#Canada

GM and Unifor (the union formerly known as the CAW) have reached a tentative agreement for the 2,500 workers at the CAMI plant in Ingersoll, Ontario, which builds the Chevrolet Equinox and GMC Terrain.

For the fourth consecutive month, Canadian auto sales increased in July 2013. An extra 10,600 units translated to a 7% increase, the second-best improvement so far this year. Passenger car volume, which travelled in the wrong direction in the first half of 2013, jumped 11% in July.

Bloomberg and Sky News have reported that the Canadian government has started a selection process to find investment banks for selling off of the stake the government took in General Motors as part of its own contribution to bailing out the automaker. Late last year, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said that Canada had no intention of holding those shares long-term. Together the federal Canadian and provincial Ontario governments own 140 million shares of common GM stock, valued at $5.1 billion (US), a 10% stake in the automaker, which makes Canada the company’s third biggest shareholder behind the U.S. Treasury and the UAW’s VEBA health plan. The governments had originally invested $9.5 billion in GM back in 2009, selling off 35 million of its shares when GM made its initial public offering of stock in the reorganized company.

Canada’s auto industry grew 1.3% in June 2013, an increase of a couple thousand vehicles. No brand sold more often than Ford. No manufacturer sold more vehicles than Ford Motor Company. No June in history saw Canadians buy more vehicles than they did last month.

Happy Canada Day. We here in America Jr. will be spending the day in polite celebration, perhaps a few pages of a Margaret Atwood novel, perhaps a little Tom Cochrane, perhaps two or three fireworks set off in celebration of our continuing success in exiling all our worst citizens to the Los Angeles music industry; perhaps just a little self-reflection on life in a land where most of the population settles at the bottom, leaving huge expanses of airy nothingness above – less a country than a enormous family-sized bag of potato chips.

We build cars here in Canada. We make Hondas and Chevys and Fords and Dodges, and some of them we drive, and some of them you drive, but they’re not really Canadian cars, per se. The ideal of the Canadian car remains the Bricklin SV-1, Canada’s DeLorean. Neat car, that thing, with motorized gullwing doors and an integrated roll-cage. I seem to remember as a kid I had a Transformer that looked just like it. Well actually, considering the SV-1’s issues with acrylics, perhaps it was a Go-Bot.

Anyway, as today is a day for a celebration of all things maple-syrup flavoured, I’d like to take minute or two of your time and talk about a much less well-known Canadian-built car that is extremely interesting and very slightly crappy. It all starts with a man with the quite silly name of Jacques About, and before you ask, no, that is not pronounced “aboot”.

One of the consequences of Canada’s high gas prices is the prevalence of propane conversions. In the Greater Toronto Area, a fair number of vehicles, typically in fleet use as taxi cabs, airport limos or construction vehicles, get converter to run on propane gas. The conversions are expensive, running approximately $5,000, and if you want to see any return on your investment, you better run the car well into the six-figure range of the odometer.

(Editor’s note: Despite being a close neighbor, ally, and NAFTA member, Canada usually receives short shrift when it comes to the counting of cars. TTAC is a prime offender. We cover sales in Europe, Japan, China, and of course America – but Canada? Our resident car counter Cain will now cover the Canadian market on a monthly basis. Any volunteers for Mexico?)

For the second time in what was predicted to be yet another year of growth for the Canadian auto industry, volume grew significantly in May 2013. January volume was down 2%. By the end of February, the market was off 2012’s pace by 3%. March’s decline wasn’t as bad, but through the first quarter, sales were still down 2%. After April’s 9% increase, auto sales in May reached their highest level in six years.

Even as Canada’s manufacturing sector continues to dwindle, Ford is set to invest even further in its Canadian operations, putting together a new investment package for its Oakville assembly plant – provided the federal and Ontario governments can come up with the scratch.

More than any other country, Canadian-built vehicles seem to have an inordinate amount of foreign parts content, according to a study done by Scotiabank Economics.

Canadians registered just under 172,000 new vehicles in April, more than in any April since 2008. Through the first quarter of 2013, auto sales in Canada were down 1.9%. Imports, by which we mean non-Detroit brands, were suffering the most. Including Toyota, Hyundai, Honda, and Kia, nine Asian brands had posted year-over-year declines at the end of March.

The latest round of bad news regarding the Australian domestic auto industry has shifted TTAC’s attention to Canada, another country burdened with some similar issues. If Australia’s own car industry is getting hammered, then how much longer does Canada have?

It’s no secret that Infiniti is looking to diversify its manufacturing footprint. As part of a broader Nissan strategy to localize production and escape the yoke of yen fluctuations, Infiniti will soon be setting up shop in China and at Nissan’s Sunderland facility in the UK. Next on the list is another North American site.

The end of Q1 2013 in the United States saw numerous competitors in the mid-size sedan segment duking it out for the Number 1 spot. North of the border, the situation followed a familiar pattern as well; the race for the sales crown was dominated by compact sedans, rather than mid-sizers.