Public Safety committee  I wouldn't add anything more to that. I think Brian hit the nail on the head.

Public Safety committee  Speaking from the point of view of a parts supplier, I will say that you can make the most sophisticated immobilizer. You sell it to a human being. That human being owns that vehicle and maintains and services that vehicle, but it might be three, four, six or eight years out from when you made the immobilizer.

Public Safety committee  I think our only comment on that is that the industry doesn't have a monopoly on capable people who are designing and redesigning tech. We're certainly able to regulate what comes out of our factories and out of our labs, but some of the motivation in the criminal sphere in this space might be that it is more lucrative to work on devices that hack the original coding.

Public Safety committee  You don't know me very well, but I'll give it a shot. The members of the APMA, the suppliers in this country, are trying to demonstrate that they are specifically capable of supplying cybersecurity, AI and machine learning, new tools to the auto sector. We did a demonstration project called Project Arrow.

Public Safety committee  Thank you to the committee members and chair for having us today to speak to this crisis and give our perspective as technology suppliers. The APMA represents hundreds of suppliers to original equipment manufacturers of vehicles in Canada and around the world. That's hardware and software, some of which is used in vehicle security.

International Trade committee  No, but there is a mix. European regulations look a little bit like the Japanese ones. You'll see a lot of product similarities, in that what's built and sold in Europe is a little bit more akin to what sells in Japan, and it's the same between Korea and Japan, but for North American markets with origins from any of the three North American countries, it's the same non-tariff barrier.

International Trade committee  In the CPTPP, there is no mechanism. When we finally signed it—it was negotiated under one government and signed under another—we said there were side letters. I said those side letters were worthless then, and it really hasn't changed now. We've just got to be smarter.

International Trade committee  Canada is leaning that way, and we warned not to, because I think it will hurt our manufacturing footprint.

International Trade committee  Thanks for the question. Brian and I coordinate on this because I think we all have the same interest. It is extremely important for 100% regulatory alignment with Washington in the automotive sector. I say “Washington” because sometimes we look at Sacramento and we say that we like what's happening with the California Air Resources Board.

International Trade committee  I would just say one thing. I think that we need to recognize that an industrial policy in new regions makes it possible for surprise players to take our market share if we don't have a reciprocal upside. I talked about the Vietnamese, but who would have known five years ago that Turkey would have a company called Togg that is going to sell vehicles around the world?

International Trade committee  Thank you to the honourable member for dating himself. When I was a kid, there were big cars here. The big cars were American and the smaller cars were Japanese. The Japanese took proper, full advantage of a hole in the market for what we needed, especially with the spike in the price of fuel.

International Trade committee  Thank you for your question. The information is there. I think specifically on the TPP initial negotiations, I think it was the decision of the negotiating team—the government at the time—that there were priorities other than protecting vehicle access in exchange for gains in other sectors.

International Trade committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. It's good to see you again. Thank you to the committee for inviting me to this august panel to talk about something that is, from time to time, the biggest issue for our industry in trade with other countries. I'm going to frame my remarks with our relationship with commercial and diplomatic relations with Japan, because I think it's illustrative of where some of the non-tariff barriers play in a real and practical manner in the auto sector, where we can ground a couple of examples, but I want you to keep in mind that countries like Vietnam, which are now our CPTPP partners, are emerging players in the auto sector.

International Trade committee  I'm going to throw you a curveball in your speed round. I think there are two things here. Yes, definitely we've seen American industrial policy geared to investments in shifting the carbon discussion. In our industry and in other industries that are major emitters, they're making major investments in companies that will change their path and/or processes that reduce that.

International Trade committee  Can I answer that? Thank you, Mr. Savard‑Tremblay. I think you've hit on something very important. We do need a strategy. In spite of the fact that we are one of the biggest resources of the critical minerals that go into battery production, there is a finite amount of those materials that we can extract in any given year to go into any number of batteries.