Some government electric vehicle charging stations can do days, even months, without seeing a single customer, said Blacklock's Reporter..New data confirms a 2019 audit at the Department of Natural Resources that public charging stations average as few as one or two cars daily..“We will be deploying these charging network stations all across the country including in rural Canada,” Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault testified March 24 at the Commons environment committee..“In Québec in 2015 we had six charging stations. We have more than 2,000 now.”.Guilbeault, in an Inquiry Of Ministry tabled in the Commons, listed charging stations installed at environment department offices with a daily tally on usage last January, February and March..The figures were requested by Conservative MP Robert Kitchen (Souris-Moose Mountain, Sask.)..The busiest station at the department’s Pacific Environmental Science Centre in North Vancouver peaked at two cars daily in January. The Pacific Wildlife Research Centre in Delta, B.C. averaged .1 cars daily in winter months..At Saskatoon’s Prairie and Northern Wildlife Research Centre not a single electric vehicle was charged in February or March. Usage in January averaged .2 cars daily, said the Inquiry..The department’s Canadian Centre for Inland Waters in Burlington, Ont. averaged zero cars in January and February. An Ottawa charging station averaged .4 cars daily over the period..Guilbeault, who uses a bicycle, earlier said electric vehicles must become more popular..“I don’t own an electric vehicle,” said Guilbeault..“I don’t own a vehicle, full stop. My service vehicle is fully electric. It’s 100% EV.”.“I take the train as much as I can between Montréal and Ottawa, but when we take the car, even in the winter, it works. Norway as you may know is a cold country. Fifty-percent of the vehicles in that cold country are electric today. It can be done.”.The audit found subsidized stations in Ontario and Québec averaged as few as one or two customers a day. Subsidies represented “a significant amount of money,” about $226 million at the time, wrote auditors.
