Environment committee  Let me be clear that we oppose those two. We do not say that you should subsidize fossil fuels and not subsidize EVs. We say that you shouldn't subsidize either of them. When it comes to EVs the question is the value for the dollar. There are other measures you can take. Is spending this money getting you the greatest reduction for the dollar?

Environment committee  Yes, that is the big question that the committee and government need to ask themselves. How much will it move the needle? The challenge right now is that we're just not quite there yet. When I think of myself looking for a new vehicle, the main barrier to buying a ZEV is the price.

Environment committee  Well, I think, first of all, under the current program, certainly not. I already gave you the statistics. For the low-end vehicle, of the base model, the specific model that Tesla introduced to trigger the subsidy for the higher version, they sold only 126. They sold 12,000 of the $55,000 model.

Environment committee  Not really. There is good intention here; I understand what the government is trying to do. I don't think anybody objects to the idea that we would be better off if people were driving cleaner vehicles. I think that's a noble objective. The question is whether the policy is actually doing that.

Environment committee  Look, I just think we need to separate the intention from the outcome. I think most folks and all parties have good intentions, but that doesn't mean that the policy is going to be designed in a way that actually achieves the outcome. I just don't see that this policy is doing so.

Environment committee  I would just say that we have to remember that there are costs involved here. When we undertake policies with a good intention, there are collateral effects. That's the reason the government, with the carbon tax, for example, introduced the rebate. We don't believe the rebate always compensates people to the point that the government claims, but they recognize that there is a cost.

Environment committee  To be clear, we don't support this approach, but if you were going to do it, lower the ceiling. Right now it applies to vehicles that cost up to $55,000. I think lowering the ceiling would ensure that the money is more likely to go to people who could use the subsidy rather than to those who are just happy to get it.

Environment committee  We're not a group that's trying to get involved in every issue. That's the reason we focus on the taxpayer angle. I have no beef with electric vehicles, ZEVs. If they can make good products and people want to buy them, I've no objection to that. The reason for the critique of the specific policy was whether or not it is achieving the objective that the policy is set out to do.

Environment committee  Not to my knowledge, but the question is, when do we reach a critical mass? I think we know the answer to that. We're going to reach a critical mass of take-up when the price point drops to a significant point where they're competitive with other vehicles, and that's not going to be achieved by a $5,000 subsidy at a $55,000 price point.

Environment committee  Thank you for the question. I want to be clear: I don't doubt that there are some individuals who purchased the vehicle only because of the subsidy. It's important to measure what is the impact of that subsidy, and the question I'm asking is, how many more people are buying them as a result of the subsidy as compared with the people who would have purchased the vehicle anyway?

Environment committee  We take no position on that. We are not an environmental group. We are focusing on the subsidy, so if it's something that does not have an impact on the taxpayer, then we are completely ambivalent.

Environment committee  Yes, Madame. We're on the record as opposing the nationalization of Trans Mountain.

Environment committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon to all, and thank you very much to the committee for the invitation to appear today. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation, for those who are not familiar with us, is a national, non-profit, non-partisan group founded in 1990. We have approximately 235,000 supporters across the country.

Canadian Heritage committee  That's very interesting. From our standpoint, there's no additional cost to taxpayers there. That's simply redirecting money that would go from one place to another place. From a fiscal standpoint, that seems fine with us.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you.