Thank you, Chair.
Colleagues, I want to be clear right from the start: This motion is not about opposing electric vehicles. Conservatives support innovation, consumer choice and Canadian-made technology. What we do oppose is a federal Liberal EV mandate, a policy that punishes workers and families, undermines our manufacturing competitiveness and threatens the livelihoods of thousands of Canadian auto workers, particularly in Windsor, the heart of Canada's automotive industry.
We heard it loud and clear from our witnesses: The average electric vehicle costs $15,000 more than a comparable gas-powered vehicle. As Huw Williams told this committee just days ago, it's "a pending disaster", and he's right.
This mandate doesn't help the average family; it helps foreign corporations and the ultrawealthy who can afford a $70,000 car and a home charging station.
When the government tells automakers what to build instead of letting consumers decide what to buy, the result is simple: fewer cars on lots, fewer choices and higher prices. That means more families priced out of owning a vehicle altogether. In Windsor, where our local economy was built on auto manufacturing, this mandate represents yet another threat to good-paying union and non-union jobs. Right now, unemployment in Windsor is 10.4%, which is the highest in the country. We've seen Stellantis move production of the Jeep Compass from Brampton to Illinois, putting 3,000 Canadian jobs at risk. Our parts manufacturers, many of them small and family-owned, are struggling under the uncertainty created by this government's industrial policy.
For Windsor, it isn't just about cars; it's about the survival of an entire regional economy that depends on the freedom to build, sell and export vehicles that Canadians actually want to buy. Ending the federal mandate sends the right signal: that we believe in market-driven innovation, not government coercion, and that we trust consumers, not bureaucrats, to chose what works best for them.
Abolishing this mandate doesn't mean walking away from clean technology; it means replacing ideology with practicality and ensuring the transition to cleaner transportation happens with Canadian workers, not at their expense.
Mr. Chair, this motion is about standing up for affordability for families, choice for consumers and jobs for workers, especially in Windsor-Essex and Brampton. It's about saying yes to innovation but no to mandates that drive prices up and jobs out. If the government truly stands firmly with its auto workers, it should prove it by scrapping this failed policy and replacing it with a made-in-Canada plan that protects both our environment and our manufacturing heartland.
Thank you.