I want to make a few points on the record about this. Hopefully, we can deal with this fairly quickly. There are many things to say about this, but there are some factual inaccuracies in the actual motion that concern me. Mr. Arya made some really good comments about this.
The green industrial revolution is not stopping because the Conservatives deny that climate change is a reality or deny that there's any need for that industrial transition. It's kind of shocking to see how they can't see the global trends that are going on around the world and that Canada is actually doing really well in terms of building out and attracting investment.
Canada is competing in the North American market for the EV battery supply chain. The fact is that we're number one in the world when it comes to.... BloombergNEF rates Canada as number one for the EV supply chain, which is fantastic. We've seen billions of dollars of investment that would not have come into our market.
We also see this as a really large transition that's global. Companies are going to have some challenges along the way. They're going to adjust their schedules. Some of that is to be expected.
The one factual inaccuracy that really strikes me here is that this motion.... I'm not sure who wrote it. I know Mr. Perkins moved it, but I don't know who wrote it. Maybe he didn't have a chance to read up on this.
The new numbers on ZEV sales in Canada show that there's a 30% increase, quarter over quarter, as of the last quarter. There were 65,733 new EVs registered in Canada in quarter two of 2024. Sales saw a rise and jump to 12.9% of market share, with Manitoba and Quebec actually leading the way. There was a 30% increase, quarter over quarter. That's significant. We want that to continue to rise. I think Canadians, rightfully, are showing interest in wanting to drive more EVs.
Globally, there are other trends that we could cite. There's an acknowledgement that this movement to electric vehicles is happening, whether the Conservatives like it or not. It's going to happen.
The question is, will Canada be competitive in that space? Will Canada actually be able to leverage all of its strengths and natural resources to truly be a global player and to be a player in the North American market, in the integrated supply chains that we have?
Obviously, we know that the United States and its Inflation Reduction Act changed the conditions in terms of Canada's being competitive. The things that the Canadian government has done have made us competitive and have drawn in investment.
The other factual inaccuracy is very small, but “Unicore's” is not “Unicore's”, it's “Umicore's”.
The other thing that we've heard, very quickly, is that Northvolt has said publicly that its Sweden restructuring doesn't impact the work here in Canada. Its production schedule and construction schedule haven't been impacted. We also know that no federal funding—the minister has been clear about this—has actually gone to Northvolt yet.
The structure of these deals is done in such a way that a lot of the subsidy portions are related to production. It's related to the sales of EVs. If these companies don't follow through and don't sell EVs, they don't get the subsidies that were promised. If the Inflation Reduction Act doesn't continue or somehow is repealed in the United States, those production subsidies are no longer in place. This makes Canada competitive with the United States. It makes Canada competitive globally. It really is the reason we've seen this amount of massive investment come in.
All of that is to say that the motion is flawed in multiple ways. In terms of what our committee has said, we all agreed on a schedule, which includes hearing from the minister, having four meetings on the credit card study, which Mr. Masse put forward and we all agreed to, and then getting back to Bill C-27.
If we have other considerations for studies, they should be after Bill C-27. This is just not the right time for this particular study.
I also worry about putting the industry on trial here. It needs flexibility in order to manage its operations and make these very large investments. If it needs to slightly reschedule things, I think that's perfectly reasonable.
I don't agree with this motion. I think it's deeply flawed in terms of how it's been written.
I think there's a great story to tell about the auto industry in Canada and the supply chains that we're building here. The frame of this motion is not one I can support. I think we should move past this and get on with our committee work.
Thank you.