If I could, Mr. Chairman, on that, we attended a meeting that was chaired by Mr. Flaherty and that was attended by Rona Ambrose, who at that time was the environment minister. Mr. Bernier and Mr. Lunn were there. There were a number of others there and the total industry was represented. The minister agreed at that meeting that the early reporting of the industry not only had met but had exceeded the standard for 2005 and 2006. So it has been reported. Whether the government has made it available or not is another question. The wait until 2010 is out of respect for an agreement that was signed between the Government of Canada and the industry. So any law, any regulation, should take place after 2010.
In response to John's question, there are two ways to get at issues. One is to let the market dictate what's going to happen. If we left that here, we'd be in big trouble. In spite of all of this rhetoric about how concerned people are about greenhouse gas and vehicle purchases, CTV on February 1 conducted a study. I'll just make one point. In fact buying a vehicle that was better for the environment ranked 23rd among 26 factors for purchase. So people talk one way and act another. Another survey said that everybody, huge numbers, want the government to do something about the environment. Then they asked the next question: “Would you accept higher fuel prices for your home heating oil?” The answer was no.
The market won't take care of it; regulation hasn't. And the industry has resisted, but it has never resisted getting there; it has always resisted the timetable to get there.
I just want to correct Mr. Bennett. I appreciate him giving me credit going back to 1979. I may look that old, but I'm not. I was not the spokesperson for our union in 1979. I got elected in 1992, but I recall that period, as a union representative, when Chrysler was facing bankruptcy. It was only after Lee Iacocca made a statement. He made a lot of statements. I would like to show you the contradictions of Mr. Iacocca. All you have to do is read his book.
We're for fuel efficiency and we're for Kyoto, but we're for an intelligent path to get there that doesn't disrupt our industry. Right now the importers and my colleague Mr. Adams, on behalf of the importers, talk about the vehicles we build here and what we sell here as we undermine those who put the new investment and jobs here. He never mentioned the fact that his country, where they build and ship--25% of the vehicles sold in North America are built in Japan or Korea or Europe.... They never mentioned why they won't let anybody sell theirs. It's very nice to come here, and in addition to being here and selling, to ship over two million more vehicles from your home country in here and throw a lot of people out of work. That's not logical and not acceptable, I wouldn't think, to the committee.