Environment Committee on Nov. 27th, 2025

President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association

Is that possible? I don't know. I'd have to ask that company.

Bloc

Patrick Bonin Bloc Repentigny, QC

You don’t know. You’re concerned about charging stations, and yet you don’t know. Okay

You told us about greenhouse gas emissions reductions and you say that the current legislation is working. However, we’ve seen that in the United States, Mr. Trump wants to abolish emissions standards for light vehicles.

In your opinion, should we follow Mr. Trump and do what he is doing or should we maintain the most ambitious standards for light vehicles?

President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association

No, I don't believe that we should follow what the U.S. is doing with respect to the EPA.

Canada, in the past, has historically aligned by default its emission standards to the United States because of the integrated nature of the industry. However, when the federal government introduced the EVAS, they removed what was called incorporation by reference, which was automatic alignment. They removed that, anticipating that there could be a situation where you have diverging regulatory requirements.

The government has done that. Canada has the ability to establish its own GHG targets, and we've been making the case that we should use that lever to achieve the environmental objectives of the government.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Angelo Iacono

Thank you, Mr. Kingston.

Mrs. Anstey, the floor is yours for five minutes.

Conservative

Carol Anstey Conservative Long Range Mountains, NL

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

There are a couple of reports that have been produced, Mr. Reuss and Mr. Bernard, and I'm wondering if you will be able to table them for the benefit of the committee. I've read through them and I think they would be beneficial.

Mr. Kingston, I want to start with you.

The Liberal government paused the 2026 EV mandate citing market challenges and industry pressures. What does that pause say about the overall feasibility of the government's approach, in your opinion?

President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association

November 27th, 2025 / 11:40 a.m.

I think the pause is a recognition that this regulation isn't working and the targets are unfeasible.

We were on track for 9.7% sales for this year and getting to that 2026 target would require a 200-plus per cent increase in sales. I think the government recognized that the regulation is not working.

Conservative

Carol Anstey Conservative Long Range Mountains, NL

We've often heard a reference to Norway when they're talking about adoption. I want to give you an opportunity to talk about why that's a little bit of an outlier.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association

It's a total outlier and I don't think it's a fair comparison.

The majority of the population in Norway lives in one urban area, in Oslo, so the driving distances are nowhere close to what you would see here in Canada.

We have 1.1 million kilometres of public two-lane road in this country. Twenty per cent of the population lives in rural communities and significant northern communities where driving distances are large and communities depend on diesel-powered electricity. The Norway comparison really doesn't pan out here at all.

On top of that, Norway has used significant revenues from its oil and gas industry to put in place subsidies at a scale that we would never do in Canada to incentivize the purchase of EVs, so I think the Norway example is not fair.

Conservative

Carol Anstey Conservative Long Range Mountains, NL

What's happening in other major auto-producing regions, like the U.K., Germany and other parts of the EU?

President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association

Virtually every jurisdiction that has put in place an EV mandate has had to back off it, recognizing it's not working. California adjusts their targets so often it's almost laughable now. It's well over 10 times where they've put in place targets; the targets are missed and then they adjust. The U.K. has backed off their target and Europe is now backing off some of their targets because they've realized that these policies don't work.

Conservative

Carol Anstey Conservative Long Range Mountains, NL

Thank you.

When I have brought up the lack of feasibility in rural and remote areas, I've often heard that there's misinformation and that we have to bust the myths. I want to give you an opportunity to expand on this. Is it that rural residents are misinformed, or is it that this disproportionately impacts them in a negative way?

President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association

It disproportionately impacts them in a negative way. That's what Environment Canada has said. The issue is this: When a consumer buys a vehicle, they buy it for all of the needs they will have. While it's true that, if you look at average driving distances of Canadians, maybe it is only 40 or 50 kilometres a day, but if, twice a year, they drive 1,200 kilometres, which is very normal for a lot of Canadian families, they're going to want a vehicle that can meet all of those needs. That's the challenge we have.

Early adopters have bought their EVs. You saw a lot of that in urban areas, particularly in more wealthy neighbourhoods, where people were buying an EV as a second or third vehicle. We have satisfied that part of that market. We're now moving into mass-market adoption—a household with two kids, an absolute maximum budget of $40,000 and they have family all over the province. Trying to convince that person to buy an EV with 450 kilometres of range is a very tough sell at this point.

We'll get there. The technology will get better, but it's a tough sell. If government mandates it, you're going to have push-back, which we do not want to have happen for this technology.

Conservative

Carol Anstey Conservative Long Range Mountains, NL

Thank you.

Also, to meet the 2030 target, EV sales would need to grow by 45% every year. Do you see any evidence that such a growth rate is achievable?

President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association

It's not possible. The only way it could be achieved would be with massive government purchase subsidies, but the cost would be quite significant to the fiscal.

Conservative

Carol Anstey Conservative Long Range Mountains, NL

An analysis published in the Canadian Journal of Economics suggested that EV mandates outpace cost parity and consumer demand, and that Canada could potentially face a collapse of its auto manufacturing sector—the loss of more than 100,000 jobs. How concerned should Canadians be about that risk?

President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association

They should be hugely concerned. This industry is critically important to the Canadian economy.

The only study that was done—and it was done in the Canadian Journal of Economics, which is a peer-reviewed analysis—showed that the EV mandate would “effectively destroy”—that's the terminology—the Canadian auto industry. At a time when we're under massive pressure from U.S. tariffs, this is the last thing the sector needs.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Angelo Iacono

Thank you.

Mr. Grant, the floor is yours for five minutes.

Liberal

Wade Grant Liberal Vancouver Quadra, BC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

It's good to see you again, Mr. Kingston. I'll start with you.

In your opening comments you talked about...you never supported the electric vehicle availability standard. Could you expand on how you would propose Canadian automakers compete in the evolving auto sector in this country?

President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association

First, I'd say that the federal government worked very closely with the sector to help the sector transition to electrification. We went through the biggest reinvestment in history in this industry—$46 billion in new investment between 2020 and now, including major investments into battery production, as well as critical minerals mining and converting facilities to electrification.

The challenge that we face is that EV demand did not keep up with the initial, very optimistic forecast that we all had around the pace of uptake. There has been a lot of success, but we have to adjust to the market, and the market is saying, right now, that Canadians don't want EVs at the rate that government has dictated.

Liberal

Wade Grant Liberal Vancouver Quadra, BC

Can you explain how we, as a government, can ensure a coordinated approach to EV adoption that would work across the auto sector?

President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association

First and foremost, I would love to see one regulation. I know we talk a lot, particularly in light of the economic challenges we're facing, about building a stronger Canada and getting rid of interprovincial trade barriers. It would be extremely helpful to the auto industry if automakers weren't having to comply with, right now, four regulations: a Quebec EV mandate, a B.C. EV mandate, a federal EV mandate and GHG emissions standards.

The best thing that could be done is if everyone were to agree on one single regulatory tool, ideally the technology-agnostic GHG regulations. That would strengthen the sector and help government meet its own environmental targets.

Liberal

Wade Grant Liberal Vancouver Quadra, BC

I'll go to you, Mr. Reuss, on the dealership side, and ask you the same question. How, as a government, can we ensure a coordinated approach to EV adoption in this country?

President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Automobile Dealers Association

Tim Reuss

It would definitely help to have a technology agnostic approach to things. Again, not every single case or every community will be able to operate with an electric vehicle. However, a plug-in hybrid solution, or other solutions that manufacturers haven't even thought of, such as hydrogen fuel cells, might all be part of the solution going forward. The EV mandate unfortunately mandates just one technology. If we had one ask, it would be to have it as technology agnostic as possible.

I'm going to use one example that you might be surprised about. A lot of times proponents of the mandate tell us that's what they had to do with seat belts in order to get seat belts. Well, you didn't mandate seat belts; you mandated that people need to be sustained or maintained in their positions in a vehicle, in case of an accident, to protect them. However, you didn't mandate that it had to be made of polymer with a certain latch, initially.

Then industry started innovating from that. You have pretensioners on seat belts and things of that nature. By the way, you didn't prescribe something that might shrink 40% if it's winter, and then if I ate too much, maybe the seat belt would no longer fit and I couldn't drive home after an extensive dinner. This is what we talk about. Technology agnostic would be probably the most important thing on this.