Thank you, Mr. Cullen.
I think it is fundamental, not just as part of our Kyoto implementation strategy but as an overall national clean air strategy, that we force car manufacturers in Canada to produce more efficient, less-polluting vehicles.
The argument by the Canadian automaker is that we'll be the only ones on the planet to do it, and they can't manufacture vehicles for us. Well, great, they won't have to. Oregon has adopted the California standards. California has obviously adopted the California standards. A number of other U.S. states are moving in that direction, New York being one of them.
Because people travel more and more, because every year there's a greater number of vehicles on the road...basically the average fuel efficiency of the fleet hasn't moved since the end of the seventies. Considering the tremendous technological development we've seen in the auto sector, it's quite staggering to look at that statistic. We could very efficiently have....
Yes, it would be more expensive to buy those efficient vehicles. There's a bit of a debate in California. The range is between $1,000 to $3,000 to get those efficient vehicles. For an average Canadian who travels roughly 16,000 kilometres a year, the payback is so quick that it becomes a non-issue.
Frankly, our approach to this, like other sectors, has been to try to negotiate a voluntary approach with the auto manufacturers. Guess what? It's not working. We're not going anywhere. I don't think we will ever get anywhere unless the government says to the Canadian auto manufacturers that we can sit down and negotiate, but they should be certain that if we do not come to an agreement, the federal government will legislate.
If we don't do that, we'll never get out of it.