Why will Doug Ford give billions and billions of tax dollars — on top of the federal government doing the same — to make electric vehicles here at home, but not do even the basic — and I do mean basic — step of getting our infrastructure ready for the future as he is defining it?
Make this make sense. The government of Ontario has committed up to $9.3 billion for the first two electric vehicle battery plants announced in 2023 in Ontario — Volkswagen and Stellantis.
In April of this year, Honda announced plans to invest $15 billion in Ontario to create four new manufacturing facilities. The federal government ponied up $2.5 billion; Ontario anted up the same amount, with Premier Ford calling it “a game changer for the industry” and a “tremendous win for Ontario,” according to this CBC report. So another two and a half billion bucks on top of that original 9.3.
In October last year, both governments announced their participation in a “multi-billion-dollar plant they say will produce components for electric vehicle batteries and bring hundreds of jobs to the region” of Loyalist Township in Ontario. Fed’s contribution? $551.3 million. Ontario’s? $424.6 million. Ford says the world-class facility is “evidence of the province putting the auto sector back on the map…while creating jobs and ensuring “cars of the future’ will be made in Ontario.” [Note: On Friday, it was announced that work had stopped on this plant, the company citing weak EV sales.]
It just doesn’t seem like he cares much if they’re sold and driven in Ontario. When he entered office in 2018, he immediately cancelled existing provincial rebates for EVs, leaving the federal ones for the EV-curious. The decision tanked EV sales in Ontario at the time. Sales in provinces that offered these incentives spiked — Quebec, B.C — as could be expected. “Nowhere in North America is the EV adoption rate higher than in British Columbia. We’re No. 1 in new EV sales as a percentage of all vehicle sales. We hit about 18% of new car sales last year, and the final count in 2023 is expected to eclipse one in five new vehicles sold,” from a BC Hydro report. Imagine if even one in five of the vehicles you are constantly parked beside on a GTA highway were spewing nothing from its tailpipe.
The Premier said he wouldn’t subsidize millionaires. OK, but you could cap the rebates at a ‘normal car’ price point, as many programs do. But he also spent $231 million cancelling renewable energy projects, “[h]e also stopped building charging stations — the provincial transit agency even removed some — and dropped a requirement for new homes to include the wiring for potential EV chargers.”
The whole job of politicians — leaders — is to lead to the future. They are tasked with taking a long view, resisting knee-jerk responses that put out tiny fires while enormous ones are threatening. If Doug Ford wants to be a man of vision, a man who can commit billions to the “cars of the future,” why can’t he go one step further, and understand that Ontario consumers will be driving those cars of the future?
When it comes to developing and sustaining the EV food chain, it seems that Ontario, Canada’s automotive industry engine, is going all in. As the premier announced the recent Honda deal as the “largest deal in Canadian history”, he was quick to add, “[e]veryone’s going to benefit.”
This is a man who palpably wants electric cars to reign in his kingdom, right? Committing billions of tax dollars to chase the future, to secure the future for your constituents takes a shrewd set of steely nerves. It takes an ability to consider thousands of moving parts, forecast global policies that are always shifting and weigh all of that against predicting — and protecting — consumers. Ford had initially tossed in a billion — total — for the first two plants. With intense pressure from incentives being made to automakers in the U.S., things were moving fast.
“This is generational,” Ford said. “This is decades and decades down the road. What price do you put on that? There is no price you can put on that because we are investing into the people.” He said this to CBC regarding the Honda investment. He put a price on that.
No rough-ins for EVs in new builds
But which people does he mean? Because Ford has, again, shot down a requirement for new housing to be roughed in for electric vehicle charging stations. “On the last day before the summer break, Ontario legislators debated a motion brought forward by [Jennifer French, MPP for Oshawa and NDP official opposition critic for transportation and infrastructure] mirroring the private member’s Bill 199 EV Ready Homes which would include a provision for the mandatory installation of basic electrical equipment that would allow chargers to be added as part of the construction of all new homes, under the Building Code,” reported the Thunder Bay Newswatch.
“Noooo,” boomed the Conservatives. It will make housing more expensive! “According to the National Association of Home Builders, pre-wiring for a Level 2 charger costs between $500 and $1,500.” Doing it later can run $3,000 to $5,000. What happened to ‘generational’? What happened to ‘this is decades and decades down the road. What price do you put on that?’ I can put a price on it. About 750 bucks. Make new homebuilders rough in for EVs. BC Hydro (where they overwhelmingly do this in most jurisdictions) shows how clear it is here.
Here’s the thing for the naysayers when it comes to electric vehicles: I’m not saying anyone is going to take your ICE from your cold dead hands. New car dealers in North America are screeching hard against a 2035 mandate that may or may not be met. But there is math behind the adoption of new tech, and “the trajectory laid out by these early adopters shows how EVs can surge from five per cent to 25 per cent of new cars in just four years.” Remember the microwave? That took 20 years to gain the trust of popcorn makers everywhere.
“Most successful new technologies — televisions, mobile phones, LED lightbulbs — follow an S-shaped adoption curve. Sales move at a crawl in the early-adopter phase, then quickly once things go mainstream. In the case of fully electric vehicles, five per cent seems to be the inflection point. The time it takes to get to that level varies widely by country, but once the universal challenges of car costs, charger availability and driver skepticism are solved for the few, the masses soon follow,” says this Financial Post article. The rate of rapid uptake can be tracked here.
Electric Autonomy is an independent media and events company reporting on the EV transition. Founder Nino Di Cara believes Canada can, and should be, a global leader in this industry. “We are a wealthy country, we spend a lot every year on our cars, nationally we have a mostly clean energy grid that is 80 per cent non-carbon emitting, and we have a great automotive manufacturing tradition and technology economy.”
He sighed when I asked about the recent punt by the province on EV rough-ins on new builds. “At build is the absolute cheapest way. It’s also a critical thing, and the slight cost will significantly increase the value of the home. MLS listings are already noting EV chargers; buyers are seeking them. Progressive builders will be looking to future-proof their buildings — and that includes making them EV-ready,” he says.
So builders who are looking at things like ‘generational’ and ‘decades and decades down the road” should be — and will be — doing this anyway. Competent government directives would mean all of us should have access to this, if we’re to buy the vehicles our tax dollars will be funding for years to come.
Why is Ford so against it? Because it was Kathleen Wynne’s idea way back in 2017, when people were trying to say this was all for one manufacturer — Tesla. Long game, Premier Ford. Try it. Other people have good ideas; you can even put up a sign and claim them as yours.
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