Automotive News Canada - July 2020 - 1

THE USMCA JUST WENT LIVE: WHAT'S NEXT?/P16

JULY 2020 | VOL. 4, NO. 7 | AUTOMOTIVENEWS.CA FOR BREAKING NEWS AND DIGITAL EDITION

Conversation begins about passing pandemic costs to customers
By JOHN IRWIN

Dealers have been footing the bill for services
related to COVID-19, but will that continue?

TORONTO BUREAU

Stoneley:
"Acutely
aware" of
extra costs
FILE PHOTO

TO PROVIDE THEIR CUSTOMERS
peace of mind and security during
the health crisis, Canadian dealerships have provided free services
such as vehicle pickup, delivery
and sanitization. But should stores
bear those costs indefinitely?
Health and safety protocols in

the service bay and showroom cost
time and money, and Canadian auto
executives are divided over whether those offerings might be monetized in the future as the COVID-19
pandemic subsides.
Ford Canada CEO Dean Stoneley

Is the Oakville
threat real?
Warning bells ring,
although Ford
hasn't said what
will happen once
the current Edge
ends production
By DANA FLAVELLE

TORONTO CORRESPONDENT

THE UNION LOCAL
representing workers at Ford
of Canada's Oakville, Ont.,
assembly plant says this isn't
the first time it will go into
contract negotiations fighting
for a new product, and potentially the plant's survival.
"We've been here before,"
said Mark Sciberras, president of Unifor Local 707,
which represents nearly 4,200
hourly employees there.

If the Edge is scrapped,
the Oakville plant could
have nothing to build, says
AutoForecast Solutions.

DIVERSITY
Ongoing racial tension in the United
States has naturally put a spotlight
on Canada, including business

PHOTO: FORD

In late 2006, the Freestar
minivan, a rebranded version of the popular Windstar,
was coming to an end, but the
plant would benefit from a $1
billion investment to produce
the new Edge, Sciberras told
Automotive News Canada.
The Edge would go on to
be a big seller in the growing
market for crossover utility
vehicles, securing the plant's
future for another 15 years.

By STEPHANIE WALLCRAFT

TORONTO CORRESPONDENT

SEE PREVIOUS PAGE 17

By GREG LAYSON

D I G I TA L A N D M O B I L E E D I T O R

NEW-VEHICLE SALES IN
Canada staged a rebound
in June that has industry
analysts pointing to a faster-than-expected recovery
from the depths of the economic crater left by COVID-19.
Overall sales fell about
16 per cent in June from
a year earlier, according
to DesRosiers Automotive

Consultants (DAC) estimates. That followed estimated declines
of 44 per cent
in May and
75 per cent in
April, the first
full month of
the crisis.
"It's a
good-newsYoung:
bad-news
There's still
story," said
pent-up
Rebekah
demand.
Young,
FILE PHOTO
Scotiabank's
director of fiscal and provincial economics. While second-quarter sales dropped 45

SEE RETAIL PAGE 20

SEE DEALERS PAGE 20

THE
DRIVE
FOR

A retail-sales revival
amid a pandemic
Faltering fleets
largely to blame
for a 45-per-cent
drop in Q2

said the automaker is "acutely aware" of the increased cost of
doing business during the pandemic. Ford, he said, will "look at the
business model" of deliveries and
other programs in the future.
"Right now, we're offering [deliv-

ery and pickup] as a free service
to the consumer," Stoneley said in
a May 27 video interview with the
Oakville Chamber of Commerce in
Ontario. "But going forward, that
doesn't necessarily need to be a
free service. These are the kinds of
things we need to talk through.
"Time is money, and people will
pay for convenience. So, this could

SPECIAL
REPORT

P12-13

HYUNDAI CANADA PRESIDENT DON ROMANO
foresees the day when the automaker's senior management will reflect the country's diversity.
"Our executive ranks are not going to look anything
like they look today. They're going to look more like what
our customer base looks like, which isn't a bunch of old
white guys like me."
Amid the growing calls worldwide to stamp out racism, the automaker recently enacted a series of measures,
including the use of artificial intelligence, to weed out
unintended bias in its hiring practices.
Hyundai's action plan began with a June 3 companywide email from Romano stressing the need to combat
racism in Canada.
While Hyundai has increasingly emphasized employee diversity in recent years, it would push its efforts even
further, the email said.
Currently, about 37 per cent of Hyundai's 227
employees in Canada are nonwhite. The company plans
to increase that percentage, although it won't be setting
internal targets, said Lydia Bowser, Hyundai Canada's
senior manager of human resources. Such a target, she
said, "creates wrong behaviours and bad decision-making.
We want our growth to be credible."

BLINDED TO BIAS
Hyundai has hired the Toronto-based Canadian Centre
for Diversity and Inclusion (CCDI) - which, as a first
step, conducted employee training on unconscious bias.

SEE A.I. REMOVES PAGE 12

Samir
Akhavan

MANAGING PARTNER

416.880.8989 samir@templetonmarsh.com WWW.TEMPLETONMARSH.COM

http://www.AUTOMOTIVENEWS.CA http://WWW.TEMPLETONMARSH.COM

Automotive News Canada - July 2020

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