Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you, committee members, for the opportunity to appear before the committee this afternoon on behalf of the 15 members of the Global Automakers of Canada to discuss the Vancouver port strike and its impact.
Our membership is comprised of Canada’s two largest vehicle producers, Toyota and Honda, producing vehicles for the North American market as well as 13 exclusive distributors of their brands in the Canadian market.
As you might imagine, the 13-day strike at the port of Vancouver impacted each of our members differently, depending on the level of their import exposure from Asia. Over the years, the vast majority of our members have established vehicle manufacturing facilities in North America, which have served to somewhat mitigate marine import exposure. However, over that same period of time, market share for our members has continued to grow.
Last year, as Mr. Kingston referenced, approximately 334,000 vehicles were imported into the port of Vancouver. That was down 6% from 2021 and 22% from 2018. As committee members are aware, the global automotive industry was severely impacted by a number of different supply chain disruptions, from which it has still not yet fully recovered. Imports from our Korean member companies were responsible for 45% of all vehicles imported through—