According to Politico, Mark Carney is under intense pressure.
Auto Manufacturers want to get rid of the electric vehicle mandate. They simply refuse to sell more small electric cars in Canada, claiming it’s impossible / unprofitable.
They also say Donald Trump is now President of the United States. Climate Change is no longer an american concern. The political climate in the United States has changed and Canada should follow the US, whether it likes or not.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/10/canada-ev-mandate-elon-musk-tesla-00446980
EVs are a halfway solution anyway. We need to be investing in mass transit. If every car turned into an EV, we would still have politicians like Doug Ford trying to tunnel under a highway to end gridlock, we would still have motorists claiming bikes cause congestion, we would still be creating tonnes of tire waste and microplastics pollution, people will continue to die on roads while accidents could get worse due to extra weight, and our roads will wear down faster and cost more to maintain due to the extra weight.
In the grand scheme of things, EVs solve almost none of the major problems presented by cars.
Mass transit is great for cities and that’s it right now. If you live in an area with less than 500,000 people mass transit isn’t happening for awhile. EVs give us clean powered vehicles for the interim which - optimistically - will still be 20-30 years.
Stopping EVs now is a bad idea. Use them to leverage electric renewable infrastucture.
For cities, though, yeah minimal cars is better.
Somewhere with 500,000 people can definitely make use of transit. Maybe not mass but definitely trams, buses and regional rail. Also active infrastructure like bike lanes (granted provinces seem to be at war with cyclists recently).
This is about the most accurate answer I’ve read on here in a long time.
EVs and other electrified vehicles are good and all, but saving the climate comes down to building proper infrastructure not designed around cars, that gets the populace from A to B efficiently.
I’m not exactly anti EV. If a car must exist it might as well be electric, but just converting every car into an EV is not enough. Plus there are other massive benefits to transit like increasing density and diversity in zoning, which could increase housing supply and make small businesses more versatile and resilent.
Transit is also much cheaper than car ownership which lifts low income people up by reducing their transportation costs. Its also more fair, a 14 year old, a blind person, or someone with a suspended lisence could all take transit when none of them should be driving.
That’s an important bit of nuance.
Even if every province and city were to go all-in on prioritizing public transit over new car-focused infrastructure, we are decades away from transit being available at a scale to everyone who needs it. EVs are a practical interim solution.
And there will always be practical reasons for individual vehicles (contractors, service vehicles, delivery vehicles, rural places, etc) where public transit is not realistic, and those vehicles really need to move to EV.
Well put, cities and transportation should be designed for all ages of people and easy to get around.
All to often people forget when you get older you will loose access to a car. This leave with with limited options in how to leave your home. Similarly if you are young, you don’t have access to a car and are at the whims of mom and dad driving you around.
Cars either electric or ICE are not what we should design cities around. We need transit, and cities that allow independence at all age groups.
I have seen to many older folks complaining about independence and feeling like they lost it especially when they get too old to drive.
Just one more highway, finished 15 years from now, will solve traffic!
EVs should replace cars that need to be replaced, let’s not re-create the ecological disaster that was “cash 4 junkers”.
And yes, they should go alongside a large reduction in total vehicles on the road using practical, fast, accessible, clean (as in maintained) electric and cheap public transit subsidized mostly by car owners and in small part by other taxes.
Let’s reduce traffic and traffic violence by reducing the total number of vehicles from the road, making driver’s ed more complete and stricter, and gently discouraging people in high-density, transit-friendly cities from owning personal vehicles.
We will also see the costs of road maintenance go down, unused lanes that can be reclaimed, and less asphalt to absorb heat and keep the earth from draining properly, all while keeping the remaining car traffic relatively efficient, with less idling and faster time to destination while requiring lower speeds, which EVs excel at.
Sorry, I’ve ranted all over this thread, but I feel very strongly about a balanced and supported approach to mass transit, car dependence reduction and picking the right usage model (car pool, car share, rental, ownership) and car size for your needs.
We need to be investing in electric mass transit. Powered by renewables.
Even disiel electric is much better than private automobiles we should start by building electric but any transit is better than none. We need to prioritize laying tram and train tracks. Once those are laid we can easily upgrade to electric.