Will Canada's new auto strategy put as many EVs on the road as Carney says?
Climate experts say emission rules still need to be worked out — and automakers hold much power
Despite widespread approval from provinces and auto manufacturers, Prime Minister Mark Carney's auto plan might not accelerate the transition to electric vehicles as fast as he says.
On Thursday, Carney ended Canada's electric vehicle mandate, resumed purchase incentives and said higher standards for fuel efficiency were coming. Ontario and Alberta's premiers said they were both "pleased," and car manufacturers said the move provided "welcome policy stability."
Carney says his government expects EVs to hit 75 per cent of new car purchases in 2035 without a sales mandate.
Some climate change experts not only doubt this — but say the new strategy undermines Canada's climate goals.
"This policy is giving in way too much," said Simon Donner, a climate scientist and University of British Columbia professor, in an interview with CBC Radio's The House.
Dropping EV mandate for emissions standard 'a mistake' in Carney's auto strategy: Climate scientistTransportation is one of the most polluting sectors in the country, behind oil and gas production. Canada won't reach its climate targets, and especially net-zero emission targets, if most drivers don't switch to low- or no-emission vehicles, those experts say.
For decades, greenhouse gas emissions from cars, SUVs and trucks have been on the rise.
One policy aimed at reducing those emissions was the consumer carbon tax.
On his first day in office, Carney eliminated that tax — which he said had become too divisive. It wouldn't be the last Trudeau-era policy he'd slash.
Since then, Carney weakened a commitment to implement an oil and gas emissions cap and abandoned Trudeau's promise to plant two billion trees. He also agreed to greenlight a possible Alberta-backed bitumen pipeline to British Columbia's coast.
The prime minister was asked Thursday if he still considered himself a leader on climate change.
"Absolutely. I consider Canada a leader on climate change and on focusing on climate change results and solutions," Carney said.
The NDP found those comments hard to stomach.
"I think the facts completely belie that," interim NDP Leader Don Davies said. "He's eliminated the carbon tax, he eliminated the EV targets … he's weakened environmental standards in Alberta and he's promoting a bitumen pipeline to the West Coast.
"I don't know how anybody could call themselves a leader on the climate with a record like that."
Carney's record doesn't show him as a leader on climate: DaviesCarney's climate commitments a 'joke': May
"It is an absolute joke for the prime minister to claim that Canada has any pretense of being a climate leader," Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said. "We are still a climate laggard."
Carney, who owned an electric vehicle before taking office, defended his government's decisions.
"We are dead focused on results, getting emissions down, making major investments and in the process of creating more jobs for Canadians and a better future," he said.
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May says Carney's record shows he is not a leader on fighting climate change. (Chris Tanouye/The Canadian Press)Under the old Trudeau-era EV mandate, auto manufacturers were supposed to achieve incremental EV sales targets. And by 2035, every new passenger car sold in Canada was supposed to be either electric or a plug-in hybrid.
In its place, Carney intends to strengthen the country's tailpipe pollution standards, in addition to five years of EV rebates. The Carney government is promising those standards would double vehicle efficiency and lead to three-in-four cars being battery powered.
Donner, who in addition to his academic work served as the federal government's top climate adviser through the independent Net-Zero Advisory Body, is skeptical.
"[The standard] doesn't guarantee we are going to have more EVs being sold," Donner said. "It's going to depend on how they negotiate the standard."
More questions than answers
Carney said on Thursday the new tailpipe emission standard was modelled on "grams per mile" and would result in a "57 per cent reduction" in the amount of carbon pollution from cars.
CBC News asked to see the modelling that backs up that claim.
In a statement sent Sunday, a spokesperson for Environment, Climate Change and Nature Minister Julie Dabrusin said the soon-to-be-introduced regulations would apply "on a fleet average basis."
There are various technology pathways that automakers could use to comply," said Keean Nembhard, the minister's press secretary.
Nembhard said automakers could meet the new proposed standard with battery-powered cars and hybrids, including non-plug-in models.
"However, as the stringency of the standards increases, more EVs will need to be introduced to comply,” he said. "The European Union uses a similar GHG standard approach to support its EV targets."
At a technical briefing, public servants with the federal government, who spoke on the condition they not be identified, admitted that they couldn't release detailed data to support this new policy — the modelling is still in the works. Officials said they intend to finalize these regulations later this year.
Researchers and policy experts tell CBC News that the success of Carney's new EV policy depends on the strength of the tailpipe emissions standard. They fear the same companies that lobbied to get rid of the EV mandate, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Stellantis and Toyota, might oppose the new rules.
The Canadian Climate Institute said in terms of finding policy signals that will push people toward environmentally friendly changes, "perfect is the enemy of good." The climate change policy organization notes that while industry and environmentalists likely have issues with the auto plan, it still offers a path forward.
"If you're really into deep [emission] reductions you don't like [it]," said Dave Sawyer, principal economist at the Canadian Climate Institute. "If you're industry, you're going to grumble because you have costs you don't love. But it's a really balanced approach, it seems."
At Issue | Can Carney’s auto strategy save the industry from Trump?With files from Ashley Burke
Carney’s government is cutting hundreds of environment and science jobs. Here’s what that means for Canadians
‘These cuts today potentially could mean a crisis tomorrow,’ says public service union president
Scientists who monitor Canada’s environmental health and protect Canadians from extreme weather events and industrial disasters could soon find themselves on the federal government’s chopping block.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal government is in the process of reducing the size of its public service. Thousands of jobs are on the line, including 840 positions at Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC).
As public servants wait to learn their fate, scientists and labour leaders are warning these cuts could significantly impact the health and safety of Canadians as well as Canada's wildlife and environment.
“It is the kind of research that I believe that Canadians need and want at this time,” retired ECCC scientist Christine Bishop told Laura Lynch, host of What On Earth. “They have to look for other ways to trim the fat in the government.”
‘Canadians should be very concerned’
Carney's first budget, delivered in November, announced plans to shrink the federal bureaucracy by 16,000 full-time equivalent positions — which is not necessarily the same as 16,000 individuals — over three years.
ECCC will reduce its workforce by roughly 10 per cent, or the equivalent of 840 full-time roles, department spokesperson Samantha Bayard wrote in an email.
Despite the cuts, she wrote the department remains “committed to its mandate and advancing Canada’s leadership in environmental protection, nature stewardship, science and weather services, clean technology, and building a greener, more sustainable future.
Sean O'Reilly, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC), isn’t convinced the department can cut hundreds of jobs and stay true to its mandate.
PIPSC represents thousands of public servants who are bracing for job cuts, including those at ECCC.
While he’s worried about his union’s members, O’Reilly says he’s also concerned about the safety and well-being of Canadians.
“These aren't just numbers on a spreadsheet. This is real science being cut,” he said. "You can't cut public science or staff without increasing public risk.”
Sean
O'Reilly, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service
of Canada, says cuts to Environment Canada could lead to a 'crisis'
down the line. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)On Jan. 27, an email went out to ECCC’s Science and Technology Branch (STB) staff from assistant deputy minister Marc D’Iorio, warning that 120 full-time roles would be cut over the next year, starting in April.
“Essential scientific programs that support policy, operations, and services to Canadians will be maintained or strengthened,” read the memo, which several ECCC employees shared with CBC.
“The focus will be on efficiency, integration, and impact, rather than eliminating critical functions. Some reductions were targeted in areas where extensive expertise exists outside the Department or the public service.”
ECCC did not respond to CBC’s questions about D'lorio's email or which teams, specifically, would face cuts.
While PIPSC doesn’t yet know which areas of research will be affected, O’Reilly says the people at ECCC do essential work.
“They work with avalanches, hurricanes, and severe weather events. What's going to happen to those alerts in Canada if those folks aren't there to do that work?” he said.
“[They are] the ones that prevent oil spills from becoming catastrophes, you know, who are ensuring dangerous goods don't explode on our railways.”
Throughout Canada’s history, he says, a failure to adequately invest in the public service had real, and sometimes deadly, consequences.
He pointed to the 2013 fatal rail disaster in Lac Megantic, Que., which researchers from Toronto’s York University blamed on “ a decades-long process of deregulation and reduced resources ” at Transport Canada, or Canada’s struggle to respond quickly to the COVID-19 pandemic, which some doctors blamed on chronic underresourcing at Canada’s Public Health Agency.
“These cuts today potentially could mean a crisis tomorrow,” he said.
ECCC did not respond to questions about whether the cuts would impact weather forecasting and alert systems.
Public servants speak out over job cuts as thousands more put on noticePesticides, microplastics and forever chemicals
Bishop, who spent decades working as a federal ecotoxicologist before retiring three years ago, says the team was already a “skeleton crew, and any staff reductions will likely have devastating effects on essential research.
She and her colleagues worked alongside Indigenous communities to monitor the impacts of environmental contaminants on wildlife and the environment — things like pesticides, microplastics, forever chemicals or diluted bitumen from the oilsands.
It’s the kind of work that she believes matters to everyday Canadians.
“People are definitely interested in knowing what's going on in the environment and how it might relate to, you know, their own health,” she said.
“Anytime I spoke to people in the public about the work that we did … people are saying, ‘Yes, I'm interested in that and we need more of that.’”
Private, academic research not enough
Both Bishop and O’Reilly say private and academic research can’t fill the gap left in the wake of public service cuts.
ECCC scientists, says Bishop, are “specifically required to do applied research to ask questions of immediate interest to Canadians.”
That’s not the case at academic institutions or private companies, O’Reilly adds, where research is driven by funding availability, profitability, or, at best, curiosity.
“Public science is the science that isn't as glamorous, it isn't profitable, potentially, [as what] businesses are doing. And so that public science is the science that needs to be done,” he said.
“It takes years and years to build up good public science, but it only takes a moment to cut it.”
Radio segment produced by Rachel Sanders
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