By Layton Dorey
Without getting into the politics of, well, politics, it’s possible to look at the situation facing Canada’s automotive industry as an opportunity — the kind of opportunity that “creative destruction” affords.
What about if Canada’s automotive industry were opened up to the larger world and, essentially, turned its back on the United States?
Certainly, the current American government wants to turn its back on us, but what about if that’s a good thing?
The global automotive industry is continuing its transition to electrification. American protectionism won’t stop that. And even as the American government rips up incentive programs, the world is moving ever more towards an electrified future.
The U.S. is therefore embracing the past and old technology while every other competitor builds expertise and competence with new technology. The status quo would have Canada follow the U.S., lockstep into the past. A past of too big, too dirty and too inefficient vehicles.
What about a different future? I read a recent column by Globe & Mail journalist Matt Bubbers, in which he suggests that Canada change our automotive safety regulations to accept vehicles approved for sale in Europe. Doing so would open our market to a plethora of well-made, innovative and right-sized vehicles.
And who thinks European automotive safety standards and emissions are inadequate?
I’m not technically skilled enough to comment on the oft-cited security concerns related to vehicles made in China, but there are plenty of people who are. What about if we tapped some of them to establish technical standards that would enable Chinese-made vehicles to join the Canadian automotive fleet without those safety/ security concerns?
What about if the future of our roads was as a North American beachhead for a truly global industry? Canada’s leading automotive suppliers already have global operations. Let’s help them build on that and join the future of the industry rather than burying our heads in the sand of yesterday’s technologies.
Current American policy will only create an ever less competitive industry that is likely to suffer enormous shocks when the future catches up with it. I don’t think it is overly dramatic to suggest that what the current American government is doing to its automotive industry is building an iron curtain around it. I’ve driven a Trabant, the staple of the East German auto industry. There’s a reason they couldn’t survive the fall of their protectionist state and became a joke in popular culture.
This is already abundantly clear to anyone who has travelled outside of North America. There are virtually no American-made vehicles in any other markets. They’re too big, too dirty and, frankly, not well enough made (compare the interior plastics in any American-made vehicle to those in even a lower-end European-made option).
Why would we tie ourselves to a dinosaur – one that doesn’t want us anyway?
I say open the door to the future.
Halifax resident Layton Dorey is a Macdonald Notebook columnist who writes about the auto industry and test drives vehicles to write about each month. The Notebook
