Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My first question is for Mr. Truckenbrodt, in Burnaby, and also for General Motors here.
One of the things I found interesting in the last few years is what's been changing in regard to transportation fuels. Electrical fuel cell technology has been out there and talked about for years. But a couple of years ago the natural gas guys came to us and said they needed help with a pilot project to change trucks over to natural gas. We thought about it but nothing happened on the government side, and then they came to us later and said, don't worry, it's moving so fast that we're converting from diesel to natural gas all over the United States and Canada.
We've talked about things like electrical and talked about fuel cells—great, wonderful technologies—but the technology that seems to be capturing the market, taking away from gasoline and diesel, is something that no one really talked about. It has really started to move in because of changes in the supply of natural gas. Prices have plummetted and it's been able to move in. Supply creates its own demand, and that's what has fundamentally changed it. In some respects it has passed fuel cells and electrical in the race for the next generation of automotive fuel.
With that in mind, here is my question for both gentlemen. I like what both of you are doing as far as electrical and fuel cells are concerned, but why should the government or anyone pick and choose one particular technology over another? Why has natural gas started to become the direction in which we're seeing innovation and a new transportation fuel that is going away from gasoline and diesel, and why hasn't it been electrical and fuel cells, which, candidly, seem to have had more government involvement?
I will go first to General Motors, and then to Burnaby