GREEN: Say hello to PM Mark Carney’s new de facto EV sales mandate

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Back in February, Prime Minister Mark Carney seemingly gave Canadians a rare bit of policy relief when he terminated Ottawa’s electric vehicle (EV) mandate. I say “seemingly” because Carney’s termination of the mandate was a facade. He drove the old EV-sales mandate out the front door of the policy garage while quietly driving a stealth clone in the back door.

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To quickly recap. The EV mandate, promulgated by the Trudeau government in 2022, required that beginning in 2026 at least 20% of new light-duty vehicles for sale would be “zero-emission vehicles” — that is, electric (and some hybrid). The sales requirements were to increase annually to 60% by 2030 and 100% by 2035.

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Poll numbers revealing

But an internal poll conducted for Carney back in January showed only one-third of Canadians support EV-sales mandates, with only 16% “strongly” supporting the idea. When asked if they support or oppose the regulations mandating 100% EV sales by 2035, 49% opposed, 35% were in support and 12% had no opinion. Opposition was strongest in Alberta, weakest in Quebec.

So at first blush, Carney’s termination of the EV mandate looked like rational policymaking, giving the public what it wanted and making sense environmentally and economically. But again, Carney’s termination of the EV mandate was misleading at best. While his government did, indeed, terminate the specific EV-sales mandate in February, it also instituted new vehicle emission standards for greenhouse gases that were so stringent they could only be met with EVs, thus having the same effect as the “terminated” EV-sales mandate.

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The government is now implementing those back-door standards. According to the government, the “new GHG standards will be designed to put Canada on a path to achieve a goal of 75 per cent EV sales by 2035 and 90 per cent EV sales by 2040.”

So, say hello to the new EV-sales mandate — much like the old one, just less clear and transparent.

And for the record, this is not about fighting climate change. The new standards address such a tiny sliver of Canada’s already globally insignificant greenhouse gas emissions as to deliver no climate, safety, health or environmental benefits worth mentioning. Canada has a serious problem with excessive and poorly-designed regulation, particularly in the domains of environment, health and safety, which choke Canada’s economy and reduce the prospects of Canadian businesses and families. Canadians deserve higher quality and more transparent policymaking from their leaders.

During these uncertain times, if the Carney government wants to respect the preferences of Canadians, he should kill his plan to implement a de facto EV mandate cloaked in his new vehicle emission standards.

Kenneth Green is a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute.

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