Electric vehicles facing uphill climb

Ford shifts from EVs to gasoline trucks in Oakville due to declining demand and financial losses, challenging government EV targets.

In October 2020, the federal and Ontario governments announced with fanfare that they would each pour $295 million into helping Ford upgrade its assembly plant in Oakville to start making electric vehicles.

“The upgrade of the Ford plant will make Oakville into the company’s No 1. electric vehicle factory in North America,” we were told.

And Prime Minister Trudeau declared: “This is a win-win. . . . helping accelerate our transition to a low-carbon, clean-growth economy, which will help protect our environment, drive innovation, and create many good middle-class jobs.”

In April 2023, Ford announced it will spend $1.8 billion to retool its Oakville Assembly Complex, beginning in mid-2024, to build next-generation passenger electric vehicles in 2025.

Then the target date of 2025 becomes 2027.

And now, in July 2024, reality strikes: Ford confirmed that the Oakville plant would no longer produce electric three-row SUVs but would instead turn out larger, gasoline-powered versions of its flagship F-Series pickup truck.

The reason: a global slowdown in electric vehicle demand, with hesitant customers delaying plans to buy EVs, and many opting instead for hybrid-electric vehicles.

Ford, for one, said it will step up hybrid offerings and that by 2030 it expects to offer hybrid powertrains across its lineup of gas-powered vehicles. Ford has also delayed production of electric pickup trucks in Tennessee.

Ford now says its electric vehicle unit lost $1.3 billion USD in the first quarter alone. It sold 10,000 vehicles in that period, and thus lost about $132,000 US for every EV it sold.

General Motors also announced it would cut production of EVs, citing slowing demand.

As far as we know, Honda Canada is proceeding with a $15 billion plan to create Canada’s first comprehensive electric-vehicle supply chain, comprising four plants in Ontario. It includes Honda’s first EV assembly plant in Alliston, ON, which Honda said will produce up to 240,000 vehicles per year.

Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association, said the Ford decision is “not good news,” and he fears there will be similar announcements from other car companies.

And automotive industry analyst Robert Karwel says: “I would definitely not be surprised to see announcements from other companies.”

“People are getting payment fatigue right now generally, and EVs are more expensive,” said Karwel, a senior manager of J.D. Power’s Power Information Network. “The average car payment hit $900 a month in January.”

In the first quarter of this year, 46,744 light and medium-duty EVs were registered across Canada, 11.2% of the market share.

B.C. has long led Canada in the uptake of electric vehicles, and in May they made up 10.7% of light-duty vehicle sales.

But another factor weighing on consumers is B.C.’s recent reduction in rebates for electric vehicles.

B.C. reduced rebates to $3,000 for battery, fuel-cell and longer-range plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and $1,500 for shorter-range plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. The previous incentives ranged from $2,500 to $6,000, depending on the kind of car.

And now, only vehicles sold for under $55,000 qualify for the rebates. Previously, the maximum price was $77,000 to qualify. The federal rebate of $5,000 for qualifying vehicles, introduced on May 1, is still available.

If the slowdown in demand continues, it will only help power producers such as B.C. Hydro, which face staggering demand for power, for EVs and for industrial and clean-energy use.

The federal government requires at least 20% of new vehicles sold in Canada to be zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) by 2026, at least 60% by 2030, and 100% by 2035. (ZEVs include battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.)

Prime Minister Trudeau: “As a great Canadian once said, that is where the puck is going and that is where we’re going to be.”

B.C. is even more ambitious: It has set targets requiring 90% of all light-duty new vehicle sales to be zero-emission by 2030 and 100% by 2035.

That means B.C. needs substantially more power to cope with EVs — and will require even more than that to handle expected population growth and the province’s plans to electrify BC’s economy and push clean energy.

Now the Energy Futures Institute (EFI) calls in a new report for “a dramatic increase in domestic electricity production” in B.C., and cancellation of current plans to wind down some existing power-generation facilities.

EFI chair Barry Penner: “After years without new generation coming online, the long-awaited Site C dam is expected to start producing power by next year. Even if Site C was available last year or this year, it wouldn’t be enough to avoid having to import electricity from the United States and Alberta to keep our lights on.”

As for the federal target, the Public Policy Forum says Canada must build more electricity generation in the next 25 years than it has over the last century in order to support a net-zero emissions economy by 2050.

All in all, Canada’s electric vehicle transition could cost more than $300 billion by 2040 as the installation of charging infrastructure expands, upgrades to the electrical grid are made, and other changes take place, according to a report released by Natural Resources Canada.

Among other things, it says Canada needs to add 40,000 public charging ports per year on average between now and 2040. There now are around 32,000 public ports across the country, and roughly 11,000 were installed in 2023.

The Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association says lack of charging infrastructure is already deterring some would-be EV buyers. A lack of charging station availability was cited as a top concern by 72% of consumers, according to an Autotrader Canada survey conducted in March.

Cornelius van Kooten, an economics professor and Canada Research Chair in Environmental Studies and Climate Change at the University of Victoria, said the federal timeline for electric vehicles “isn’t realistic or feasible.”

In a study for the free-enterprise Fraser Institute, he said that to meet the goal, Canada would need the equivalent of 10 big new hydro dams (or 13 large natural-gas power plants).

Quebec, for one, has already had to start limiting industrial expansion because it can’t fill all the power needs.

So you can but sigh when you hear of Quebec’s latest plan for electric vehicles: it is moving ahead with regulations that not only mandate EV sales but actually prohibit sales of any internal combustion engines — including plug-in hybrids, from January 1, 2035.

Related Topics:#CanadaElectricVehicles #ResourceWorks CanadaEnergyGrid CanadaEVs

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Carney’s Budget Risks Another Costly EV Bet

Automotive

Carney’s Budget Risks Another Costly EV Bet

Published on November 2, 2025

Todayville

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Marco Navarro-Genie

GM’s Ontario EV plant was sold as a green success story. Instead it collapsed under subsidies, layoffs and unsold vans

Every age invents new names for old mistakes. In ours, they’re sold as investments. Before the Carney government unveils its November budget promising another future paid for in advance, Canadians should remember Ingersoll, Ont., one of the last places a prime minister tried to buy tomorrow.

Eager to transform the economy, in December 2022, former prime minister Justin Trudeau promised that government backing would help General Motors turn its Ingersoll plant into a beacon of green industry. “By 2025 it will be producing 50,000 electric vehicles per year,” he declared: 137 vehicles daily, six every hour. What sounded like renewal became an expensive demonstration of how progressive governments peddle rampant spending as sound strategy.

The plan began with $259 million from Ottawa and another $259 million from Ontario: over half a billion to switch from Equinox production to BrightDrop electric delivery vans. The promise was thousands of “good, middle-class jobs.”

The assembly plant employed 2,000 workers before retooling. Today, fewer than 700 remain; a two-thirds collapse. With $518 million in public funds and only 3,500 vans built in 2024, taxpayers paid $148,000 per vehicle. The subsidy works out to over half a million dollars per remaining worker. Two out of every three employees from Trudeau’s photo-op are now unemployed.

The failure was entirely predictable. Demand for EVs never met the government’s plan. Parking lots filled with unsold inventory. GM did the rational thing: slowed production, cut staff and left. The Canadian taxpayer was left to pay the bill.

This reveals the weakness of Ottawa’s industrial policy. Instead of creating conditions for enterprise, such as reliable energy, stable regulation, and moderate taxes, progressive governments spend to gain applause. They judge success by the number of jobs announced, yet those jobs vanish once the cameras leave.

Politicians keep writing cheques to industry. Each administration claims to be more strategic, yet the pattern persists. No country ever bought its way into competitiveness.

Trudeau “bet big on electric vehicles,” but betting with other people’s money isn’t vision; it’s gambling. The wager wasn’t on technology but narrative, the naive idea that moral intention could replace market reality. The result? Fewer jobs, unwanted products and claims of success that convinced no one.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has mastered the same rhetorical sleight of hand. Spending becomes “investment,” programs become “platforms.” He promises to “catalyze unprecedented investments” while announcing fiscal restraint: investing more while spending less. His $13-billion federal housing agency is billed as a future investment, though it’s immediate public spending under a moral banner.

“We can build big. Build bold. Build now,” Carney declared, promising infrastructure to “reduce our vulnerabilities.” The cadence of certainty masks the absence of limits. Announcing “investment” becomes synonymous with action itself; ambition replaces accountability.

The structure mirrors the Ingersoll case: promise vast returns from state-directed spending, redefine subsidy as vision, rely on tomorrow to conceal today’s bill. “Investment” has become the language of evasion, entitlement and false pride.

As Carney prepares his first budget, Canadians should remember what happened when their last leader tried to buy a future with lavish “investment.”

A free economy doesn’t need bribery to breathe. It requires the discipline of risk and liberty to fail without dragging a country down. Ingersoll wasn’t undone by technology but by ideological conceit. Prosperity cannot be decreed and markets cannot be commanded into obedience.

Every age invents new names for old mistakes. Ours keeps making the same ones. Entitled hubris knows no bounds.

Marco Navarro-Genie is vice-president of research at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and co-author, with Barry Cooper, of Canada’s COVID: The Story of a Pandemic Moral Panic (2023).

Automotive

Parliament Forces Liberals to Release Stellantis Contracts After $15-Billion Gamble Blows Up In Taxpayer Faces

Published on October 21, 2025

Todayville

Dan Knight

After betting taxpayer billions on a green-industry deal that collapsed under U.S. tariffs, MPs move to expose what Ottawa promised Stellantis and what Canadians actually got for the money.

Parliament just blew the lid off one of the biggest corporate giveaways in Canadian history.

For years, Ottawa and Queen’s Park have bragged about “historic investments” in green manufacturing. What they didn’t say is that $15 billion of your money went to Stellantis, the Dutch auto conglomerate behind Chrysler, Jeep, and Ram, only for the company to announce it’s cutting 3,000 jobs in Brampton and shipping them south to the United States.

That betrayal is what triggered a heated meeting of the House of Commons Government Operations Committee on October 21. What started as routine procedure turned into a full-scale reckoning over how billions were handed to a foreign corporation with almost no strings attached.

Conservative MP Garnett Genuis opened with a blunt motion: produce every contract, memorandum of understanding, or side deal the government signed with Stellantis and its affiliates since 2015. Every page, every clause, in both official languages, “without redaction.” The demand wasn’t symbolic, it was about finding out if Trudeau’s government ever required the company to keep those Canadian jobs it was paid to “protect.”

Liberals scrambled to block it. MP Jenna Sudds proposed an amendment that would let bureaucrats black out whatever they deemed “sensitive.” In practice, that meant hiding anything embarrassing — from cabinet discussions to corporate fine print. Opposition MPs called it exactly what it was: a cover-up clause. It failed.

The committee floor turned into open warfare. The Bloc Québécois tried a softer sub-amendment giving the House Law Clerk power to vet redactions. Conservatives countered with their own version forcing departments to hand over unredacted contracts and justify any blackouts in writing. After a suspension and some backroom wrangling, a rare thing happened: compromise.

The motion passed unanimously. Even the Liberals couldn’t vote against it once the light was on.

The debate itself revealed how badly Ottawa has lost control of its own economic agenda. Conservatives pressed officials on why Canadians were paying billions for “job creation” only to see Stellantis pack up for Illinois once U.S. tariffs came down. Liberals blamed Trump, tariffs, and “global conditions,” the excuses were almost comical. Liberal members blamed Donald Trump —yes, really— for Stellantis abandoning Canada. According to them, Trump’s tariffs and “America First” trade policy scared the company into moving production south.

But here’s what they didn’t say: Trump announced his 2024 presidential campaign on November 15, 2022, promising to rip up Joe Biden’s green industrial agenda and bring manufacturing back to U.S. soil. Everyone heard it. Everyone knew it. And yet, on July 6, 2023, more than half a year later, Ottawa proudly unveiled its $15-billion subsidy for Stellantis and LG Energy Solution — a deal built entirely on the assumption that Trump wouldn’t win.

So let’s be clear about what happened here. They didn’t just hand billions to a foreign automaker. They gambled that the next U.S. president wouldn’t change course. They bet the house —your tax dollars— on a political outcome in another country.

Think about that. Fifteen billion dollars of public money wagered on a campaign prediction. They bet on black, and it landed on red.

Even if the gamble had gone their way — even if Trump had lost and Biden’s green subsidy regime had survived untouched — the deal would still have been a terrible bargain.

During the committee meeting, the Bloc Québécois pointed to the 2023 Parliamentary Budget Officer’s report, which projected that the combined federal and Ontario subsidies to Stellantis and Volkswagen, roughly $28 billion total, including Stellantis’s $15 billion share, wouldn’t even break even for twenty years. That means taxpayers would have to wait until the mid-2040s just to recover what Ottawa spent.

So imagine the “best-case scenario”: the U.S. keeps its green-industry incentives, the plant stays in Canada, and production runs at full capacity. Even then, ordinary Canadians don’t see a financial return for two decades. There are no guaranteed profits, no guaranteed jobs, and no repayment. It was a long-odds bet on a global policy trend, financed entirely with public money.

In other words, whether the roulette wheel landed on black or red, the house still lost because the government put your chips on the table in a game it never controlled.

Behind the numbers, the story is brutally simple: Ottawa slid its chips across the table, wrote the cheques, and Stellantis walked away with the winnings. When MPs tried to see the receipts, the government grabbed for the cover of secrecy — no sunlight, no scrutiny, just “trust us.”

Now, for the first time, Parliament is about to peek under the table. The committee will finally see the real contracts — not the press releases, not the slogans, but the fine print that tells Canadians what they actually paid for. The review will happen behind closed doors at first, but the pressure to show the public what’s inside will be enormous.

Because if those documents confirm what MPs already suspect —that there were no job guarantees, no clawbacks, and no consequences —then this isn’t just a bad hand. It’s a rigged table.

Ottawa didn’t just gamble with taxpayer money; it gambled against the odds, and the dealer —in this case, Stellantis— already knew the outcome. Even if the wheel had landed on black, taxpayers were still stuck covering a twenty-year “break-even” fantasy, as the Bloc reminded everyone.

The next two weeks will show Canadians whether their government actually bought jobs or just bought headlines. One thing is certain: the high-rollers in Ottawa have been playing roulette with your money, and the wheel’s finally slowing down.

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