By Dan McTeague

Well, Canada’s electric vehicle policies are playing out exactly as I predicted. Which is to say, they’re a disaster.

Back in November, in the immediate aftermath of Donald Trump’s re-election, I wrote in these pages that, whatever else that election might mean for Canada, it would prove big trouble for the Justin Trudeau/Doug Ford EV scam.

The substance of their plot works like so: first, the federal and provincial governments threw mountains of taxpayer dollars in subsidies at automakers so that they’d come to Canada to manufacture EVs. Then Ottawa mandated that Canadians must buy those EVs — exclusively — by the year 2035. That way Ford and Trudeau could pat themselves on the back for “creating jobs,” while EV manufacturers could help themselves to the contents of our wallets twice over.

But the one variable they didn’t account for was a return of Donald Trump to the White House.

Trump had run on a promise to save America from their own back-door EV mandates. Though Kamala Harris had denied that any such mandates existed, they did, and they were founded on two acts of the Biden-Harris administration.

First, they issued an Executive Order setting significantly more onerous tailpipe regulations on all internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, with the explicit goal of ensuring that 50 percent of all new vehicles sold in America be electric by 2030.

Second, they granted California a waiver to make those regulations more burdensome still, so that only EVs could realistically be in compliance with them. Since no automaker would want to be locked out of the market of the most populous state, nor could they afford to build one set of cars for California (plus the handful of states which have — idiotically — chosen to align their regulations with California’s) and another set for the rest of the country, they would be forced to increase their manufacture and sale of EVs and decrease their output of ICE vehicles.

Trump’s victory took Canada’s political class completely by surprise, and it threw a spanner into the workings of the Liberals’ plan.

That’s because there just aren’t enough Canadians, or Canadian tax dollars, to make their EV scheme even kinda’ work. Canada’s unique access to the world’s biggest market — America — was a key component of the plan.

After all, vehicles are “the second largest Canadian export by value, at $51 billion in 2023, of which 93 percent was exported to the US,” according to the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers Association, and “Auto is Ontario’s top export at 28.9 percent of all exports (2023.)”

It further depended on Americans buying more and more EVs every year. But since, when given a choice, most people prefer the cost and convenience of ICE vehicles, this would only work if Americans were pushed into buying EVs, even if in a more roundabout way than they’re being forced on Canadians.

Which is why the plan all began to unravel on January 20, the day of Trump’s inauguration, when he signed Executive Order 14154, “Unleashing American Energy,” which, among other things, rescinded Joe Biden’s pro-EV tailpipe regulations. And it has continued downhill from there.

Just last week, the US Senate voted to repeal the Biden EPA’s waiver for California. Not that that’s the end of the story — in the aftermath of the vote, California governor Gavin Newsom vowed “to fight this unconstitutional attack on California in court.” (Though don’t be surprised if that fight is brief and half-hearted — Newsom has been trying to leave his lifelong leftism behind recently and rebrand as a moderate Democrat in time for his own run at the White House in 2028. Consequently, being saved from his own EV policy might only help his career prospects going forward.)

But it’s worth noting the language used by the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents car companies like Toyota, GM, Volkswagen and Stellantis (several of whom, it should be noted, have received significant subsidies from the Liberal and Ford governments to manufacture EVs), which said in a statement, “The fact is these EV sales mandates were never achievable.”

That’s worth repeating: these EV sales mandates were never achievable!
That’s true in California, and it’s true in Canada as well.

And yet, our political class has refused to accept this reality. Doug Ford actually doubled down on his commitment to heavily subsidizing the EV industry in his recent campaign, saying “I want to make it clear… a re-elected PC government will honour our commitment to invest in the sector,” no matter what Donald Trump does.

Except, as noted above, Donald Trump represents the customers Doug Ford needs!

Meanwhile, our environmentalist-in-chief, Mark Carney, has maintained the Liberal Party’s commitment to the EV mandates, arguing that EVs are essential for his vacuous plan of transforming Canada into a “clean energy superpower.” How exactly? That’s never said.

These are the words of con artists, not men who we should be trusting with the financial wellbeing of our country. Unfortunately, in our recent federal election — and the one in Ontario — this issue was barely discussed, beyond an 11th-hour attempted buzzer-beater from Pierre Poilievre and a feeble talking point from Bonnie Crombie about her concern “that the premier has put all our eggs in the EV basket.”

Meanwhile, 2035 is just around the corner.

So we can’t stop calling attention to this issue. In fact, we’re going to shout about our mindless EV subsidies and mandates from the rooftops until our fellow Canadians wake up to the predicament we’re in. It took some time, but we made them notice the carbon tax (even if the policy change we got from Carbon Tax Carney wasn’t any better.) And we can do it with electric vehicles, too.

Because we don’t have the money, either as a nation or as individuals, to prop this thing up forever.

Dan McTeague is President of Canadians for Affordable Energy.

If Prime Minister Mark Carney doesn’t listen to the West, it’s going to cost Canada.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe are demanding that Ottawa stop stomping on their provinces’ natural resource production.

Smith is telling Carney to scrap the no more pipelines law, Bill C-69, lift the cap on Alberta’s energy and cancel the looming ban on the sale of new gasoline and diesel vehicles.

Moe is stepping in sync with Smith, listing Saskatchewan’s demands in a letter, calling for changes to the no more pipelines law, saying, “there are a few policies that are going to have to go.”

Moe is also taking aim at the industrial carbon tax saying “the tax can’t be charged on the electricity for Saskatchewan families.”

The new prime minister says he’s listening.

“I intend to govern for all Canadians,” said Carney in his election victory speech.

If that’s true, Carney must heed the demands of Smith and Moe, because Ottawa’s anti-West policies are damaging the economy and costing taxpayers a truckload of money.

How much?

Ottawa’s cap on oil and gas emissions – which creates a cap on production – will cost the Canadian economy about $20.5 billion and slash 40,000 jobs by 2032, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

Canada has also seen nearly $670 billion in natural resources projects suspended or cancelled, since 2015.

To put that kind of money into perspective: $670 billion would pay for the salaries of hundreds of thousands of paramedics and police officers, for a decade.

That’s the equivalent to the value of more than one million houses in Alberta or almost two million homes in Saskatchewan.

That kind of money is worth the entire income tax bills for the populations of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba for about 10 years.

That’s just the lost money from natural resources.

Carney’s looming ban on the sale of new gasoline and diesel vehicles also has a huge price tag.

Canada’s vehicle transition could cost up to $300 billion by 2040 to expand the electrical grid, according to a report for Natural Resources Canada.

If Carney is serious about boosting the economy and governing for all Canadians, getting the government out of the way of natural resource projects and scrapping the expensive plan to stop people from buying new gas and diesel vehicles is a good first step.

The West has been firmly asking for Ottawa to mind its own business for years.

Cancelling the industrial carbon tax is another way for Carney to show that he’s serious about growing the economy and governing for all Canadians.

On the same day Carney scrapped the consumer carbon tax, the Saskatchewan government dropped its industrial carbon tax down to zero.

“By eliminating industrial carbon costs which are often passed directly on to consumers – the province is acting to protect affordability and economic competitiveness,” said the Saskatchewan government’s news release.

Alberta’s industrial carbon tax is now frozen. Increasing the tax above its current rate would make Alberta “exceptionally uncompetitive,” according to Alberta Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz.

Business groups in both provinces lauded each premier, saying it would make their industries more competitive and help bring down costs.

When Ottawa forces businesses like fuel refineries or fertilizer plants to pay the carbon tax, they pass on those costs on to taxpayers when they heat their homes, fill up their cars and buy groceries.

If companies are forced to cut production or leave the country because of the industrial carbon tax and policies like the energy cap, it’s regular Albertans and Saskatchewanians who are hurt the most through job losses.

If Carney intends to govern for all Canadians he needs to listen to Smith and Moe and scrap these policies that are set to cost taxpayers billions and slash tens of thousands of jobs.

Kris Sims is Alberta Director and Gage Haubrich is Prairie Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.