Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. DeMarco, you're obviously aware of the zero emission transit fund, which the government has established. It's said to have invested $2.75 billion together with the Canada Infrastructure Bank in order to further Canada's commitment and contribute to the purchase of school buses and other zero emission public transit vehicles.
I'll spare you all the program details because we don't have time to go into them here, but, as we've recently seen, the Lion Electric Company, which builds electric school buses and is headquartered in my riding, is experiencing major issues. It invested in, developed and prepared to deliver thousands of school buses because it was told at the time that it had to prepare for that and that the market would be flooded. The program provided for funding that was to cover up to 50% of vehicle acquisition costs.
However, Lion Electric's clients, which are school bus network operators, are unable to purchase the buses because the federal government has apparently revised funding for acquisition costs downward. According to what one of the ministers concerned told me, funding seems to be limited to 25%, or 30% at best, of acquisition costs, which wasn't enough.
Since school bus operators can't make a profit from their operations with subsidies that low, they're still buying diesel buses.
Do you think the federal government is doing the right thing by limiting its investments and letting school bus operators buy diesel buses instead of electric buses?
Shouldn't it stand by its commitment to fund 50% of acquisition costs as planned?