Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault says he wants a national mandate to enforce EV sales across the country. The proposed mandate would force auto dealers to sell a certain number of EVs in a year.
The mandate would support Canada’s path to net zero emissions by 2050.
The Minister notes that the mandate will not come into effect in the next three months. But it is intended to do the heavy lifting to move EV sales from the three-four per cent it is now to the 50 per cent goal.
The Minister launched a consultation on developing the mandate in the fall. To support these consultations, Environment and Climate Change Canada penned a discussion paper seeking input on how the mandate would work, the effect on the industry and if there should be an interim target before 2030.
However, the issue around EV adoption seems to be a province by province issue. Three in four EVs registered in Canada are from BC, Quebec or Ontario. The other provinces and territories struggle with a lack of supply and a population hesitant to change.
There is still work to do, and it will be interesting to see how dealers deal with these new targets with an already dwindling supply of new and used vehicles on their lots.
