We have spent a fair bit of time talking to witnesses about the auto industry and the big price discrepancies between automobiles sold in Canada and automobiles sold in the United States.

Car prices will not adjust, primarily because car manufacturers are careful enough to have slightly different specifications for cars sold in Canada and the United States.

3. For the purpose of paragraph 1, a new passenger car means any passenger car, which has not previously been sold to anyone otherwise than for the purpose of selling or supplying it, and it has, therefore, never been registered for circulation.

The floor mats installed in Toyota cars sold in Canada are different than those sold in the United States.

In 1998, the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association (ACEA) adopted a commitment to reduce average emissions from new cars sold to 140 g CO/km by 2008 and, in 1999, the Japanese Automobile Manufacturers' Association (JAMA) and the Korean Automobile Manufacturers' Association (KAMA) adopted a commitment to reduce average emissions from new cars sold to 140 g CO/km by 2009.

There are two factors which discourage such imports: firstly, the cars thus imported cannot be registered under the simplified procedure and only the traditional procedure can be used. Secondly, cars imported through parallel means can never be assigned an "antifraud" code (an Italian code specifically designed to combat trafficking in stolen cars and assigned solely to vehicles intended from the beginning for the Italian market). This reinforces the belief of potential buyers that only the official importing networks can guarantee that the cars being sold are of lawful origin.