Environment committee  Yes, absolutely. As an organization, we take a multi-pollutant view of vehicle exhaust. Certainly, it's much more of a story beyond just nitrogen oxides. It includes particulate matter. It includes toxics. It includes road wear from tires. Really having a comprehensive view of

Environment committee  I can't say specifically how CEPA is set up with regard to how fines and those monies can be earmarked. Thinking about modernization of CEPA, we certainly, as an organization, would be very supportive of being very intentional, particularly with regard to how fines that are levie

Environment committee  Thank you for referencing that blog post. I think the main message from that piece was to emphasize the fact that Canada and the U.S. are certainly integral partners in terms of vehicle and fuel policy, but I do want to make the distinction in terms of how penalties are being ass

Environment committee  My assumption would be that Environment Canada is taking into account NOx as it impacts ozone formation. I do not know for sure, offhand, and I don't like to speculate.

Environment committee  I don't have the numbers in front of me. Certainly there have been significant recall efforts around the world. For several, if not all, of these companies that have been found to have these defeat devices, we've done some estimates to try to figure out what the impacts are of ha

Environment committee  It's somewhat a good thing that diesels aren't so popular in the North American market. Certainly in Europe there have been, we estimate, thousands of premature deaths as a result of this whole situation. We, as an organization, like to remind ourselves that these aren't just n

Environment committee  One key change, a simple one, is to just significantly boost that fine and penalties amount. Really making a significant impact on electrification is going to require a lot more than the roughly $200 million that has been levied so far.

Environment committee  I do believe that the process by which the funds were earmarked, both in the U.S., as well as in California—California had its own separate legal process that it went through with respect to Volkswagen—we've seen significant amounts of the fines that have been set aside specifica

Environment committee  Chair, I will just quickly add to that commentary by Mr. Malas. It's my understanding that the per-vehicle maximum fine amounts in the U.S. Clean Air Act versus the Canadian Environmental Protection Act are fairly similar in their magnitude. As Mr. Malas pointed out, the fact th

Environment committee  Yes, absolutely. I can say with confidence that, at a very high level, compliance and enforcement should be the bedrock of any regulatory program, whether it's vehicles, dry cleaning as you mentioned, or water quality. Across the board, it's not enough to have that strong regulat

Environment committee  I can't say with specifics as to the penalty levels in CEPA. I don't have that information offhand. I would say that at a high level, I think there has to be a commitment on behalf of the Canadian government, particularly in this case, to go after Volkswagen in a way that's comme

Environment committee  It's an excellent question and absolutely something that we have continually made a tenet of our work at the ICCT. It's not good enough just to have strong regulations on the books. You have to have effective compliance, enforcement and penalties, so that these companies don't ju

Environment committee  From the ICCT perspective, we believe that mobilizing these penalty funds to move towards electric drive is a best-case scenario. Certainly for electric vehicles of all types, both light and heavy-duty, there's going to need to be a lot of policy support and a lot of sustained lo

Environment committee  Yes.

Environment committee  I don't know specifically what actions Canada has taken that would have been different from the United States. As you well know, the Canadian and the U.S. federal regulations are very much tied, aligned and intentionally harmonized, given the alignment across the markets. I do no