Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise on behalf of all my constituents in Regina—Qu'Appelle, indeed on behalf of everyone in Saskatchewan and, I dare say, across Canada who would like to continue to have the choice to buy the vehicle that suits their needs at a price they can afford. That is what today's motion is all about. Let me read it for them, because it is important that people watching understand what the government is doing. The motion states:
That, given that the Liberal government is banning the sale of vehicles that will force Canadians to buy electric vehicles, and this mandate will drive up the cost of gas-powered vehicles by $20,000, in order to allow Canadians the choice to purchase any vehicle that meets their needs at a price they can afford, the House call on the Liberal government to immediately end their ban on gas-powered vehicles.
I have heard so much nonsense from the government today. The Liberals are dressing this up as providing an opportunity to Canadians to do something, but they are banning an entire category of vehicles that Canadians have demonstrated over the course of the last few years that they enjoy buying and driving. I would ask members to remember the time when they purchased their first vehicle. I imagine that for many Canadians, it is a special moment. I know people who worked hard all summer in their last year of high school. They scrimped and they saved, and as they got back to school on the opening day, they were able to buy that first vehicle, and they were able to pick up their friends and drive them to school. They were able to do that because a used car back then was affordable.
Now, thanks to Liberal inflationary policies and thanks to policies like this ban on gas-powered vehicles, the cost of cars is going through the roof. According to AutoTrader, the average price of a new car is now $67,000, and a used car is now over $38,000. Under the tired 10-year Liberal government, not only has the cost of housing been pushed out of the grasp of hard-working Canadians, but the cost of car ownership is now becoming something that more and more hard-working Canadians simply cannot afford. In fact, the price of a used car is now about the same as a down payment on a new house. That is just astounding.
I was astonished the other day. We are in the market for a new used vehicle. We have another driver in the household this year, and I went online and started looking. I expected I could probably find something for my daughter in that $10,000 to $15,000 range. In my head, I was thinking I may be able to pick up something with a bit less than 100,000 kilometres for $14,000 or $15,000. I found this on Used.ca in Regina: a 2018 Jeep Wrangler with 123,000 kilometres on it. How much do members think that might cost? In my head, thinking back to when I bought my last vehicle, I thought it might be $15,000 or $16,000. It was $28,000, for a seven-year-old car with 120,000 clicks on it.
That is something that never used to happen in this country. There were so many Canadians who used to be able to count on working hard to afford a vehicle. However, the busybody Liberal government, the “Ottawa knows best” group of elites, likes to sit on high and dictate to Canadians what they must do to be the right kind of person. The Liberals are doing that by taking away choice. They all have something in common. They all tend not to have to face the consequence of their decisions. They all have this insane need to boss people around and dictate how they are going to live their lives. They all can afford electric vehicles, but many hard-working Canadians either cannot or simply do not want to.
My colleague from Manitoba was talking about how the free market has evolved to produce the kinds of vehicles that people want to buy. The auto industry is ruthlessly competitive. Millions of dollars are spent by each of the automakers every single year, trying to drill down and find out exactly what it is that consumers want to buy. They go out and offer it to consumers, and if Canadians buy one and not the other, that auto manufacturer has to go back to the drawing board and figure something out. They have to serve the needs of the market.
When the government comes in with its heavy hand and bludgeon and says it is going to take an entire category of vehicles off the table, that is when the government not only distorts the market and drives up costs but also kills jobs.
Let us look at the impacts of the Liberal ban on people's favourite car or truck. It is going to lead to nearly 40,000 jobs lost. That is not from my research; that is from an independent analysis looking at how the cost of these vehicles will lead to job losses. A new report states that because of the Liberals' failure to get a deal on those unjustified U.S. auto tariffs, another 50,000 jobs could be lost. Not only is Canada dealing with the terrible policies of the U.S. government, but the auto sector has to deal with the terrible policies of its own domestic Liberal government. That is a brutal double whammy that is not fair to consumers and auto workers.
There are 128,000 auto workers in Canada. The U.S. has no mandate to ban traditional, conventional gas- and diesel-powered vehicles. This insane policy to dictate to Canadians what kind of vehicle they must buy, what they must drive, will send even more jobs to Donald Trump's economy. I do not know why Liberals keep finding ways to punish Canadian industry and Canadian consumers by driving jobs and investment to the United States. It is a serial part of their DNA. Canadians will not tolerate this ban on their favourite car or truck.
I heard a lot of rhetoric about the need for this to satisfy climate change targets. Let us have a quick peek at exactly what that looks like. This ban, according to the government's own documents, will result in approximately 362 megatonnes' worth of reductions from 2024 to 2050. That is 26 years. On an annual basis, that works out to just shy of 14 megatonnes a year. Now, to put that in perspective, China's greenhouse gas emissions were 15,797 megatonnes in 2024. If we assume that China's emissions stay flat and do not increase at all, Canada's reduction, thanks to this ban on consumers' favourite car, truck or minivan, would represent 0.08%.
We are going to cripple our auto manufacturing sector and deprive Canadians of the ability to buy a car, truck or minivan at a price they can afford, that meets their needs, while China continues to emit more and more every year. We are going to suffer here in Canada. We are going to put up with the lack of choice and lack of ability to suit our needs in the way we see fit, and it will have absolutely no impact on global emissions.
The insult added to injury on that is knowing Canada could have actually helped reduce those global emissions by exporting more of our LNG, our clean and ethical natural resources, to help countries get off coal-fired electrical generation. Not only do we have a government that says no when our allies come looking to buy that clean and ethical energy, but then it turns around and punishes Canadians by taking away their right to choose what kind of vehicle they want to buy.
I would like to close my remarks with a couple of statements.
First of all, I agree with all of my colleagues today who said they fear Canadians do not know this is coming. This is a typical playbook by the members of the radical left. They pick a target that is just far enough away that they will not be around to be held accountable, but it is close enough that it feels like real action is being taken. They slide these things through in bigger packages. That is why Conservatives are highlighting this today, because this ban is already impacting the market. It is already having an effect on driving up costs. It is only going to get worse.
I would like to close with my favourite quote when I think about busybody Liberal government overreach. C.S. Lewis said:
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
The government should stop tormenting Canadians and give them back the freedom to buy the car, truck or minivan of their choice.
