anniversary of the auto pact, the Canada-U.S. deal that paved the way for the industry to become a mainstay of the Ontario economy, and by extension a key cog in Canada’s prosperity. Shouldn’t the government have a fairly good grasp of it by now?