Madam Speaker, I would like to start off by sending my deepest condolences and prayers to everyone in Tumbler Ridge. What we saw and what we heard are heartbreaking stories. As a father, I mourn with them. As Canadians, we all stand with the community, and we are sending our prayers to the first responders, the victims and their families. May God bless them all during this challenging time. Canadians from all areas of our country are standing with them.
I will now shift to the issue at hand, which affects my riding quite a bit. Oxford County, usually known as the dairy capital of Canada, has a lot of farmers and a lot of agriculture. We also have a huge footprint when it comes to the auto sector. Members of the government have visited us recently as well. We were just celebrating a successful milestone in Woodstock at the Toyota plant, which started production of the new generation of RAV4s. I visited the plant and spoke to the workers who are producing the amazing RAV4s. Every 30 seconds, a new vehicle pops off the assembly line.
That is possible only because of the hard work, dedication and commitment of the people who make it happen. The workers in the auto industry are some of the best in the world. In my riding and in Windsor, Oshawa, Brampton and Quebec, there is a huge footprint of the amazing folks who are leading the way when it comes to manufacturing.
We are seeing an attack on the Canadian auto industry, and we are feeling it coming from within sometimes, in some of the policies coming from the current government. The government has been talking a very big game when it comes to the auto sector, with a lot of photo ops, a lot of fancy summits and a lot of talk.
However, the rhetoric is not matching the reality, and for my riding, this is having serious consequences, and not just with the job losses. I look at what the auto workers and the industry do for us. They are out in the community, and they are giving back to charities. They are usually the first ones to support events like Coldest Night of the Year, which is a national charity that focuses on people who are homeless. They give back when they can. They come together as one strong community. The industry and the workers are feeling betrayed by the government now.
Looking at the Prime Minister's record, let's look back at the last year. We have lost 5,000 jobs in the industry: direct jobs in Brampton, Ingersoll and Oshawa, and at Paccar in Quebec. There are also tens of thousands of indirect jobs, the spinoff jobs, that operate because of these manufacturing jobs.
Under the current government, under the Liberals' watch and under their failed leadership, auto production has been cut by half. In 2015, over two million cars were made in Canada; now it is a little over a million cars. We are now under attack when it comes to the auto industry. The government has had the opportunity to stand up for our workers, to show solidarity and to fight against the unjustified tariffs that are affecting our community, but it has not. The Liberals are not showing any leadership.
When the Liberals announced the new strategy, workers in my riding did not back it up. I have been getting calls and emails to my office. People are asking why the government is subsidizing, using their tax dollars to fund, American-made EVs. We should be bringing that money here to Canada, especially when Donald Trump is putting tariffs on Canadian-made autos. The Liberals talked about standing up to Donald Trump; we saw the campaign about elbows up. When it comes to issues like this, that is missing. Now the Liberals are repackaging their EV mandate with a different word and different packaging to make it look like it is new and exciting, but it is the same stuff that will have the same consequences on our economy.
The EV mandates were not supported by the manufacturers here in Canada. Brian Kingston and other leaders opposed them. They said that the Liberals did not know what they were talking about and that they had doubled down on their failed experiments. What did that do? It made us uncompetitive and brought instability to our industry, which in return meant job losses. That is why we proposed scrapping the EV mandates a long time ago. We have been calling for that for over a year.
We should be increasing demand for production in our country. We have the best, hardest-working workers. They want to get to work. They want to roll up their sleeves and build Canada. Instead of taking the GST off Canadian-made vehicles, which would incentivize our local economy because on a $50,000 vehicle it would give Canadians a $2,500 saving, the Liberals are going to ship the money down south.
Canadians do not want their tax dollars going into luxury vehicles they cannot afford, especially during an affordability crisis, when that money could be spent on boosting our local economy and making sure our workers get the jobs they need so they can put food on the table and would not have to line up at food banks as we have seen in the last bit under the current government. The government is completely out of touch.
Workers in Oxford County called me last week after the plant in Ingersoll laid them off. When they started getting their payouts and saw that more than half of their paycheque was being withheld in taxes, they were shocked. They had no words to explain what that would mean for their family. They do not know how they will pay their mortgage, rent and other bills, or how they will feed their family. They are making changes now for the summer, such as taking their kids out of their sports leagues.
All they wanted was for the government to do the right thing and stand with them, because that is what it claimed it would do. It talks a big game, saying it is with the workers, but when it comes to standing up for them in the House, it does not. Therefore we brought forward a proposal that would, under section 153 of the Income Tax Act, a federally governed system, provide some relief. When our economy is not doing well, I think relief should be there for workers, which would mean they could food on the table and would give them some breathing space and room for relief.
We told the minister we wanted to co-operate in good faith. We said we wanted to work together in collaboration around the table. The Liberals flatly rejected it. They called it “political malpractice”. I can tell members that it is political malpractice to not stand with the workers who dedicate so much to our country. The Liberals have turned their backs on them. They talk a big game and talk rhetoric, but the reality does not match their words.
Therefore we are calling on all sides to work with us in collaboration. Let us get to the table. Let us scrap the EV mandates; no matter how we brand them, they should be gone. We should look at scrapping the subsidies that are going to fund things down south, bring that money back home and put Canadian jobs and Canadian workers first. Let us take the GST off our Canadian-made vehicles. Let us give our workers the relief they need during these challenging times. That is what it means to be Canadian. It is time to stand up and support the auto industry.