I strongly believe we should work against climate change and we should reduce our emissions, but people think it's first an environmental issue. However, as far as I am concerned, and the numbers I've seen in terms of congestion and Canadians going into debt to buy their new vehicles.... We currently have low interest rates, but people keep buying bigger vehicles and getting into more debt for them. When interest rates rise, they will be trapped with their big vehicles, which use more gasoline than the smaller vehicles they could have purchased that would have cost less.
Ultimately, right now Canadians are investing a lot of money in vehicles that are not used very often, because one vehicle is used one hour a day, on average. Basically you buy a $35,000 SUV and it stays idle for 23 hours every day. That's not a good business investment. You don't go hunting or go moving your grandma every week, so basically the pickup truck you have is not used optimally most of the time.
The F-150 is the most sold vehicle across Canada, and we're not using it as.... It's just oversized for the needs of most Canadians. I'm not saying that some Canadians don't need these pickup trucks. I'm just saying that most buyers don't need them. Some do; some don't. We're investing a lot of money in these trucks that are ultimately burning more gasoline than needed just for the transportation needs, and that's creating congestion. It's also creating infrastructure costs, because we always want more roads and bridges. That's costing Canadians a lot.
In terms of economics, it's a bad investment, and in terms of the environment, of course it's not good for the environment, so I think the focus should shift towards how much our transportation system costs us. It costs us a lot for providing us with a lot of congestion, which is not very productive from an economic perspective.