The Manitoba government spent $326,000 on electric vehicle (EV) chargers over the past two years and has no information on how much these chargers are being used.This information comes from documents obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF).“Spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ dollars without looking at the results is the textbook definition of government waste,” said Gage Haubrich, CTF Prairie Director. “Any regular Manitoban would be fired for spending this kind of money and forgetting to check what happened. The government needs to cancel this program before any more money is wasted.”According to the documents obtained by the CTF, the Manitoba government installed the EV chargers between April 2022 and March 2024. They also plan to spend $25 million to help people buy electric cars.Currently, less than 1% of vehicles in Manitoba are electric. Most EV owners are men over 45 who make over $100,000 a year, while the average Manitoban earns about $60,000 annually.The government documents showed that, “records regarding usage statistics the government has on electric vehicle chargers that the government has spent money on for the past two fiscal years do not exist.”“Taxpayers can’t afford the government spending money on projects without any measures of success,” said Haubrich.“Premier Wab Kinew needs to cancel this program and stop wasting taxpayers’ money on a project the government doesn’t have any data for.”
