Finance committee  What is proposed there is a tax credit that targets 50% of the incremental cost of natural gas heavy vehicles. The rationale, really, here is twofold. One, we have a sector of the economy that's totally dependent on one energy source, which is crude oil-based fuels, except for ab

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Rajotte. It is great to have the opportunity to be here in Windsor, Ontario, one of Canada's leading automotive communities and the home of Canada's automotive centre of excellence, Auto21. The automotive sector continues to play an integral role in Canada's ec

Finance committee  Thanks to the Government of Canada, we were successful in getting a $1.4 million capacity-building initiative in budget 2011. This will help with codes and standards as well as education and outreach to the market. One of our challenges on natural gas is that it has been around

Finance committee  Sure. On the Westport technology, as I mentioned in my remarks, Peterbilt just got SmartWay certification for their LNG tractor, and actually we will have the first one in Canada out on Sparks Street October 19. We certainly welcome all of you to come by and take a look at that.

Finance committee  That's a big question. Of course the internal combustion engine is notoriously inefficient, but it's all we've got right now. I think what we're seeing now in the market and with a lot of experience with different alternatives over the last 10 to 15 years, whether it's hybrid tec

Finance committee  Absolutely. Thank you.

Transport committee  Thank you for the opportunity to be here today to talk to you about natural gas vehicles. I'm here representing the Canadian Natural Gas Vehicle Alliance. We're the national not-for-profit trade association that advocates for greater use of natural gas for both economic and envir

Transport committee  Mr. Sanford can probably speak to this question better than I can. You definitely have to be a high-mileage driver. That was a big part of the reason when we did the road-map work, we looked at.... You know, in the past we tried to do it all with natural gas and transportation i

Transport committee  I think everyone on this panel would agree that, yes, we do see now that we're at a turning point with this fuel coming back into transportation, as you say. It is going to happen. I think the question for Canada is whether we want it to happen in a one-off way. For instance, we

Transport committee  No, we are not asking the government to incentivize consumers. What we've learned in the past is that the time has to be right. The three legs of the stool are the factory-built vehicles, a model to get infrastructure to the market, and capacity to support the end-users. For co

Transport committee  No, they're not.

Transport committee  Yes. They are bi-fuel. They will start on gasoline, switch over when the engine reaches the right temperature, and then operate on natural gas.

Transport committee  Yes, they can. That's where maybe it wasn't clear. The Honda Civic, being dedicated, can operate only on natural gas. Typically, bi-fuel is the way you go.

Transport committee  We are harmonized with the U.S. on vehicle emission standards. Transport Canada has its own requirements but will recognize the American standard for purposes of compliance. Continentally, it is well harmonized. But if you look at Europe, it's very different. Even the structure o

Transport committee  You'd have to do what a couple of utilities have done: you'd have to buy it from an American dealer and bring it across the border. As soon as you do that you void the warranty. You'd also have to meet Transport Canada's requirement for daytime running lights, which a dealer here