Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, madam, gentlemen. Thank you for coming before the committee.
We are very interested in the auto sector, which is your area. You are on everyone's mind at the moment, mostly because of the price of gasoline, which is a concern for us, and because of the massive layoffs at GM.
As well, for science and technology, automobile engineering and research are not priority research areas here. In places like Europe, for example, they are much further ahead; they have had small cars for a long time. It is taking a long time to develop electric or hydrogen cars. Research takes time, it seems. So, you can perhaps see my question coming.
Do we lack vision in Canada? Are we investing too little in automobile research? Does the industry stand in the way of new products?
You also told us just now that there are 400 different car models. Why is research not sufficiently developed to come up with small cars and especially to get Canadians to accept them? Do you have a lot of work to do, a responsibility to fulfill in automobile research?