A Montreal think tank says Prime Minister Mark Carney’s decision to delay Ottawa’s electric vehicle mandate in 2026 does not go far enough and is calling for a full repeal of the plan to ban gas-powered cars by 2035.“Prime Minister Carney has finally realized what Canadians have known for some time: banning the sale of conventional vehicles by 2035 is unrealistic,” said Renaud Brossard, vice president of communications at the Montreal Economic Institute. “Instead of trying to salvage this bad public policy, Ottawa should respect the choices of Canadian consumers and rescind the prohibition on the sale of gas-powered vehicles.”The federal mandate requires that 20% of vehicles sold in 2026 be electric or plug-in hybrids, gradually increasing until all new gas-powered vehicle sales are banned in 2035. But Friday, Carney announced the 2026 requirement would be suspended and reviewed..The MEI warned earlier this year that the country’s electricity grids cannot handle the demand of mass vehicle electrification, estimating the cost of upgrades at $294 billion.In June, electric and plug-in hybrids made up just 7.9% of Canadian vehicle sales.“Not only are Canadians less enthusiastic than Ottawa about electric vehicles, but our electricity grids simply do not have the capacity to absorb all of this extra energy demand,” Brossard said. “The government needs to use the review of this mandate to repeal it and let consumers, not governments, set the pace of electric vehicle adoption.”
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