Mr. Chair, I would like to thank the minister for joining us today. I am pleased that she is willing to participate in this exercise. I hope it will be positive and constructive as well as informative for those who are listening.
First, I would like to mention that I will be sharing five minutes of my time with the member for Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj.
On January 10, the government announced that it would eventually run out of funds for the incentives for zero-emission vehicles program. That was on a Friday, and 48 hours later, on Monday, January 13, suddenly there was no more money in the incentives for zero-emission vehicles program.
Unfortunately, when we looked at the appropriations that the government announced for government operations and submitted to the House for approval, we did not see any additional funds allocated for this program. Does the minister know how many car dealers in Quebec have been affected by this situation? Does she know what costs dealerships have had to absorb by granting rebates on vehicles in good faith when they failed to receive the money from the government afterwards?