Industry and Technology Committee on April 16th, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Welcome to the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology. We're continuing a conversation on electric vehicles.

For witnesses in the room, if you temporarily take off your earpiece and it's still plugged in, please make sure it's placed on the sticker in front of you. That protects the health and safety of our interpreters.

I can verify that all the testing related to those joining us virtually has been effectively completed.

We have three witnesses with us here today. From Electric Autonomy Canada, we have Ilana Weitzman, vice-president, strategic initiatives, clean transportation. She's joining us virtually. From the Global Intelligence Knowledge Network, we have Neil Bisson, director. Joining us from The Transition Accelerator is Moe Kabbara, chief executive officer.

Witnesses, you'll each have up to five minutes for introductory remarks, followed by rounds of questioning from members around the table.

Ms. Weitzman, I'm going to turn the floor over to you to start. You'll have up to five minutes.

[Ilana Weitzman, Vice-President, Strategic Initiatives, Clean Transportation, Electric Autonomy Canada]

Thank you, Chair and committee, for the great honour of participating today.

Electric Autonomy is an independent media company and the news source for EV information in Canada, with over 40,000 users each month. Just last week, we convened 2,000 business and government delegates from Canada, Europe and the U.S. at the EV & Charging Expo and kWh Summit conferences, Canada's biggest B2B EV event. The event hosts over 900 organizations, ranging from DHL and Purolator to Sobeys and Canadian Nuclear Laboratories.

I want to emphasize that we are not a trade association representing the interests of a specific group but an independent Canadian media business that helps companies and municipalities make confident decisions in adopting zero-emissions technologies.

Electric vehicles are an innovative, breakthrough, disruptive technology. Canada prides itself on being a global innovator and leader, but we are very behind the rest of the world. In Canada, we are at 11.2% in zero-emissions new car sales. That's according to StatCan's Q4 2025 numbers. This means that we're using old and inefficient technology that costs consumers and companies about 90% more in fuel and 50% more in maintenance.

This is not politics. This is about core affordability and productivity, which I know everyone in the room here today cares about for Canadians. The gas tax cut will save a typical driver $17 a month for five months. EVs save drivers $250 a month indefinitely.

Let's imagine a gig driver who drops their kids off at school and then uses their vehicle to deliver e-commerce packages or ride-hailing services. They're filling that tank every two or three days and probably burning $700 a month or more. That money could go to rent, groceries or child care. Car dealers still get to sell cars, but even better, the fuel is provided by local electricity workers and generators. What could be better for our economy and stability?

In our strategic work, we start from the ground up, talking to everyone from drivers to fleet operators to those who manage parking lots. At our event last week, I was talking to Element Fleet Management. They work with a corporate client that operates just nine electric company cars. They are dipping their toe into electrification. Last year, even before the geopolitics currently affecting gas prices, they saved $15,000 in fuel costs on just those nine electric company cars. Now think about a company that operates hundreds of vehicles and the efficiency gains.

I'm going to take this time to give you a quick list of what meaningfully benefits Canadian companies and consumers as we electrify.

First, the clean fuel regulations credits are an essential market-based tool. These compliance credits create a revenue stream that offsets the significant cost of charging stations for fleets, charging sites or even residential customers. In the last case, this means regular drivers like me not only can get a free charger, but can potentially get the electricity to fuel their cars completely free.

I know that the government is dropping fuel taxes, which is a cents-per-litre savings. How about making Canadians completely immune to current gas price spikes? I'd like to address this particularly to our Conservative representatives, who might not realize that these savings go right into the pockets of everyday Canadians.

Second, remember that while typical Canadians drive 45 kilometres a day, a delivery truck can easily travel 175 kilometres. If you're looking to see emissions reductions, that is where the money is and why our company focuses primarily on fleet electrification, not consumer vehicles.

This is what I would ask: Consider allowing clean technology investment tax credits to be used for on-road fleet charging. Currently, the credits can be used for off-road vehicles, such as electric mining equipment or golf carts. There's no reason that charging infrastructure for on-road fleets shouldn't qualify. We know that when fuel costs rise, goods and services become more expensive. Switching commercial vehicles to electricity, which is regulated, creates price stability.

Third—and here is a bit of an out-of-the-box idea—create special taxable benefit rates when company cars are electric. When my cousin in England receives a company car that is electric or participates in an employee lease program, he pays a much lower benefit in-kind rate than on a gas vehicle. In 2026, that is 4% instead of his marginal tax rate of, say, 45%.

Why should we allow affluent consumers to have this benefit? It's because the knock-on effect is that this creates a very robust used EV market. Company vehicles come off-lease after three or four years. This creates more affordable used EVs for everyone.

Last, please give people a plug at home if they live in a condo or rental apartment. The reality is that we are seeing more renters than homeowners and fewer folks who can afford single-family homes. This is the biggest nut to crack. ZEVIP is a highly capable vehicle for this. Support for condominiums and apartment buildings to be able to assess their energy needs and install charging infrastructure will give close to two million Canadian households the unbelievable convenience of fuelling their car the way they power up their phone.

Thank you, everyone.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you very much, Ms. Weitzman.

Mr. Kabbara, we'll go to you next. You have five minutes. The floor is yours.

[Moe Kabbara, Chief Executive Officer, The Transition Accelerator]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee, for inviting me to speak.

My name is Moe Kabbara, CEO of The Transition Accelerator. We're an independent, non-partisan organization that's focused on working with industry, government, indigenous communities and finance. Really, our focus is to make sure that Canada comes out more competitive and stronger as a function of the energy transition happening globally.

I'll start by talking a bit about EVs. To bring us back to 2017, I would say that when we look at what happened in the EV market, we hadn't really started this experiment until the Model 3 came out. Before that, we had EVs, but they were expensive. They were short-range. So we've really been running this experiment for only eight years.

What happened in those eight years? EV sales were one in 50, and last year they were one in four globally. They're expected to be one in two in four years. We can argue about whether that will happen. Maybe it will take four more years. Maybe it will be one in two in eight years instead of four, but the trend is clear. The trend, I would argue, is not really driven by emissions or climate anymore.

Let's look at Ethiopia. You're probably wondering why I'm mentioning Ethiopia. Well, it's one of the lowest-income countries in the world, but last year, six in 10 new vehicles sold there were EVs. What's the reason for that? They're saving $4 billion on foreign currency fuel costs. So when we see that, it's not just about the “tech bros” in San Francisco driving Teslas anymore. It's about a longer-term trend based on technology that is superior in cost and performance.

What does that mean for Canada? I'll talk about four things, and I'll try to be quick.

One area is charging infrastructure. I think for charging infrastructure, the role of federal dollars, the role of the federal government, is to make sure that we grease the wheel so we can get to a sustainable model with a market assessment or market demand for charging infrastructure based on a good business case. An investment tax credit is a much more effective way to deal with that instead of the programs.

We have to distinguish that there are two buckets for charging infrastructure. There are charging networks, which will make money because they're in high utilization areas, but there are areas where they'll never make money. It's kind of like the broadband stuff in rural areas. We just need them as a public good. This is where I think program support can focus.

Another area is GHG standards. We know about the electric vehicle availability standard. The new auto strategy signalled that we're going to have GHG standards to have the equivalency of 75% EV sales by 2035.

I would just advise the committee that the focus here shouldn't really be on environmental stringency or environmental compliance. These standards are useful for two things. They're useful for signalling demand with enough certainty for investors in charging and investors in grid upgrades. The balance here should be to try to get the standards calibrated so that we don't end up in the same situation we did with the EV availability standards, where they're not really viable or realistic, but they're not also so loose that they actually lose the investment anchor. That's the challenge there. I would advise the committee to consider that.

The third thing I want to talk about is that EVs are really an industrial policy play for Canada. When we look at our auto sector, we were making three million vehicles in 1999. Last year, we were making 1.3 million vehicles. That's a more than 50% drop in manufacturing those vehicles. There are lots of reasons for that. Mexico getting in on the game is one of them.

The disruption happening to the auto sector globally with EVs is an opportunity for us to potentially reverse this trend, because now what is part of the auto sector is not just the vehicle assembly; it is the battery cell manufacturing, the cathode manufacturing and the processing of lithium. This is an opportunity that would go beyond just southern Ontario. It would help expand the potential economic opportunity all across Canada.

A practical thing that I would advise the committee on is what's being considered in the remissions framework with the auto strategy. The idea is that we would allow automakers to generate credits that they could use to basically import vehicles tariff-free.

The auto strategy signalled that it's looking at basically allowing that system for companies that are making investments in Canada. I would advise that this definition of investment be more comprehensive and include not just vehicle assembly but also other parts of the supply chain, including battery assembly, battery processing and material processing.

The last point I'll make is on China. China exported a million vehicles in 2020. Last year, it exported seven million vehicles. Let's just let that sink in for a second. That's seven times more in five years. Whether China is going to enter the North American market is no longer a question. I think the question is, when and how, and how does Canada make sure that it's to its advantage?

The selective exposure that we've had with the recent negotiation and deal with the Chinese is a good model. We're not letting the floodgates open and allowing vehicles to come in and hurt our domestic market, but then the question is, what do we do moving forward?

I think joint ventures are something we need to consider. The security concerns—and we'll hear from Neil on this—are real. We can't really ignore the cybersecurity concerns, but there are ways to help mitigate them. If we start from the point that we're not going to be able to avoid this in the long term—maybe we can for five more years, but longer term, we're not going to be able to stop the Chinese from coming into the North American market—how do we do that?

I'll leave you with those four points. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you very much, Mr. Kabbara.

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

[Neil Bisson, Director, Global Intelligence Knowledge Network]

Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for the invitation to appear today.

My name is Neil Bisson. I'm a retired intelligence officer with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the director of the Global Intelligence Knowledge Network and the president of the Ottawa-Gatineau chapter of the Pillar Society, which is an organization comprising former Canadian intelligence professionals dedicated to supporting the Canadian intelligence community and advancing national security awareness in Canada.

I'm here today to provide a national security perspective on Canada's electric vehicle policies as they relate to Chinese EVs.

At the outset, I would like to be clear. This is not a discussion about electric vehicles themselves, nor is it about limiting competition or innovation. This is about understanding the national security implications of introducing Chinese EVs into Canada and into its critical infrastructure ecosystems, including communications, transportation and the electrical grid.

During my career as an intelligence officer, I assessed three major components of every source: motivation, suitability and access. Motivation reflects intent, suitability reflects capability and access determines whether the information is obtainable. As I continue through my opening statement, I will demonstrate how Chinese electric vehicles can be used by the People's Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party against Canadian national security interests.

CSIS and the CSE reporting consistently identifies the PRC as an enduring and sophisticated threat that conducts widespread cyber-espionage and influence operations against government, academia, private industry and civil society to advance its strategic, military and political goals. This reflects clear and sustained motivation by the PRC.

According to the CSE, the PRC operates one of the world's most extensive intelligence systems, using advanced cyber-capabilities to target government systems, critical infrastructure and research sectors. This includes compromising thousands of devices within Canada, targeting innovation for intellectual property theft, engaging in transnational repression and using disinformation and artificial intelligence to influence democratic processes.

The Government of Canada has already recognized the national security risks associated with PRC-linked technologies. Huawei and ZTE were banned from Canada's 5G networks after intelligence agencies warned that integration of them could provide potential backdoor access to sensitive government, commercial and personal data.

Canada has also acted against surveillance technology, ordering Hikvision to cease operations following concerns that its systems could enable covert surveillance, access video feeds and collect biometric data at scale.

In addition, PRC-linked digital platforms have been used to influence Canadian society, with officials identifying during a recent federal election a coordinated information campaign on WeChat that sought to shape narratives and influence voters through inauthentic amplification.

Taken together, these examples demonstrate the PRC's suitability for exploiting telecommunications infrastructure, surveillance technologies and digital platforms operating within Canada.

This brings us to access. China's 2017 National Intelligence Law requires companies to co-operate with state intelligence services, which means that access held by those companies can ultimately become access for the state.

Modern electric vehicles are highly connected, software-defined platforms that continuously collect and transmit large volumes of data, including geolocation, driver and passenger behaviour and communications, environmental mapping and external camera recordings. In effect, each Chinese-manufactured EV is an extraordinary source of valuable data—the potential eyes and ears of the PRC—and we are on the verge of importing and dispersing tens of thousands of them across Canada.

Chinese EVs will also be connected to the electrical grid through smart charging systems, home energy integration and emerging bidirectional technologies, becoming part of a broader, interconnected energy ecosystem. Any system that is connected to critical infrastructure and capable of external communication introduces potential avenues of exploitation, including data collection, system access and disruption.

The PRC has already targeted Canada's energy sector. In Quebec, a Hydro-Québec researcher was recently charged for allegedly sharing sensitive battery research information with PRC-linked entities.

Open-source reporting indicates that some Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers integrate technologies developed within the same state-directed ecosystem, including software platforms, advanced sensors and connected infrastructure.

The issue is not whether a single vehicle poses a threat, but whether Canada is prepared to introduce into its transportation networks tens of thousands of connected, Chinese-developed systems that are built and operated within an environment where the CCP has demonstrated both the motivation and capability to conduct espionage and foreign interference.

Providing this level of access, particularly as these systems integrate within broader networks, including our energy grid, introduces new and potentially long-term vulnerabilities. Once access is established, it becomes difficult to detect and even harder to reverse. The decisions made concerning the importation of Chinese EVs will determine whether Canada manages this risk or introduces significantly more of it.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bisson.

Okay, colleagues, we're going to enter our first round of questioning.

Mr. Guglielmin, the floor is yours for six minutes.

[Michael Guglielmin, Conservative, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses for their testimony today.

Mr. Bisson, you were an intelligence officer with CSIS. Is that correct?

[Neil Bisson]

Yes, that's correct.

[Michael Guglielmin, Conservative, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

How long did you serve in that capacity?

[Neil Bisson]

I was an intelligence officer from 2002 until 2020.

[Michael Guglielmin, Conservative, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

You are currently the director of the global intelligence network.

[Neil Bisson]

Yes. It's the Global Intelligence Knowledge Network.

[Michael Guglielmin, Conservative, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

In your professional opinion, would you agree with CSIS's public statements that China and the Communist Party in China represent one of our largest national security threats?

[Neil Bisson]

Yes, I agree with the information that's provided by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service in relation to the threat of China.

[Michael Guglielmin, Conservative, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

In your opinion, what is it specifically about the way the Chinese operate that makes them a national security threat?

[Neil Bisson]

It has to do with the sophistication of the operations they conduct. Most recently, it has to do with the fact that they are no longer concerned with whether or not they are called out on any of these issues. This was previously identified, in the most recent reporting, when it comes to the FBI identifying that they've been involved in activities for cyber-espionage.

[Michael Guglielmin, Conservative, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

You've also described Internet-connected vehicles as a portal into our infrastructure—both communications and energy—with the potential to facilitate cyber-attacks and shut down systems. While that risk could apply to connected vehicles more generally, would you say that risk is enhanced when we're talking about vehicles that are manufactured in China?

[Neil Bisson]

As I previously stated, I believe the motivation and suitability in relation to Chinese operations and in relation to intelligence collection, foreign activity and transnational repression demonstrate that, yes, that is the case.

[Michael Guglielmin, Conservative, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Given all that and given that, as we were talking about previously, CSIS has said that China poses an intelligence threat and is engaged in cyber-espionage, foreign interference and what CSIS calls pre-positioning in critical infrastructure to enable future disruption, would you say that the Canadian government is largely taking those warnings seriously given the way they're approaching an EV deal with China?

[Neil Bisson]

I believe the information being provided by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Canadian intelligence community demonstrates that the implementation of any Chinese-based technology comes with a certain amount of risk, and that risk needs to be assessed and dealt with.

[Michael Guglielmin, Conservative, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

I'll bring this together. When you combine these Internet-connected vehicles from a state-directed adversary—plugged directly into our electrical grid and operating across our roads and cities—with a government that, as you pointed out, has basically subordinated security to trade, do you think we're sleepwalking into a serious compounding vulnerability to our critical infrastructure, potentially?

[Neil Bisson]

I believe that at this point, we have seen the previous motivations and suitability of the intelligence organization of the Chinese government and what they're willing to do and are capable of doing. That in itself is a reason to take caution in relation to any implementation of technology here in Canada.

[Michael Guglielmin, Conservative, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Do you think we are ready to deal with some of these emerging security threats when you combine the way certain state actors, such as China, which we're talking about here, seem to progressively pursue threats to our national security? This could be enhanced with the introduction of new artificial intelligence technology. Do you think we're ready to handle these threats?

[Neil Bisson]

The Canadian government needs to continue to assess the potential downfall or potential risks continuing to come from not only China but also other states. As technology advances and the implementation of that technology into Canadian infrastructure continues, that concern will continue as well.