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By: Kenneth P. Green
Back on Feb. 5, the Carney government gave me a birthday present—it terminated the electric vehicle (EV) sales mandate, which required that all new cars sold in 2035 would be battery-powered or at least half-battery-powered (plug-in hybrids). This is a big policy win for the Canadian people. Or is it?
A closer look suggests this is yet another sleight-of-hand false-reform smoke show by Prime Minister Carney that will, in fact, retain the government’s onerous policy but make it stealthy. This has become Carney’s modus operandi.
Consider the consumer carbon tax. Faced with an endless drumbeat of opposition, and a political challenger actually “sharpening his ax,” Carney conspicuously “axed the tax.” At least, that’s what he did on the surface. Below the surface, he simply transferred the consumer carbon tax onto Canada’s “large industrial emitters” who would then pass the tax onto Canadians hidden in the costs of their products, goods and services. The consumer carbon tax is still there—but Canadians can no longer see it directly, so it’s no longer a political problem for Carney.
Or consider the pipeline problem. Alberta’s battle to continue production of oil from its massive oilsands deposits, and gain access to non-U.S. markets via pipeline, has become a wildly contentious issue. Finger in the wind, Carney decided to neutralize the issue by, on the surface, forging a “deal” (known as the Memorandum of Understanding) with Alberta that would end, weaken or at least partly mitigate many of Ottawa’s objectionable laws and regulations, which includes an emissions cap on the oil and gas sector and an onerous pipeline approval process. Except most of that is an illusion. As part of the deal, Alberta had to pledge fealty to the federal government’s greenhouse gas control plan to 2050, and critically, raise its own “industrial” carbon tax, which would make an explicit oil and gas emission cap unnecessary. All in return for an illusion of certainty that Ottawa will allow a pipeline to the British Columbia coast.
Which brings us back to the EV sales mandate. On my birthday, the Carney government said it will scrap the mandate—and replace it with more stringent tailpipe regulations aimed at gas-powered vehicles. In other words, Carney is effectively assuring that car dealers will sell EVs and plug-in hybrids rather than gas-powered vehicles. And he’s also restoring subsidies for the purchase of EVs, funded by many taxpayers who can’t afford to buy an EV or charge one at home. Either way, explicit or not, Ottawa’s EV mandate continues.
Again, this has become Carney’s MO. Put on the appearance that you hear and acknowledge objections to various damaging policies, conspicuously “axe” the overt regulations tied to that policy, then hide the mechanisms that effectively continue to implement that policy goal. Don’t want to directly pay a carbon tax? Fine, you’ll pay it in the cost of chicken. Don’t want the government to blatantly shut down oil and gas production? Fine, we’ll impose a damaging new tax on oil producers that you won’t see. Don’t want the government picking EVs over gas-powered cars? Fine, we’ll scrap the EV mandate, and hide the ball with stricter “pollution standards” that can only be met by—you guessed it—EVs.
Canadians should beware of this bait-and-switch game by a punitive government and instead demand real policy reform.
Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute
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