Thank you very much. On behalf of the 15 members of the Global Automakers of Canada, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today.
Our members include Canada's largest automaker, Toyota, which last year produced more vehicles than Ford, GM and Stellantis combined, and Honda, Canada's second-largest automaker, in addition to 13 exclusive Canadian distributors of their brands in our country.
Last year our members represented 62% of all vehicle sales in Canada and 65% of all light-duty vehicle production in Canada. While our members have traditionally been characterized as importers, approximately 56% of the vehicles that are sold by our members in Canada are produced in the traditional CUSMA-USMCA region.
As a result of the composition of our membership and where they produce vehicles and ship from, they have significant experience with supply chain infrastructure by truck and rail, running both north and south in the NAFTA region, east and west across Canada and with the port authorities on the east coast and the west coast, as well as the Port of Montreal.
Suffice it to say that there have always been long-standing infrastructure issues within Canada that need to be continually monitored, addressed and modernized if we, as a trading nation, wish to continue to create a hospitable environment for foreign direct investment in our country. Substantive efforts at federal and provincial levels to attract investments to Canada can be undermined by infrastructure that is congested and at times lacks the reliability and predictability that investors seek to ensure they can secure the necessary production inputs into their facilities as well as get finished goods to market.
I think it is important for the committee to note that, perhaps like other industries, Canada's supply chain infrastructure issues may be somewhat masked by the impact of the pandemic over the course of the past couple of years.
For instance, automobile production in Canada fell 28% in 2020 from 2019 levels, and 2021 production was down fully 33.5% from 2019 levels. Likewise, vehicle sales in Canada fell 20% in 2020 from 2019 levels and were still down 14% last year from 2019 levels. The automotive manufacturers in Canada export roughly 85% of what is built here and, conversely, Canada imports about 85% of what is sold here.
These substantially lower shipping volumes over the past two years suggest that existing challenges will be amplified as both production and sales volumes return to more traditional levels. The return to more traditional levels of both production and sales is expected to happen at a very modest pace, however, owing to the ongoing shortage of semiconductor chips, which has resulted in lost vehicle production globally of about 12 million units.
This lack of vehicle production has resulted in low inventories of new vehicles for the past two years, which has had the secondary impact of higher prices for new vehicles and subsequently for used vehicles as well.
Increasingly, our supply chain challenges are not related simply to things like port congestion or rail strikes, but can also be tied to the challenges around our changing climate, where fires and flooding compromise or destroy key pieces of rail, road and port infrastructure that are not often quickly or easily rebuilt.
Our members have also been working with their supply chain partners to ensure higher throughput of electric vehicles at port facilities through the installation of charging stations and other modifications, as well as railcars equipped to transport these vehicles.
In this regard, as our industry transitions to zero-emission vehicles, we were pleased to see the announcement of the clean growth fund in last month's federal budget, with a commitment to restructuring critical supply chains, as well as $1.5 billion allocated under the critical minerals strategy for infrastructure to support the development of a critical mineral supply chain that will be essential to maximizing Canada's resources and opportunities to become a critical component globally of materials and minerals necessary for the development of electrified vehicles.
I wish to thank the committee again for the opportunity to appear before you today. I would be pleased to answer any questions you have.
Thank you.