Carson Binda is the British Columbia Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.Premier David Eby must slam the brakes on his government’s ban on the sale of new gas and diesel vehicles before it drives the provincial economy off a cliff.Other jurisdictions are backing away from expensive and unrealistic bans on normal cars and BC should cancel the program, too.British Columbia’s Zero-Emissions Vehicle Act is a provincial law that will completely ban the sale of new gas and diesel vehicles by 2035.The first mandates kick in next year, forcing 26 per cent of new vehicles sold to be ZEVs. That requirement goes up sharply every year. By 2035, new gas and diesel vehicles sales will be completely banned.Dealerships that are unable to comply will be slapped with fines of up to $100,000.The federal government and Government of Quebec are both rolling back their own vehicle mandates.Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that his government has paused its ban on the sale of new gas and diesel vehicles for a year and launched a 60-day review of the legislation. Carney should be canceling the program altogether, but this is a small step in the right direction..Quebec is also backing away from its mandate. Quebec has removed hybrid cars from its ban and allowed some gas and diesel vehicles to be sold after 2035.Eby needs to get off the bench and back away from BC’s mandates. BC should not be the last province chained to unworkable bans on the sale of normal cars.Taxpayers cannot afford higher taxes and deeper debt to pay for all the charging stations, transmission lines, substations, power plants and corporate welfare it would take to achieve the pie-in-the-sky targets set by the ZEV Act.An average electric vehicle uses between 3,000 and 6,000 kWh of electricity every year, according to Statistics Canada. A new fridge uses about 500 kWh per year.There are more than 3.1 million light-duty cars and trucks in BC that use gas or diesel fuel. If Eby wants to replace all those vehicles with ZEVs, BC needs to come up with around 13,950 gWh of new electricity every year just to power them all.For comparison, the Site C dam creates about 5,100 gWh of electricity every year.BC is already an importer of electricity, with a net import of 10.2 tWh from the United States in 2023. Coal and natural gas were the two biggest sources of electricity in the United States that year..If BC is already importing huge amounts of electricity, how does Eby suggest that we power all the ZEVs that he has mandated we drive?BC is staring down $155 billion worth of government debt. That costs taxpayers about $100 million per week in interest charges this year. Hospital emergency rooms are already closing because the province cannot afford to keep them open.Taxpayers can’t afford to pay for all the infrastructure and energy needed to power Eby’s plan to ban new gas and diesel vehicles. Every dollar that’s wasted planning for the mandates is money that is not going towards core services or cutting taxes to make life more affordable for British Columbians.Banning the sale of new gas and diesel vehicles is also unpopular with British Columbians. Fifty five per cent of BC residents oppose the ban, according to Leger polling. Only 36 per cent of British Columbians support it.Other governments are listening to taxpayers' concerns and rolling back the bans. Eby must follow their lead and cancel the ban on new gas and diesel vehicles.Carson Binda is the British Columbia Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
