Canada

I actually don't hate this. In fact, I think it's probably a much better plan than what we had before.

So, first off, they're bringing back the EV rebates. That is fucking excellent news. Even better news is that they're announcing investments in more charging infrastructure across Canada. If you want to see Canadian cars go electric, that's what will get you there. Not some meaningless mandate saying that no one is allowed to buy gas cars, while refusing to actually make it possible for people to drive electric cars across one of the largest and most sparsely populated countries on Earth.

Those two items alone are big, BIG green transition wins. So before everyone starts in with the moaning about Carney supposedly backsliding again on green goals (and yes, to be clear, he has done some really big backsliding in that area; absolutely not letting his government off the hook here) let's actually look at the details and recognise what we're getting here.

As for the move away from the EV mandate to "fuel efficiency", we simply don't have enough details to form a complete opinion yet. But I do think, no matter what, it has to be recognized that a true 100% transition away from internal combustion was never, ever going to be possible in Canada. The idea that a country with our specific geography and demographic distribution was going to go 100% electric was a ridiculous pipe dream cooked up by idiot policy vendors who just wanted to pretend they were making meaningful steps towards green transition (while leaving the actual polluters entirely alone). What the fuck is a guy living up in Nunavut supposed to do with an electric vehicle? With an ICE you can throw some Jerry cans in the back to refuel on the long stretches between gas stations. With an EV you're going to, what, carry some solar panels for the four hours of partial sunlight you get in winter?

I think we need to recognize that the EV mandate was the kind of policy cooked up by politicians in Ottawa to appease voters living in Toronto, with not a single thought given to, for example, native communities living up north.

EV's are, by their nature, already far more practical than combustion vehicles for 90% of the population of Canada, as long as we can provide the infrastructure to make them practical. Which comes back to my point above about the promised investments in charging. That's the thing that will do more to get consumers transitioned over to EVs than anything else. For the commercial side of things, we know from the available research already that carbon pricing and similar pollution tax methods are by far one of the most effective ways of reducing carbon output, so in theory a fuel efficiency focused model should produce the results we want without needing to be as inflexible as a flat mandate. The industrial carbon price is already providing strong incentives for commercial shippers and other companies that rely on large scale transit to move towards electric options wherever feasible.

In short, there's absolutely no reason why this approach can't get us the outcome we're looking for in terms of a green transition, and it may well get that outcome in a way that better respects the needs of smaller communities (many of them indigenous) across the parts of Canada that cannot be easily served by EV charging infrastructure. The devil is always in the details, and we'll need to push for that "fuel efficiency" model to have real teeth, but overall there's no reason to start wailing and gnashing your teeth yet. There's a real opportunity for this to be a big win for our green goals.

NB: One thing that does need to be noted here is that we need to take care to learn from the mistakes of the US in this regard. Tying efficiency standards to square footage was a blindingly stupid move that lead directly to the massively oversized luxotrucks that now dominate our roads with their four foot high child-killing front-ends. Then again, we also have to recognise that at the end of the day whatever standards we set are always going to be overrun by whatever happens in California, and that's the sad reality we have to work with.