Thank you very much.
Good afternoon, Chair and members of the committee. It's a pleasure to have been invited to speak with you today and to be presenting alongside my distinguished panellists.
I am Angelo DiCaro, the national director of research for Unifor. We are Canada's largest labour union in the private sector. We represent about 315,000 members across nearly all major sectors of the economy from coast to coast. Our union is also the predominant voice for workers in the Canadian auto sector, with more than 40,000 members involved in vehicle and powertrain assembly, component parts manufacturing and also working in auto dealerships.
The past months have placed a spotlight on the Canadian auto assembly sector, there is no doubt. Coming out of contract talks with the Detroit three, our union helped secure two groundbreaking investments in EVs, the first of their kind in Canada.
The first, at Ford, involves the complete transition of our assembly complex in Oakville, Ontario. In 2025 that plant will transition to become the first all-electric, mass-production vehicle assembly facility in Canadian history. It's a signal that Canada, as an auto-making nation, is still in the game.
That announcement was followed by our deal at FCA, via Chrysler, where the company committed to introducing a new multi-energy vehicle platform to the Windsor assembly plant. Once that's complete in 2024, this new global platform will have the capacity to assemble cars, trucks and utility vehicles powered by both battery electric and plug-in hybrid powertrains, which is unlike any platform currently in North America.
Underlying these investments is a strong collective agreement that raises wages, improves working conditions and even advances the union's goals on matters of racial justice in the workplace.
As great as all this is, this was last month's storyline. What matters now is what happens next. One of our union's longest-standing grievances is that Canada has lacked a coherent auto sector development strategy. This directionless approach to industry building has failed. As you all know, demand for zero-emission vehicles, while currently a small fraction of the market, is on the rise. Analysts expect light-duty sales of EVs will make up nearly 60% of new car sales globally by 2040. New EV assembly capacity will help Canada meet some of this demand, and that's good, but simply not enough.
Our ambition can't be just to play a role. Our ambition must to be to lead. Without a coordinated national strategy that encourages both consumer adoption and scaled-up domestic production across the supply chain—we can certainly find ways to get Canadians into zero-emission cars—we'll just risk losing the associated economic benefit as production moves elsewhere.
An effective strategy has to synchronize vehicle sales incentives with demand-side infrastructure programs, including charging stations and incentives to expand the consumer market. It must also involve careful supply chain mapping to identify gaps and localize investment targets. It must include content rules for fleet purchases and vehicle afterlife requirements, linking disassembly and recycling to job creation.
All of these efforts have to synchronize with progressive trade policy to meet Canada's sustainability goals, including measures that disincentivize imports of GHG-intensive products and that attach strict environmental and labour conditions on goods entering the Canadian market.
What I have outlined here is just some starting-point suggestions. These strategy discussions have to be much bigger. However we approach this, governments have to understand they have a role to play.
Contributions confirmed by both the federal and provincial governments to new Ford, FCA and also GM investments are a positive step. That's the price of coffee in a world where lucrative investments like this are in short supply. The spillover effects on job creation and economic activity are almost incalculable. Two months ago, Canada was playing on the margins in this EV race. Now we are charging to the front of the line. Now is the time we have to pull together strategically to craft policy that locks in this momentum and builds for the future.
Thanks very much, and I look forward to your questions.