The auto sector in Canada was on the verge of dying and had been in a long decline for 20 years. Thanks to the investments by the Canadian government, we are seeing a resurgence in the auto industry, including trucks and buses, whether on the part of Volkswagen, Stellantis, Northvolt or other companies. As a result, Canada has recently risen to third place among the countries that attract the most foreign investment.
People say that this is wasting money or throwing money around, but in fact it is an investment for the future. First, as you know, it is directly related to the American Inflation Reduction Act. If the public money spent in the United States under that act go down, the Canadian subsidies and credits for battery manufacturing will also go down. Nonetheless, these are plants that will be there for 40 or 50 or 60 years.
Yesterday, the Minister, François-Philippe Champagne, was at our conference, where we talked about the future of the transportation electrification industry. It was a vision of the future.
The first time I talked to the federal government about developing a supply chain for electrifying transportation in Canada was almost 20 years ago. Things have sped up in the last two years. The time is right, because auto manufacturers are investing everywhere in the world at the moment. People are grumbling about public funding for the Volkswagen battery plant, but the thing to remember is that Volkswagen will not have any other plant in North America. Canada is the one that was chosen. The same is true for Northvolt: there will be no other plant in North America. Some people seem to think this is wasteful. Actually, it is an investment.
I hear you talk about finances: what do you think the economic cost of air pollution is in Canada? According to a report by Health Canada, it is $120 billion a year. Air pollution comes from two sectors: transportation and oil and gas. If we want to talk about economics, then let's talk about health economics, people's health being wasted by pollution.
Forest fires are another thing that absolutely has to be considered. For 40 years, an average of two million hectares of forest has burned every year. The previous annual record, set in 1995, was seven million hectares. This year, 18 million hectares of forest had already burned in September.
Fossil fuel production has an economic impact, an impact on families and an impact on the people who were evacuated. This year, we saw disasters everywhere in Canada because of forest fires. So I think the attitude of some people, people who say we have to produce more oil and more gas, is a bit cavalier, since that is part of the problem.