Dank je wel. I'm very honoured to speak with you today. I'm a little nervous. I'm the little tall guy here. As a Canadian though, I want to say thank you to all of you for being here and helping us out through this situation.
Owasco is a family-owned business. We have three automotive dealerships, a collision centre, our RV dealership, and an RV rental business, which combined employ 220 people. I am the past president of the Trillium Automobile Dealers Association, and we're also actively involved with the CADA and the Recreational Vehicle Dealers Association in its Ontario chapter.
My family and I have put everything on the line in investing over $30 million in two new facilities. The first store is the expansion of our business, which is the building of a new $15-million 41,000-square foot Audi store. Today our builders told me, “You're lucky to build this building now with steel purchases before the tariffs.” Prices of steel have been fluctuating by 20%, which has placed a hold on a lot of projects. We can't even price out the new jobs.
The second is the recent purchase of a 41-acre property in Clarington, where we're expanding our RV business through another $15-million investment in a brand new store. We're hoping to employ an additional 50 people. Our future expansion plans include four new businesses on this site, which we now have to place on hold due to the price increase and the economic instability caused by these tariffs.
Years ago many trailers and motor homes were manufactured in Canada, but today over 95% of the production is in the U.S.A. Although they might be assembled in U.S.A., about half of the aluminum and steel of these RVs is imported from Canada. Given the uncertainty, some motor home manufacturers have already implemented a 10% increase in pricing due to the tariffs, and we've been warned that there are more to come. This will be disastrous not only to our business but to the industry at large.
This will have a national impact. More than two million, or about 15%, of Canadian households own RVs. They should buy more though. In 2017 the RV industry supported 66,000 jobs with $6.1 billion in total spending and $3.4 billion in sales and servicing of RVs. These tariffs will also have broader implications for service industries such as our tourist industry. For example, our motor home rental department provides summer employment for an additional 10 college or university students. Our rental fleet is over 90 pieces, with combined bookings of 5,000 nights and travel of one million kilometres each season. Most of these people—65% of our renters—are from out of the country. You can imagine the tourist dollars that are produced. Due to the tariffs, we'll have significant increases in the pricing of our units, which will decrease our competitiveness on the world tourism stage. People will go elsewhere; they won't come to Canada.
As business people, we take calculated risks. Doing that drives our country. If we have a downturn in the economy due to these tariffs, not only will it put the viability of our business in jeopardy but we will also have no pensions. There will be terrible impacts on our current and potential future employment as well. I look out my window and see the steelworkers, the carpenters, and the plumbers all busy on our new Audi expansion today. These tariffs will create a ripple effect reducing the work for all of these trades. Our salespeople will sell less. People will travel less. Our service departments will suffer. Unlike the temporary shutdown when the Leafs were in the playoffs and for one night our showrooms went quiet, these tariffs will create a long-term downturn. For the livelihood of my personal family and my professional family, my co-workers, we need to make this right.