Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for that question. This is an important part of my mandate.
Look, if we are serious about climate change—and we are serious, because we believe that climate change is real, and it is a crisis that needs to be dealt with. The transportation sector is the second-largest source of emissions into our climate. If we are serious about climate change, we need to reduce emissions that come out of the transportation sector. That's why the program for zero-emission vehicles, to create an incentive for consumers, is a fantastic program that supports so many Canadians, businesses and the auto sector as well.
The idea behind it is to provide incentives to consumers and businesses to help them move up their decision to purchase a zero-emission vehicle, which they might otherwise be hesitant to do. This will increase the number of zero-emission vehicles on the road and accelerate their adoption. This will stimulate the auto sector by increasing the demand for those zero-emission vehicles and, equally important, it will reduce and remove emissions.
By the way, each ZEV, or zero-emission vehicle, prevents four metric tons of emissions per year. To answer the member's other question, 79,000 Canadians and Canadian businesses have benefited from this incentive.