Madam Speaker, it is indeed an honour to rise today to speak to the opposition day motion. Before I begin my remarks, I too want to express my sincere sympathies and condolences to the people of Tumbler Ridge, B.C. It was an incredible tragedy, and I want them to know that I and the people I represent in Barrie South—Innisfil are thinking of them. We send our love and our comfort to them during this unimaginable time. Having gone through tragedies ourselves, losing two police officers in 2022, we know the coming days will be dark days for the community of Tumbler Ridge, but the love and comfort of our nation is with them. Members in this place certainly expressed that yesterday.
We are dealing with an opposition day motion on an EV mandate, and I want to focus on three things that the opposition is asking for today. Number one is scrapping the subsidies for foreign-made electric vehicles entering Canada, which force Canadian workers to subsidize $50,000 new cars. Two is removing the GST on Canadian-made vehicles. This was something that was in our Conservative platform in the last election, as a measure to spur on Canadian sales of Canadian-made vehicles. The last thing is for the government to use its existing authority under section 153 of the Income Tax Act to help the workers in Ingersoll who have been devastated by job losses and, worse yet, have had to pay taxes, right now, on their severance pay. We are trying to help those workers in that regard.
In 2023, the then Trudeau government implemented an electric vehicle mandate that would require 100% of vehicles sold in Canada to be electric by 2035. For years, Canada's Conservatives have been clear that forcing 100% of new vehicle sales to be electric by 2035 was unrealistic and created prolonged uncertainty for manufacturers and workers making long-term investment decisions. The one thing businesses cannot afford is uncertainty and doubt when making those decisions.
By cancelling the EV mandate recently, the Prime Minister and the Liberals signalled and admitted that Conservatives were right all along. However, their solutions will still leave Canadians and Canadian workers behind. Canadians cannot afford to keep paying into EV subsidies for vehicles they cannot afford and that are not built by our workers. The announcement by the government wastes $97 million in taxpayer money on its environmental crusade and ideology. Of this spending, $84 million will go toward EV charging stations across the country, with no connection between the amount of funding and the number of chargers delivered. This adds more fuel, frankly, to the fire that was last week's announcement that the Liberals will be spending $2.3 billion in subsidies that will mostly go to foreign EVs.
When looking at the numbers, Conservatives found that in 2023, 99% of EV rebates went to foreign-made cars. There is only one Canadian EV that is made in Canada and qualifies for the rebate, and that is the Dodge Charger EV, which is unaffordable to most. They simply cannot afford it, as part of the middle class.
Canada's own auto sector is hurting, and Canada's workers are being put out of jobs. Since 2016, vehicle production has been cut nearly in half, from 2.3 million cars per year to 1.2 million in 2025. Real GDP in auto manufacturing fell another 10% in November alone, and 5,000 auto sector workers have been laid off in the last year.
As a member of Parliament from central Ontario, I am very proud of the investment that Honda Manufacturing has made in Alliston. There is a significant concern not just among the members of Parliament from central Ontario but among those workers, those thousands of workers, many of whom live in my riding of Barrie South—Innisfil. They are quite concerned about the state of the auto sector as it stands right now under the Liberal government.
For the 1,200 workers at the CAMI facility in Ingersoll who have been laid off, the severance pay and lump sum payouts are reduced by the minimum tax rate, meaning that over 50% of their payouts are held by the government until these workers file their taxes.
Canada's Conservatives are asking the Liberals to use their existing authority to reduce the amount withheld in these payments, which can simply be done by the finance minister under section 153 of the Income Tax Act.
Instead, the government has labelled helping laid-off workers as political malpractice, announced a rebate that will subsidize American-made EVs, and committed a swath of taxpayer cash for EV charging stations. While Donald Trump continues to slap additional tariffs on our auto workers, the Prime Minister decided to give Americans access to this $2.3-billion subsidy.
Canadian taxpayers should not have to subsidize American EVs when the trade conflict with the U.S. has already cost 5,000 Canadian auto manufacturing jobs and 37,000 manufacturing jobs since the Prime Minister took office. He needs to answer as to why Canadian tax dollars would subsidize American EVs and to stop this insult to workers, who have seen production leave to the U.S. They will be the ones who are now paying the price.
I will provide some examples of vehicles that are manufactured in the United States but sold in Canada under the $50,000 manufacturer's suggested price that may qualify for this: The Volkswagen ID.4, which has a suggested price of $46,000, is assembled in Chattanooga, Tennessee; the Chevy Bolt is manufactured in Kansas City; the Tesla Model Y is manufactured in Austin, Texas; and the Ford Escape plug-in hybrid is manufactured at the Louisville assembly plant in Kentucky.
Here are other identified eligible electric vehicles that are made outside the U.S.: The Chevy Equinox EV is assembled in Mexico; the Hyundai Kona Electric is manufactured in South Korea; the Fiat 500e is manufactured in Italy; and the Nissan Leaf is manufactured in Japan. There are other examples of vehicles that are made in South Korea, Japan, the United States and other places, like Mexico, where Canadian workers will be subsidizing the purchase of these EVs under this new scheme and regime that was announced by the government.
Auto workers are losing their jobs. There are hard-working, middle-class taxpayers right now who can barely afford the essentials and the necessities of life. They are being asked, under this new scheme, to subsidize vehicles that are not going to be manufactured in Canada, resulting in more uncertainty and more doubt within the automotive sector with respect to where this investment is going.
As an example, the member for Kildonan—St. Paul said that we have seen $53 billion put into the EV sector that is basically money that has been poured down the drain. We see a retrenchment now in the investments by auto manufacturers and the auto sector on the EV mandates, largely because the largest consumer market in the world, which is the American market, has moved away from EV mandates. However, here we are in Canada, doubling down on a failed policy as a result of ideology that is going to cost Canadian workers billions more hard-earned dollars to subsidize not just a failing industry but also vehicles made in the United States.
Today, Canada's Conservatives are standing up not just for those auto workers and the 600,000 people who are employed in the auto sector, either directly or indirectly, but also for those hard-working Canadians who pay their taxes, are having trouble paying their bills, and are now being asked by the Liberal government to subsidize vehicles that are going to be made in other countries. It is wrong. This motion attempts to address that. It is another solution proposed by Canada's Conservatives to fix what has gone wrong over the last 10 years as a result of the failed economic and ideological policies of the Liberal government.
