Two opposition parties, two different tactics to make it easier for Ontarians to buy electric vehicles — and little evidence the Ford government is interested in either. This week, New Democrat MPP Jennifer French and Green MPPs Mike Schreiner and Aislinn Clancy are presenting different approaches to try to ease some of the anxieties consumers have about buying electric vehicles — most notably, whether there’ll be charging infrastructure where it’s needed.
In 2018, the Ford government changed Ontario’s building code, removing the requirement that new homes be ready for the installation of an EV charger. This week, French will put forward a motion urging the PCs to reverse the move; she’s also holding a bill in reserve that would compel them to do so. For either to pass would require the support of the Progressive Conservative majority at Queen’s Park.
“People are hesitating to buy electric vehicles right now because they don’t have somewhere to charge them,” French said. “My bill is a bite-sized piece that we can do, that will make a difference.” The Oshawa New Democrat says that there are other important issues — fitting charging infrastructure into multi-family residences, retrofitting existing homes — that she’d like to tackle if and when the government reverses its changes to the building code.
Schreiner and Clancy are opting to try to eat the elephant all at once — or at least to take a bunch of big bites out of it. Their bill, which will be introduced Tuesday afternoon, would require the Ministry of Transportation to devise a strategy that would include developing plans for a network of high-speed chargers on Ontario’s highways, exploring rebates to make EVs more affordable, and researching other pain points for consumers who are EV-curious but haven’t yet committed.
“Affordability is a top concern for people across Ontario. According to the CAA, people on average save $2,000 per year on fuel alone by driving an electric vehicle,” said Schreiner. “But Ontario lags far behind other provinces in EV sales because the Ford government has failed to make EVs affordable and easy to use.”
Nobody can accuse the Progressive Conservatives of being unwilling to throw money at EVs in Ontario, but they aren’t particularly fussed about making sure Ontarians actually buy them — so long as cars are being made here, the government is at best ambivalent as to whether drivers should prefer them to conventional gas-powered models. The government has already landed major investments from Volkswagen, Stellantis, and Honda, thanks in no small part to generous financial assistance from the federal government.
Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade Vic Fedeli indicated this week that there’s at least one more big announcement coming: he told Bloomberg News that, while he expects the current wave of EV investments to begin waning in the coming years, the province has eyes on three prospective automakers and is confident it will land at least one more major investment before the window of opportunity closes.
Those investments are relatively secure at the moment: national policy on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border supports the transition to EVs, and Ontario’s auto sector is deeply enmeshed with the American one, making it no trivial matter for an automaker to shutter a manufacturing plant if the fickle winds of global manufacturing change.
But national policies can change — and quickly — depending on elections. The prospects for manufacturing subsidies under a potential Pierre Poilievre government in Ottawa are reportedly one reason the Ontario PCs are considering an election in spring 2025, a year earlier than dictated by law. Whether the EV supports in Joe Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act can survive the next election cycle south of the border is, at minimum, an open question.
Beyond politics, however, there’s the challenge posed by cheaper EVs coming from the next generation of Asian automakers — most notably, China’s BYD. It’s not just that the cars coming out of China are cheaper; in many respects, they’re also superior products. BYD introduced a model last week that claims a combined gasoline/electric range of 2,100 kilometres.
Canada has not yet matched the tariffs the United States recently imposed on Chinese auto imports, though Schreiner and French both agreed that Ontario’s domestic automakers should be protected.
“Look, I’m a girl from Oshawa,” French said. “I look around my community, and my neighbours are autoworkers. We want to ensure that the auto industry has a bright future … the landscape globally will be a challenge, and I hope governments are ready for that.”
“We need to ensure that we build the market here in Ontario to protect those manufacturing dollars that we’re investing,” said Schreiner. “And the Ford government is failing to build that market.”
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