Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Winnipeg North and I will be sharing this time slot.
When I was getting ready to speak today I was going to start this somewhat differently but, having listened to some of the comments from the member for Oshawa, I decided I should talk a bit about our responsibility, both as a party and as a government, in terms of dealing with this issue.
We have to do that in the context of the history of the auto industry, and I am intimately involved in that history. My father worked on both the U.S. side and the Canadian side of the border before he passed away. I have extended family members who currently work in the auto industry. For the last 15 years before I was elected, I was directly responsible in my legal work and the legal plan that I administered in Windsor was directly connected to the auto industry.
The comments I heard from the member for Oshawa, that we do not care about jobs,that we do not care about the industry and that we do not understand the industry, are accusations that I totally refute. The reality is that if we do not get serious about dealing with the environmental consequences that flow from the use of motor vehicles in North America, if we do not play a significant role in cleaning up the use of the vehicles, we will get left way behind. We will continue to see Toyota, the Chinese industry that is coming very rapidly, taking more and more of our market share. Those imports will continue to swamp this market in both Canada and the United States.
We are at the cusp of one of those times historically when we have to act and we do not have a lot of time. Our concern is all about maintaining the industry, but even more important, about growing the industry, making the Canadian part of that industry stronger, not weaker. The do nothing attitude that I am hearing from both the Liberals and the Conservatives is not acceptable. It will not get us there.
Canadian workers, as we heard from my colleague from Windsor West, are among the best in the world if not the best. They have no superiors, although they may have some peers. When we look at the history of what has happened with the auto industry in North America, particularly in the last 50 years, there has been a significant advancement, especially in protecting workers' rights and their right to organize. My father was probably part of the Ford strike that finally forced Ford, by way of that strike, to have compulsory recognition of the union. It is the basis in many respects for our collective bargaining arrangements in this country, not just in the auto sector but right across the board.
There have been advancements on health and safety issues. I think of the strikes that my family went through during the sixties to get parity with workers in the United States. I think of what went on in the sixties and the seventies to get the auto industry to address the issues of auto safety. I think of the fight to get smaller vehicles built in North America after the oil crises of the early seventies. In every case, if one studies that history and understands it or lives it as I have, we cannot talk voluntary. We do not tie our hands behind our back. As the government, as the representative of the people of this country, it is often necessary for us to say that we will mandate these standards.
The Liberals have repeatedly told us today about the 14 MOUs and how great it has been that the auto industry has met the requirements under those MOUs. What the Liberals have not told us is that not one of those MOUs was signed before the industry was compelled to meet those standards in the United States under a different administration than is in that country now. In every single case those standards were met and agreed upon in Canada only after they were made compulsory in the United States. We all know how integrated the industry is.
Nothing new was going on there. Nothing voluntary was being achieved in the way of advanced standards. They were already compulsory. However, because we form such a small part of that market, roughly 10%, what was going on in the U.S. mandated that those standards had to be implemented and met. No pluses for that.
The reality is that right now the U.S. administration is not pushing either fuel efficiency or emission standards. It has abandoned the field. As a consequence of that, the field has now been taken over by individual states in the United States, led by California but followed closely by Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, New Jersey and, just last week, Washington.
As of the first of this year, California made certain standards compulsory. We will probably hear more today about the 25% solution, which is to increase fuel efficiency by 25% and reduce noxious emissions by roughly the same amount. Illinois has signalled that it too will sign on to the plan. When we add up the population of those states, it adds up to more than half the population of the United States.
If we sit on the sidelines, which could be the consequence of the negotiations that are going on now, and if they turn out to be voluntary, all of those states will be ahead of us. This begs the question: Will the Chrysler minivan, which we build better than anyone in the world and which is assembled in Windsor, have access to those markets as a result of our dithering here in Canada?
When we talk about job security, we should be thinking about what in fact is happening and not some fearmongering coming from the opposition, the government and, to some degree, from the auto industry.
What is very interesting is that California has shown us technology that will let us meet those standards. We are not talking about future patents or future inventions. The technology exists right now. California has shown us that we not only have that technology but that it is affordable and can be installed in the average vehicle.
I have a list outlining some of the material from California, but depending on which one we use and how many we use, we can get that 25% solution by spending roughly $1,100 to $1,200 Canadian per vehicle. That money would be recouped by the savings on fuel of about $1,000 a year. The initial capital expenditure on the purchase price could be paid off in a year or a year and half and additional dollars would be saved after that. If that technology were put on the minivan that is assembled in Windsor, it would open up markets in both Canada and the United States.
I am quite confident in Canadian workers, whether they be engineers, plant managers, supervisors, skilled tradespeople or the man or woman working on the line. They have the ability to do this. What we are saying is that we must make sure that the auto industry performs and that the people who make the decisions allow this to happen.