The first-ever CCAM Summit took place Wednesday at the InterContinental Montreal Hotel. It was a jam-packed room for the inaugural event that featured keynotes and panel sessions about the changes car dealers can expect to see in the months and years ahead.
The event, held almost entirely in French, was organized by the Corporation des concessionnaires d’automobiles de Montréal (CCAM). Organizers from the CCAM say they received overwhelmingly positive feedback from their dealer members and other attendees. Media personality Isabelle Maréchal was the event’s Emcee.
Denis Dessureault, the CCAM’s Executive Vice-President, kicked off the day with a welcome message, saying he hoped the event would help bring together the industry’s ecosystem to help them learn about key topics and tackle challenges.
Dessureault gave a nod to the event’s exclusive sponsor Sym-Tech Dealer Services, a leading F&I provider, and then invited its president, Derek Sloan, to say a few introductory remarks.
Sloan praised dealers and the industry for overcoming adversity and being resilient. “I love this business, it’s full of entrepreneurs who are resilient,” said Sloan, adding that persistence was the key element. “This is why Quebec is one of the most vibrant automotive communities. Let’s work together and work on the problems we are trying to solve. We are all determined to persevere and we will persevere and we will do that together.”
Derek Sloan, President Sym-Tech Dealer Services
Later in the day, Sloan participated in a panel featuring the head of the province’s dealer association and two prominent car dealers, as they tackled the hot button topic of changes happening in the province’s F&I offices. The changes are sparked partly by the arrival of Bill 30 in Quebec (now Law 15) that changes who is authorized to sell financial services products.
Sloan was joined on the panel by Jacques Olivier, President of Groupe Olivier; Guillaume Girard, Director General of Girard Automobiles; and Ian P. Sam Yue Chi, President and CEO of the Corporation des concessionnaires automobiles du Québec (CCAQ).
Yue Chi said that the changes impacting F&I are coming as of July 2026, and dealers have no choice but to adapt, adding that there is no magic solution that will replace the potential lost revenues dealers are facing when the changes are rolled out. Yue Chi said car dealers sell cars and aren’t experts in the areas of selling insurance products, adding that it’s a completely different “ballgame.”
Guillaume Girard, a dealer with a single rooftop store, said two of the F&I products they will no longer be able to sell represent more than a third of their F&I revenues. “It’s a big part of the pay for the F&I managers,” he said, speaking in French. “What will happen to them?” Girard said the dealership and the industry have to rethink the F&I model to ensure it still works for dealerships and consumers.
Sloan said the industry will have to work together on a united front to develop solutions that work for all parties. He said the focus for the industry needs to be on providing a more transparent and better customer experience.
Charles Bernard, Lead Economist at the Canadian Automobile Dealers Association (CADA), provided Montreal-area dealers with a lively economic and political overview.
Bernard, who just arrived after a media blitz in Ottawa, where he was giving media interviews in reaction to the federal government’s decision to shut down their iZEV rebate program for EV buyers, provided an update to dealers about some of the chaos going on in Ottawa on several fronts.
Charles Bernard, Lead Economist at the Canadian Automobile Dealers Association (CADA)
He said the themes for 2025 are political “uncertainty and incoherence,” and the climate is far from ideal as Canada tries to brace for the arrival of a new U.S. administration threatening the country with things like tariffs on imported goods. Part of the uncertainty in Ottawa is from the election fever that is starting to infect federal politicians. Bernard said the polling shows we could expect a large Conservative majority in the upcoming Canadian election, with the Liberal party likely falling to third place behind the Bloc Quebecois.
The lack of clarity out of Ottawa is impacting dealers in key areas like capital gains taxes, the right to repair legislation, ZEV mandates, and the scrapping of federal purchase incentives for zero-emissions vehicles.
On the economic front, Bernard provided a look at the 2024 new vehicle sales performance, and said it was a return to close to pre-pandemic levels in terms of sales and inventory levels. Bernard said new car sales in Quebec were up 13 per cent in 2024, which was the biggest growth of any province in Canada.
Morgane Turgeon, Chief Marketing Officer, WEIS and Associates, provided an overview for dealers about the key areas they need to consider for their facilities to be able to sell and service more electric vehicles.
It’s particularly important for Quebec dealers where the adoption of electric vehicles is about double the national average, fueled in part by lower electricity costs and government incentives (although those are being phased out rapidly. Turgeon provided dealers with an update based on a seven-point whitepaper her company authored to help dealers prep their facilities for EVs.
Mario Loubier, Performance Coach with the Clarify Group, presented on two key topics: he started with a detailed overview about the possible arrival of Chinese OEMs to Canada. He then pivoted into a talk about what dealers can do better to compete with them (if and) when they do arrive. Loubier said there’s a mix of fear and excitement when he talks with dealers about Chinese OEMs. From his perspective, it’s not a question of if the Chinese are coming, but when.
He said the Chinese OEMs are big, fast, and aggressive, with giant companies like BYD already exporting more than 230,000 vehicles globally. If the Chinese OEMs do set up shop in Canada, and are offering lower cost products, dealers can respond by doing an even better job at what they do already — excelling at customer service. It’s no longer good enough to turn to high CSI scores as a barometer of the customer experience, as generations of buyers now expect a lot more.
Loubier said one answer for car dealers is to embrace hospitality and aim to deliver an elevated customer service experience. He walked dealers through examples of how delivering a personalized experience is the next level of hospitality. Loubier’s comments were frequently referred to by other presenters throughout the day, who echoed his sentiment that the industry needed to focus on the customer experience.
Another key topic was cybersecurity. Capt. (ret) Steve Waterhouse, CD, CISSP, CICISOA, presented a detailed overview highlighting many of the ways dealerships and the vehicles they sell are at risk. He said dealers are selling rolling computers on four wheels, and organized crime groups are increasingly sophisticated and finding ways to hack into vehicles, steal data, steal vehicles, and attack businesses.
Dominic Sigouin, Moderator and columnist with Affaires automobiles, moderated a dealer panel featuring Mathieu Spinelli, Groupe Spinelli; Christine Bourgeois, Bourgeois Chevrolet; and Guillaume Girard, Girard Automobile Inc. The dealers talked about their commitment to customer service and how they were adapting to provide a better experience.
Spinelli said he was also focusing on providing a better experience for his employees. He said he changed the pay plans for senior managers so they are compensated financially not just for high CSI scores but also for ESI score: employee satisfaction. Sigouin asked the other dealers in the room if any had done that and none raised their hands.
Bruce Rosen, CADA’s Executive Director of Industry Relations, presented some of the preliminary findings from a new research report the association was undertaking to look ahead to what automotive retail will look like in 2035. The report surveyed dealers and other industry players, and Rosen presented some of the key findings highlighting where dealers expected the industry to go. For example, 63 per cent of dealers think that EVs will represent the biggest percentage of vehicles they will sell by 2035, with 33 per cent thinking the biggest percentage will be ICE vehicles.
Rosen ran through a list of key drivers dealers can expect to see, which included a continued move to electrification, an acceleration of artificial intelligence technology in the dealerships, and consumers continuing to demand more personalized experiences. The battle for talent, however, will continue and will be the number one problem dealers believe they will be facing.
Thomas Chieux, Associate Director, France, ICDP closed the day with a viewpoint from Europe. Chieux updated dealers about the experience and successes of Chinese OEMs in Europe, and also the experience so far with the adoption of electrical vehicles. He said the Chinese government launched a strategy to tackle the global automotive market by leading with EVs, backed by an integrated supply chain. He said they are well under way in implementing their strategy.
Thomas Chieux, Associate Director, France, ICDP
There are more than 160 brands in the Chinese market, which has created a very fragmented market. There are another 40 brands that have already come and gone. Because China has built the production capacity for producing 47 million vehicles and their internal market can only absorb 30 million, that means they need to find other markets to export 17 million vehicles per year.
In terms of the success in Europe, he said there are currently 44 Chinese OEM brands operating in China, but only a quarter of them have sold more than 1,000 units.
