Evidence of meeting #37 for Industry and Technology in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was china.
A video is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Gabriel Ste-Marie Bloc Joliette—Manawan, QC
Mr. Kingston, you represent American manufacturers, including GM, Ford and Stellantis. You're in favour of free trade and against tariffs.
Are parent companies in the U.S. making similar representations to the U.S. government?
Does the American government seem open to the idea of removing tariffs?
Are parent companies considering legal action in relation to these illegitimate, even illegal, tariffs?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association
That's an excellent question.
Absolutely, the industry has been opposed to U.S. tariff policy. Just to give you a sense of how damaging it's been, manufacturers in the U.S. have already paid $35 billion U.S. in tariffs. North American auto production has declined by 2%, while production in China was up by 10% last year, and U.S.-manufactured vehicles lost market share in Canada, with a 12% decline in 2025.
U.S. protectionism is doing serious damage to the U.S. industry, and auto manufacturers have been making the case constantly to try to get rid of these tariffs. Obviously we are not there yet, but the objective is to get back to duty-free North American automotive trade.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ben Carr
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much to the witnesses who joined us here today. We very much appreciate you availing yourselves to the committee. You have the great honour of being the final contributors to the EV study we have undertaken.
We look forward, as a committee, to reviewing all of the testimony we have received from a variety of different experts over the course of the past number of months and reporting that back to the House of Commons and, by extension, to Canadians.
Thank you very much for being here with us today.
Colleagues, thank you, as always, for a productive conversation. I look forward to picking up our AI study on Thursday.
The meeting is adjourned.