International Trade committee  It's a great question, and I think that there are reasons to be optimistic. First of all, Canada has a great value proposition with a consistent supply of energy, a highly educated workforce, a track record in the factories in Canada of high levels of quality and reliability tha

International Trade committee  As I said earlier, I appreciate the question. I think that our production levels are matching our consumption levels, and there are reasons to be optimistic about that. However, taking the long-term view, the most important thing is the value to the economy. I mean, certainly c

International Trade committee  To answer your question about the Chamber of Commerce and their effort on the free trade initiative, one of the important things was that all—and I give the opposition credit for this, but also the ministers—made sure that Canadian associations weren't just talking to Canadians a

International Trade committee  The U.S. Congress, as I mentioned, put that 10% luxury tax on the exact same products in the nineties. The Clinton administration ended that tax because it wasn't generating revenue, and it was catastrophic for industry. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has looked at this and don

International Trade committee  If you look at the model that Mr. Dicko was referring to, the idea is to grow the North American pie. I'm not aware of any specific provision that would drive capacity into the Canadian marketplace versus other jurisdictions. In fact, if you look back at the last 18 investments m

International Trade committee  Just along that line, again, around the CAPC table, which, in addition to the ministers, has the CEOs of the five companies that manufacture in Canada and the parts makers, there's a consistent trend in how difficult it is when those CEOs are trying to sell Canada as a propositio

International Trade committee  If you look at the level of production—and Oumar can speak to this in detail—we're producing as many cars as we buy. The Canadian market is $1.9 million, and I think there's two million dollars' worth of production in there. We're not out of sync with respect to that, but when yo

International Trade committee  I'm going to save the economist by just giving one quick answer to Mr. Carrie off the top, to give him time to do his math. One of the things you really highlighted there, which you picked up from my presentation, was the 7% going to Canada. Committee members will know that inve

International Trade committee  I appreciate the question. I'll let Mr. Dicko respond in French in just a second. As a global commentary, the responsibility of ensuring the quality of the vehicles and the quality of the aluminum falls on the manufacturers. We represent the dealers in your riding. As franchise

International Trade committee  I'll take a slightly different tack at that. I think that for the car dealers the most important thing was that, as soon as the White House came up with the threat of 25% auto tariffs, I mean, that was “carmageddon”, potentially, for car dealers. Literally the impact of that woul

International Trade committee  Ladies first, Catherine.

International Trade committee  Good evening. Madam Chair, thank you for having us before the committee. I have to give you a quick shout-out for all of your decades of work on behalf of the auto industry. You've been one of the most approachable members of Parliament in terms of auto issues. I should probabl

Finance committee  Absolutely, Mr. Chairman. I would just note that it hadn't been proposed at that point in time, so we weren't—

Finance committee  It's no accident, and I congratulate Mr. Cooper on having the documents in front of him that are so relevant to the Scotiabank report. We'll share those with the rest of the committee members. In the finance industry, luxury vehicles are financed, and they're quite concerned in

Finance committee  I'm not familiar with the specific testimony that you referred to. I can say, generally speaking, that all around the world they've looked at programs to try to get rid of high-polluting vehicles. Here in Canada, the government came down on the side of one simple $300-program aim