Business
Canada moves to mandate electric vehicle sales starting in 2025
By Mia Rabson in Ottawa
One-fifth of all passenger cars, SUVs and trucks sold in Canada in 2026 will need to run on electricity under new regulations Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault is proposing Wednesday.
By 2030, the mandate will hit 60 per cent of all sales and by 2035, every passenger vehicle sold in Canada will need to be electric.
Manufacturers or importers who don’t meet the sales targets could face penalties under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
Canada still has a long way to go before approaching the first target in 2025.
In the first six months of this year, electric vehicle sales, including fully-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, made up just 7.2 per cent of new car registrations. For all of 2021, the proportion was 5.2 per cent.
Under the draft regulations, to be formally published Dec. 30, the government proposes tracking the sales by issuing credits for vehicle sales.
Fully electric cars and trucks would be worth a bigger credit than plug-in hybrid versions, though the government acknowledges that plug-in hybrids will likely remain in demand in rural and northern areas.
The mandate fulfils a 2021 Liberal election promise. It’s the first major set of regulations to come out of an emissions reduction plan the government published in April.
That plan is Canada’s broad road map toward hitting its goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors to a level in 2030 that is 40 to 45 per cent below what it was in 2005.
Passenger vehicles account for half of all road transportation emissions and about one-tenth of Canada’s total emissions across all sectors.
Before Wednesday’s move, Canada already had targets for electric vehicle sales. But they were not enforceable, and the government wasn’t successfully compelling car companies to ramp up the number of electric vehicles available for sale.
The new targets will be nationwide, though some provinces are already ahead of others.
Quebec and British Columbia already have provincial sales mandates. An analysis released last week by the Canadian Climate Institute concluded that the mandates helped both provinces move well out ahead of the rest of the country on electric-vehicle use.
Anna Kanduth, a senior research associate at the institute, said global supply of zero-emission vehicles is still limited, though it is growing quickly.
“Auto manufacturers are largely prioritizing jurisdictions with some type of sales mandate,” she wrote, adding that places with mandates have much higher rates of zero-emission vehicle adoption and more model choice.
B.C. is leading the field in electric-vehicle sales, which account for almost 15 per cent of all new vehicles registered between January and June. Quebec is in second, at 11.4 per cent of registrations.
There is a steep drop off to third-place Ontario, where only 5.5 per cent of new registrations are for electric vehicles. The number is below four per cent in all other provinces.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 21, 2022.
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Thomas English
President Donald Trump’s Monday executive order establishing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) presents a more modest scope for the initiative, focusing primarily on “modernizing federal technology and software.”
The executive order refashions the Obama-era United States Digital Service (USDS) into the United States DOGE Service. Then-President Barack Obama created USDS in 2014 to enhance the reliability and usability of online federal services after the disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov, an insurance exchange website created through the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Trump’s USDS will now prioritize “modernizing federal technology and software to maximize efficiency and productivity” under the order, which makes no mention of slashing the federal budget, workforce or regulations — DOGE’s originally advertised purpose.
“I am pleased to announce that the Great Elon Musk, working in conjunction with American Patriot Vivek Ramaswamy, will lead the Department of Government Efficiency (‘DOGE’),” Trump said in his official announcement of the initiative in November. “Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess government regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.”
The order’s focus on streamlining federal technology and software stands in contrast to some of DOGE’s previously more expansive aims, including Elon Musk’s claim that “we can [cut the federal budget] by at least $2 trillion” at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally in November. Musk now leads DOGE alone after Vivek Ramaswamy stepped down from the initiative Monday, apparently eying a 2026 gubernatorial run in Ohio.
The order says it serves to “advance the President’s 18-month DOGE agenda,” but omits many of the budget-cutting and workforce-slashing proposals during Trump’s campaign. Rather, the order positions DOGE as a technology modernization entity rather than an organization with direct authority to enact sweeping fiscal reforms. There is no mention, for instance, of trillions in budget cuts or a significant reduction in the federal workforce, though the president did separately enact a hiring freeze throughout the executive branch Monday.
“I can’t help but think that there’s more coming, that maybe more responsibilities will be added to it,” Susan Dudley, a public policy professor at George Washington University, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Dudley, who was also the top regulatory official in former President George W. Bush’s administration, said the structure of the new USDS could impact the recent lawsuits against the DOGE effort.
“I think it maybe moots the lawsuit that’s been brought for it not being FACA,” Dudley said. “So if this is how it’s organized — that it’s people in the government who bring in these special government employees on a temporary basis, that might mean that the lawsuit doesn’t really have any ground.”
Three organizations — the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), National Security Counselors (NSC) and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) — separately filed lawsuits against DOGE within minutes of Trump signing the executive order. The suits primarily challenge DOGE’s compliance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), alleging the department operates without the required transparency, balanced representation and public accountability.
The order also emphasizes not “be construed to impair or otherwise affect … the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.”
“And the only mention of OMB [Office of Management and Budget] is some kind of boilerplate at the end — that it doesn’t affect that. But that’s kind of general stuff you often see in executive orders,” Dudley continued, adding she doesn’t “have an inside track” on whether further DOGE-related executive orders will follow.
“It’s certainly, certainly more modest than I think Musk was anticipating,” Dudley said.
Trump’s order also establishes “DOGE Teams” consisting of at least four employees: a team lead, a human resources specialist, an engineer and an attorney. Each team will be assigned an executive agency with which it will implement the president’s “DOGE agenda.”
It remains unclear whether Monday’s executive order comprehensively defines DOGE, or if additional orders will be forthcoming to broaden its mandate.
From Conservative Party Communications
The Hon. Pierre Poilievre, Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada and the Official Opposition, released the following statement on the threat of tariffs from the US:
“Canada is facing a critical challenge. On February 1st we are facing the risk of unjustified 25% tariffs by our largest trading partner that would have damaging consequences across our country. Our American counterparts say they want to stop the illegal flow of drugs and other criminal activity at our border. The Liberal government admits their weak border is a problem. That is why they announced a multibillion-dollar border plan—a plan they cannot fund because they shut down Parliament, preventing MPs and Senators from authorizing the funds.
“We also need retaliatory tariffs, something that requires urgent Parliamentary consideration.
“Yet, Liberals have shut Parliament in the middle of this crisis. Canada has never been so weak, and things have never been so out of control. Liberals are putting themselves and their leadership politics ahead of the country. Freeland and Carney are fighting for power rather than fighting for Canada.
“Common Sense Conservatives are calling for Trudeau to reopen Parliament now to pass new border controls, agree on trade retaliation and prepare a plan to rescue Canada’s weak economy.
“The Prime Minister has the power to ask the Governor General to cut short prorogation and get our Parliament working.
“Open Parliament. Take back control. Put Canada First.”
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