International Trade committee  Yes, and as I said, it's a whole system. When you combine the strike with, then, the knock-on effects to the rail system, when there's already a shortage of railcars and you have to get the whole system back up and running again, yes.

International Trade committee  I think the strike was extremely problematic in terms of having members have to figure out how to off-load through different ports. However, while that was difficult, now they know how to do it, so it will be that much easier to just divert the next time there's a challenge. To M

International Trade committee  The only thing I would add is that I think it's relevant in that shipping has been one area where, frankly, there hasn't been a lot of attention placed on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. They're hugely intense. To Mr. Kingston's point, any effort that we can make to reduce th

International Trade committee  I can say that from the manufacturing perspective, my two members—I think back to some of the earlier questions—had done some appropriate contingency planning and the manufacturers were minimally impacted by the strike at the port of Vancouver. Where the impact was greater was w

International Trade committee  I don't really have a line of sight into that, but I anticipate they probably are. It's like any industry looking at best practices around the world.

International Trade committee  One thing I would say is that if you look at our ports, the reality is that most of our ports are inbound ports for automotive, primarily finished vehicles. In Canada we export very little as far as finished vehicles and even parts through our ports, so it's an import issue, real

International Trade committee  I think we've already talked about it. It's just taking a holistic approach to the transportation infrastructure, and that's one thing we've tried to do as an association. Every year, we bring together the rail community, the truck carrier community and the ports, and we try to h

International Trade committee  From my perspective, I think that makes sense, and I know for certain that my members did take contingency planning far before this strike occurred.

International Trade committee  From my perspective, that sounds about right, based on other sources that I've heard as well.

International Trade committee  I preface my comments by saying that the strike impacted each of our members differently, depending on their import exposure from Asia. Last year, there were approximately 334,000 vehicles imported into the port, down 6% from 2021 and down 22% from 2018. The global automotive i

International Trade committee  Thanks, Madam Chair. Thank you, committee members, for the opportunity to appear before the committee this afternoon on behalf of the 15 members of the Global Automakers of Canada to discuss the Vancouver port strike and its impact. Our membership is comprised of Canada’s two

International Trade committee  Madam Chair and Mr. Sheehan, thanks very much for the question. I appreciate it. You highlight a key point. I think it's a point that's hit home to everybody in every industry. I think what happened in the auto industry during COVID showed the fragility of the global supply chai

International Trade committee  As I mentioned earlier, primarily I try to keep track of any non-tariff trade barriers between Canada and the United States, because 85% of the production of our manufacturing members—Toyota, Honda and any of the five manufacturers in Canada—goes into that jurisdiction, so keepin

International Trade committee  Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Mr. Seeback. I think the only comment I wanted to make there is that I know, in terms of irritants for vehicles coming into Canada, that the luxury tax has been flagged by my European members as being problematic, especially given the CETA

International Trade committee  I think the biggest benefit that it provided to Canada was continued access to the U.S. market. As I said in my opening remarks, having that access to the American market is pivotal for the survival of the Canadian auto manufacturing sector, because 85% of our production goes to