Subcommittee on the Automotive Industry in Canada committee  The answer is that it is a very good investment strategy for the government. The reality of it is that the financing arms of the auto companies have traditionally been quite profitable, because this is quality paper, based on people buying a vehicle and leveraged against the valu

Subcommittee on the Automotive Industry in Canada committee  Leasing could run up to 40% of our business. Interestingly, we haven't cut back on the availability of leasing at all, but consumers are looking at longer-term financial instruments now, as opposed to leasing.

Subcommittee on the Automotive Industry in Canada committee  Now, of course, when you have a captive finance arm, it then turns to the market, and it may often turn to an arm of one of the major banks in order to raise money in the marketplace. The difference, of course, is that in the last while, as the credit markets have generally tight

Subcommittee on the Automotive Industry in Canada committee  Toyota Financial Services is providing that free of charge to the customer.

Subcommittee on the Automotive Industry in Canada committee  The customer does not pay for that.

Subcommittee on the Automotive Industry in Canada committee  On a no extra charge basis, yes.

Subcommittee on the Automotive Industry in Canada committee  For us, we know that the bulk of our vehicles are sold to families. Here are the people who have the greatest concerns at the moment about what the household budget looks like, so that's the aim.

Subcommittee on the Automotive Industry in Canada committee  I hesitate to go too far down that road, because clearly, General Motors and Chrysler are the companies that need to talk to you about the necessary elements of any type of restructuring. As I said earlier, I think what we're faced with right now, in some respects, is the perfect

Subcommittee on the Automotive Industry in Canada committee  The answer to your question is we don't benefit from that. Because of the interlinked nature of both the supply base and the dealer networks across North America, anything that creates broad disruption in the auto sector is going to touch every company. I think it's also reason

Subcommittee on the Automotive Industry in Canada committee  Certainly, any kind of program that the Canadian government might release to the industry through the banking system or through other mechanisms is going to have conditions attached to it. But as I said in my submission, I hope we understand that the credit marketplace is compr

Subcommittee on the Automotive Industry in Canada committee  Mr. Chairman, as you can imagine, it's not just consumers who borrow from the marketplace. Certainly, our financial arms do as well. For us to be offering 0% financing on vehicles like our Toyota Corolla and Matrix, it means we're subventing the rates that are available to us. In

Subcommittee on the Automotive Industry in Canada committee  There are two sides to this, and again, perhaps I'll ask Adriaan to comment on it in a moment. But let me start off by saying that certainly there's no other country I'd rather be in. The Canadian automotive marketplace last year grew, so it is unlike every other industrialized n

Subcommittee on the Automotive Industry in Canada committee  Thank you for the question. Of course, the obvious difference between the seventies and today is much higher levels of safety and emissions requirements—and those systems are costly. But I think we take considerable pride in the fact that throughout that period, Toyota has been

Subcommittee on the Automotive Industry in Canada committee  Thank you. Just to be very clear, as opposed to there being three distinct proposals, it really is one proposal on consumer credit, and in the event that's not possible, then there are alternatives. It's not one on top of another. From the standpoint of what we are doing to res

Subcommittee on the Automotive Industry in Canada committee  As you know, the Canadian Automotive Partnership Council has been working over a number of years in order to frame up a proposed policy. It worked with the Canadian government as well as with the provinces in the development of those strategies. So there's been a lot of work done