Ottawa, ON – Canadians can’t afford to keep paying into Electric Vehicle (EV) subsidies for vehicles they can’t afford and that aren’t built here by our workers.
Today’s announcement by the Carney government wastes $97 million in taxpayers’ money on their environmental crusade. Of this spending, $84 million will go to EV charging stations across the country, with no connection between the amount of funding and the number of chargers delivered. For instance, in one case, $210,000 will buy 42 chargers in Mississauga, while $200,000 will only deliver 24 chargers in Vancouver.
Over $7 million from today’s announcement will be spent on “education and awareness projects”, to taxpayer-funded ideological lobbyists on behalf of the government.
This is more fuel on the fire of last week’s announcement that the Liberals will spend $2.3 billion to subsidize mostly foreign-made EVs. Conservatives crunched the numbers and found that in 2023, 99 per cent of EV rebates went to foreign-made cars.
Canada’s auto sector is hurting. Since 2016, vehicle production has been cut nearly in half, from 2.3 million cars per year to 1.2 million in 2025. Real GDP in auto manufacturing fell another 10 per cent in November alone, and 5,000 auto sector workers have been laid off in the last year.
While Donald Trump targets the Canadian auto industry for destruction, Canadians should not be forced to subsidize a single vehicle made in America, especially as manufacturers shift their production and Canadians’ jobs south of the border.
Canada builds just a single fully-electric EV that will qualify for the rebate – the Dodge Charger EV – at a sticker price of $54,790, while the average new EV retailed for nearly $70,000 in Q3 of 2025.
Liberals have rejected common-sense Conservative solutions that would boost Canada’s automobile manufacturing sector and protect workers. Conservatives proposed cutting the GST on made-in-Canada vehicles in the 2025 election. Just yesterday, the Finance Minister decried a simple request to use the Minister’s existing authority in the Income Tax Act to reduce the amount of withholding tax from the severance payments of 1,200 former GM CAMI employees in Ingersoll, ON, as “political malpractice.”
Under S.153 of the Income Tax Act, deductions or withholdings are determined “in accordance with the prescribed rules”, which are spelled out in regulations. The Minister could bring forward a narrow, time-limited regulatory change to reduce the mandatory withholding rate on lump-sum severance for CAMI workers while broader, permanent reforms are developed.
These workers cannot wait a year to get money back in their taxes, they need to pay for their groceries and mortgages now.
Canadians are still waiting for the Liberals to deliver the trade deal they promised by July 21st with the United States.
Conservatives will always stand in solidarity with the hard-working blue-collar families who have been targeted by these unjust and malicious American tariffs.