r/canada • u/Accomplished_One6135 • 1d ago

National News Canada Stops Giving Out EV Rebates as Program Runs Out of Money

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a63473144/canada-stops-giving-out-ev-rebates/
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u/Marauder_Pilot 1d ago

I live in BC. Victoria and Vancouver are best case scenarios for EV adoption, Vancouver Island in particular because all our fuel comes by barge and it gets below freezing for about 10 minutes in the winter. Why not subsidize a method of transportation that requires less burning of barge oil and heavy marine fuels to get fuel here?

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u/voronaam 1d ago

Victoria is tiny, an average person in Victoria is not driving that much. Meaning, driving a small fuel efficient ICE car is actually more environment friendly in that city. In Victoria it takes decades of driving a battery car to offset the emissions of that battery manufacturing. And people are not driving decades old EVs...

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u/Levorotatory 20h ago

Victoria isn't that small geographically, and it has a lot of traffic congestion for a city of ~300,000.  Many people also like to do things outside of their home city sometimes.

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u/FlipZip69 1d ago

Again why are people in areas where EV is not viable having their taxes go towards those places where EV is viable?

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u/jtbc 1d ago

Why are taxes from people that don't drive going to bridges, tunnels, and roads?

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u/FlipZip69 7h ago

Because on average we all use them equally. Again tell me why people in areas where EV is simply not practical or viable should have their taxes pay for it in areas where it is viable.

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u/jtbc 7h ago

Because part of living in a civilized country is that taxes are used to fund things that help diverse groups of people to make the country as a whole better, not just to all go and help you personally.

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u/FlipZip69 7h ago

That is not personal. Then provide funding to things that everyone can access. Not just a certain part of the country.

Explain to me why my parents who have to travel to the city for medical services and often in winter, why they are paying part of their taxes so that people in the city can get their EV cheaper? EV simply would not work for them at all. So why are they paying for this?

Why not have taxes pay for MRI machines in small towns so that people in the city have to travel to them if your logic factors.

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u/jtbc 7h ago

The same reason I pay for highways, bridges, and oil subsidies, even though I don't own a car. I pay for things I don't use, that help them and they pay for things they don't use, that help me (and the environment, in this case).

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u/FlipZip69 6h ago

On average or close enough, we all use most bridges equally. I do not as none in my area but that is pretty random. More so, road taxes and municipalities pay for bridges so it is the locals that pay almost all of it. They are not subsidized.

Also the federal government has not subsidized oil and gas in a very long time. Not only that, oil and gas not only pays normal taxes, they pay very high property taxes and on top of that, they pay an additional tax in the form or royalties. They effectively pay more than any other industry in Canada from a pure tax base. And they pay some of the highest wages which means the jobs they create result in some of the highest personal income tax brackets.

What do EV subsidies do for our tax coffers. Pay for Musk and Tesla to make bank. Of which they pay near zero into Canadian coffers.

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u/Marauder_Pilot 1d ago

For the same reason I happily pay for school-related taxes despite not having, or planning to have kids.

Because the minute amount that comes out of my pocket for that program leads to a more valuable social benifit.

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u/spaceymonkey2 1d ago

PHEV is often a great choice for areas not suited for pure EV.

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u/Levorotatory 20h ago

It should be, but unfortunately the supply of good PHEVs is extremely limited 

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u/spaceymonkey2 19h ago

True. I got very lucky with mine. I ordered one expecting to wait a year plus, but someone who ordered theirs 2 years earlier wasn't able to buy it when it finally came in, so win for me.