Good evening.
Madam Chair, thank you for having us before the committee. I have to give you a quick shout-out for all of your decades of work on behalf of the auto industry. You've been one of the most approachable members of Parliament in terms of auto issues. I should probably give a shout-out as well to the member from Oshawa, Mr. Carrie, who's been equally accessible on automotive issues over the years. It's a pleasure to be here.
I'm very pleased to be here representing the car dealers association. We have 3,200 members across the country and 160,000 employees. We're the largest employer in the auto sector. Our employees have well-paying, stable careers in every community across Canada. As I look across the ridings that are represented here around the table, I think most of you will know your car dealers, and if you don't, you'll get to know them over the next four years.
I'd like to start off by thanking the Prime Minister. I'd also like to thank the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister Freeland, and really, all MPs of all parties for the non-partisan push to get this trade deal on the table. As we watch the activity coming out of the United States, we see that the auto sector was very much in the targets with the automotive trade tariffs. I think the work done on a non-partisan “team Canada” approach was really quite spectacular. Also, I think the Leader of the Opposition deserves a shout-out for the work he did helping promote the concerns of our sector when we raised the automotive tariffs' impact on communities.
I'm just back from Toronto, where I spent time touring the auto show floor. The Toronto international auto show, for those of you who don't know, is the largest consumer trade show in the country, dealer-owned. Minister Bains made an announcement there, and I had the opportunity to show him around the car show and work with him. Both he and Premier Ford attended the show, Premier Ford for a separate announcement on the project we're doing on jobs and youth skills training. We had conversations with both of them, which I think shows the non-partisan nature of this. They both stressed how this is really a team Canada approach, and that we all have to be behind making sure we have good long-term relations with the U.S. and that we get these elements over the goal line.
The trade deal in itself was hugely important to the auto sector. We're one of the most integrated sectors there is. In our view, if the tariffs that were threatened by the White House had been brought into place, they would have been devastating, and according to the analysis of our economics team led by Mr. Dicko, they would have cost about 120,000 jobs.
It's worth highlighting that the automotive trade between Canada and the U.S. is worth $150 billion per year. That's more than $400 million per day. It's important, again, to underline that 80% of Canada's automotive trade and production each year is destined for U.S. consumers, and Canadians each year buy a similarly large proportion of vehicles coming from the States. The seamless traffic of automotive parts—automotive manufacturing—is important not just to the parts-manufacturing sector. It's critical for dealers and consumers in this country.
We reached out to our counterparts, the National Automobile Dealers Association, during these negotiations. We made sure we talked to them directly to get them on the same page about delivering a unified message in Canada and the United States that auto tariffs are bad for consumers, bad for the economies and certainly bad for car dealers, and that we needed automotive free trade. I think it's tremendously important that every association that deals with their U.S. counterparts delivers that message on both sides of the border to put Canada first.
I'm going to turn to a little bit more negative commentary now with respect to things that we should spend some time being concerned about. The agreement is a terrific first step, but we sit on what's known as the Canadian Automotive Partnership Council, which is a committee of industry and government put together. Minister Bains is a key player in that, along with his Ontario counterpart, Minister Fedeli. This body was formed to help increase investment in Canada and for Canada to get a better share of automotive investment. The bad news for Canada is that we've been getting only 7% of automotive investment since 2009. That's clearly not sustainable from the point of view of maintaining a competitive footprint here. We need both federal and provincial governments to really help reduce the cost structure to get these investments and build a strong base across Canada, which is pivotal to the economy. It's good for the economy, obviously, but it's good for dealers and it's good for the whole supply chain and for consumers ultimately.
I'd also like to spend a couple of minutes talking about another potential trade irritant that's on the horizon. Members will know about the proposed luxury tax on automobiles over $100,000. It's poised to affect about 1% to 1.5% of automobiles. We've negotiated one free trade agreement and we've negotiated another free trade agreement with the Europeans. This particular proposed tax has the potential to disrupt trade with the Europeans. Ninety per cent of the vehicles targeted by this are from European destinations, and it really contradicts the spirit of free trade with those countries. This really isn't a theoretical example. Australia and the European Union are struggling over this very point of a special tax imposed in Australia.
I would also point out that the biggest problem with these taxes is that they don't work. The U.S. tried a luxury tax whereby they imposed a luxury tax on vehicles over $100,000, on boats, planes and automobiles, and it had to be repealed by the Clinton administration in the nineties because people either buy around it or hold off on their purchases or make different purchases, so it doesn't raise revenue. In Canada we have the perfect example, which I'm sure Mr. Dicko would be glad to answer questions about. The provincial luxury tax in British Columbia has added another 20% on top of the purchase price of vehicles. We've seen a sharp decline in luxury sales in that province because people just hold off, don't buy or buy elsewhere. We've also seen job losses reported in that province. We're on a downtrend in terms of overall sales in the car industry, so it's just not the time to make that happen.
In conclusion, I would like to say thank you again to this committee for having us in. My appreciation goes to the last Parliament, and of course this Parliament, for all the hard work in getting this deal in what was a very difficult circumstance.
Thank you, Madam Chair.