Evidence of meeting #17 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was vehicles.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
I'm sorry for interrupting, Mr. Chair. I believe we circulated the motion. If we could have it circulated now, your office—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Angelo Iacono
We have the motion only in English, so we'd need to suspend in order for the clerk to translate it into French so that Monsieur Bonin can have a copy.
Mr. St-Pierre.
Liberal
Eric St-Pierre Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
Can I request a printed copy of the motion in both languages?
Thank you.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Angelo Iacono
I call the meeting back to order.
The clerk advises me that he is having a technical difficulty with the printer. Unfortunately, if you really need that paper copy, we'll need to suspend for him to go and get it.
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Mr. Chair, while we wait, is it possible to finish the remaining half of a round that Mr. St-Pierre requested? I believe my Bloc colleague would have a portion of that. If we don't suspend, at that point, we could go straight to the debate on the motion I moved without any break.
My fear is that we would automatically break for the second hour, but I would very much like us to agree as a committee to continue the debate on the Tesla request motion immediately following the dismissal of the witnesses, once we have completed the two partial rounds remaining.
Is that something we could all agree on?
Liberal
Eric St-Pierre Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
That's exactly what I proposed earlier, so I'm glad to see you're having a come to Jesus moment. I'm happy to go with that in good faith. Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Angelo Iacono
We are resuming debate.
Mr. Leslie, you have the floor for a couple of seconds.
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Thank you all for being here and providing a common-sense perspective on this important issue for Canadians.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Angelo Iacono
You have a couple more, but I'll accept what you decide to do.
Mr. St‑Pierre, you have the floor for five minutes.
Liberal
Eric St-Pierre Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
Mr. Reuss, when you talk about choice, it's interesting. Seat belts were referred to earlier. It's interesting because automakers actually initially resisted the use of seat belts, also arguing for choice. I find that interesting when we make a reference to seat belts.
Mr. Bernard, among your members, electric vehicle sales in Ford and GM dealerships in Saint‑Hyacinthe, a beautiful community in Quebec, have to date accounted for between 34% and 40% of total sales, even though there are no federal rebates.
What are your thoughts on the possible repeal of this regulation?
Chief Economist, Canadian Automobile Dealers Association
Thank you.
That’s a good question. I’ll respond with two points.
First, the figures are very encouraging, and this shows that indeed, more and more consumers and dealerships want to be present on the market. These numbers have gone up because of the announcement that rebates would be phased out. We can see that the numbers were much lower at the beginning of 2025.
This week, we carried out a survey involving 600 dealership members. Of the 250 respondents from Quebec, 74% were in favour of the removal of the electric vehicle sales mandate. Additionally, 68% of the respondents had experienced a strong or very strong decline in demand for these vehicles.
Does this mean that they are withdrawing from the market? Not at all. In fact, it’s quite the opposite, and this is noteworthy. I think it ties in somewhat with what I said during my very interesting discussion with Mr. Bonin. Figures showing a positive trend don’t necessarily mean that the people selling these vehicles think the policy is effective.
Liberal
Eric St-Pierre Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Bernard.
Mr. Gessaroli, in the past you've said that Canada should do the following:
Get rid of the government heavy hand of overtaxing and enforcing inefficient and ineffective regulations. Get rid of all of that. Encourage competition in the marketplace. And over time, we'd find Canadians can be quite innovative and quite competitive in our own right. And we can hold our own. We can be better off.
Do you think we should be encouraging competition in the marketplace?
Senior Fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute
Yes, I do believe we should encourage competition in the marketplace.
Liberal
Eric St-Pierre Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
How do you feel about the tariffs currently on Chinese EVs?
Senior Fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute
The tariffs on the Chinese EVs are due to some very important strategic geopolitical factors. Security, in some ways, always trumps economics. A fulsome debate should be made as to how to best handle that.
Liberal
Senior Fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute
At this point, I'm not really prepared to answer that categorically either way.
As a basic concept, yes, competition is very good, but competition for the sake of competition, if it interferes with the security interests of the country.... That should be taking priority.
Liberal
Eric St-Pierre Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
Mr. Kingston, we've talked about choice. Should we have some more choice? What's your perspective on allowing Chinese EV choice into the market?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association
It's a definitive no for three reasons.
One, we took this policy stance because we had to align with the Americans. The Americans put a tariff on Chinese EVs. We are in very sensitive conversations with the Americans around renewing our trade agreement. If we take a different stance with respect to China, our North American trade agreement is at risk, which is a much bigger threat to the Canadian economy.
Two, it's not a fair fight. The Chinese centrally controlled government has put $230 billion U.S. in direct subsidies. They follow a model of scale, dump and destroy. They scale domestic capacity, dump excess capacity around the world and destroy industries in other countries. They've done it with solar panels; they've done it with steel and they're trying to do it with cars.
Last, the federal government has banned TikTok, citing security concerns. In what world would we allow people to drive around in vehicles with cameras and sensors that could be controlled from Beijing when you won't allow people to use a social media platform?
Liberal
Eric St-Pierre Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
Mr. Kingston, CVMA has about three members, GM, Ford and Stellantis, which was formerly Chrysler. Back in 2009, the U.S., Ontario and Canadian governments, under the Harper government contributed over $13 billion to bail out the two automakers.
I'll be very quick. Are we to understand that this was sort of market involvement, and is this something that we should pay back? Should the sector pay back those loans?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association
The companies did pay back those loans, and we're now succeeding as a result of Canada supporting the industry during a difficult time.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Angelo Iacono
Thank you, Mr. Kingston.
Thank you, Mr. St‑Pierre.
Mr. Bonin, you have the floor for two and a half minutes. We had a bit of a delay, so I’ll give you more time to continue with your questions.
Bloc
Patrick Bonin Bloc Repentigny, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Kingston, in your opinion, would the removal of the electric vehicle standard compromise the achievement of Canada’s greenhouse gas reduction targets?