No, we're not here to speak on behalf of the manufacturers. What we are saying is that the current scrappage program, which was initiated on January 1 of this year, offers an incentive of $300. There are more than five million vehicles that are pre-1998 on the roads right now. There are one million 1987 vehicles on the road today. Each one of those 1987s pollutes at the equivalent rate of 37 new cars that are currently on the road, manufactured by all manufacturers in Canada.
The government, along with the auto industry, has entered into a memorandum of understanding in order to reduce greenhouse gases by 5.3 megatonnes by 2010. Everyone is working very hard, feverishly, to try to move towards those environmental objectives, which we strongly support as good corporate citizens. What we're saying is that a $300 scrappage program just is not going to do the trick. The scrap value of those vehicles alone exceeds that, so there's no motivation to move customers from that old technology into new technology. Every time you remove a 1987, it's like removing 37 cars from the road.
Germany has implemented a scrappage program; they're less than a year into the program right now. They have approached it both from the standpoint of an economic stimulus and an environmental initiative, and their sales are up 21% in February. They have actually moved 277,000 new owners into vehicles in the month of February alone. What we're saying is, as an economic stimulus, this is something the government should consider.