Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.
I'm here on behalf of DaimlerChrysler, Ford, General Motors, and International Truck and Engine Corporation, which are member companies.
Let me begin by simply saying that in today's ultra-competitive environment, the auto industry is undergoing very significant global restructuring that impacts both regional capacity and investment decisions. It offers new opportunities, but also real threats to the future of our industry.
These threats have been realized in Canada with the recent closing of three assembly plants and several major parts operations. However, at the same time, and in just two years, our industry has benefited from partnerships with the federal and provincial governments, with a reinvestment of about $7 billion, of which $5.2 billion has been through CVMA member companies.
In today's global context, however, vehicle manufacturers must continually fight for new investment in order to remain competitive. A friendly regulatory and tax environment is critical to continue to attract investment and remain the engine of Canada's economy. In this short presentation I will not get into some of the other major issues we've addressed in our more detailed presentation. But I really want to focus on an issue that has received a great deal of publicity of late, and that's the recently introduced Clean Air Act and the role of Canada's auto industry in the environment.
As an industry, we are committed to environmental improvements in the design and development of vehicles and improvements made to their manufacturing processes and facilities. In 2005 we were the only industry sector to step up to the plate and actually sign a voluntary agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from our products to the tune of 5.3 million tonnes by 2010.
Canadian and U.S. emission standards are integrated and provide for the manufacture and sale of common vehicles in Canada and the U.S., which has the most stringent light-duty vehicle emission standards in the world. We can use the economies of scale from the integrated market to provide maximum benefit to consumers at least cost. Any attempt to regulate Canadian vehicles on a unique basis would limit product offerings, increase prices, and delay the introduction of new environmentally friendly technologies.
We believe a better approach for government is to support the leadership of the auto industry by actually assisting the consumer with the adoption of environmentally friendly--but more costly, I might add--advanced technologies and alternate fuels.
The most effective way to clean up Canada's on-road vehicle fleet is to remove the older, higher-polluting, less fuel-efficient vehicles from our roads and replace them with these more environmentally friendly vehicles. Just to give you an example, a 1987 vehicle has 37 times more emissions than a current-day vehicle, and there are over one million of them on Canadian roads.
The magnitude and rate at which these advanced technology vehicles can enter the market really depend on the affordability of these technologies. Assisting the consumer would go a long way in helping to remove the older, higher-polluting vehicles and getting these more fuel-efficient vehicles on the road.
As such, we recommend the introduction of consumer incentives for the purchase of advanced technology vehicles. We believe that new federal incentive programs should be applicable to a broad range of technologies, be based on the level of environmental benefit offered by that technology, and be a direct credit to the consumer.
In addition to advanced technologies, alternative fuels can play a key role in reducing vehicle emissions. We have introduced a wide range of cleaner-running alternative fuelled vehicles. The cost of these could be offset through incentives that would help not just the consumer...but if there's no fuel in the infrastructure to support these technologies--E-85 or other alternate fuels--we simply won't achieve our environmental goals. We recommend the implementation of measures to support the use of alternate fuels and encourage the development of the necessary infrastructure that goes along with them.
We've also focused on a set of recommendations on both the environment and new investment. A lot of those recommendations are in the more detailed document. There is also information in the other accompanying documents that you might find very useful on the economic importance of our industry, the investments that have been made, and where we are going from an environmental standpoint that will ultimately help Canada to achieve its environmental goals.
That concludes my presentation. I'll be glad to answer any questions.