Carney pauses electric vehicle mandate, announces new 'buy Canadian' policy
TORONTO — Prime Minister Mark Carney announced wide-ranging new measures to support Canadian industries most heavily impacted by U.S. tariffs such as agriculture, steel, aluminium and autos as well as reviews of controversial Justin Trudeau-era climate policies on Friday.
Carney also announced on Friday that Canada’s zero-emission vehicle sales mandate that was set to come into effect in 2026 will be delayed for a year while the government reviews the policy.
The mandate, which would have required at least 20 per cent of new vehicles sales in 2026 to be zero-emission vehicles, has attracted concerns from auto-makers in recent months. By 2035, the mandate would have required 100 per cent of new vehicle sales to be zero-emission.
Carney said the government would launch an immediate 60-day review of the policy “to reduce costs.”
He also announced a new “buy Canadian” policy that would require the federal government to use Canadian suppliers and require local content when there are no domestic suppliers available. The approach would extend to Crown corporations and “provide a roadmap” for provinces and municipalities to follow suit.
“Now we need to use government procurement using Canadian taxpayer dollars to spur Canadian businesses for longer term prosperity to support Canadian industries,” Carney said.
Speaking at an airplane manufacturer in suburban Toronto, Carney announced dozens of measures and billions of dollars-worth of new funds that would compel the federal government to prioritize Canadian suppliers in procurement, create a new $370-million biofuel production incentive and a $5 billion “Strategic Response Fund” to help tariff-impacted companies retool and retrain employees.
“What’s going on is not a transition, it’s a rupture, and its effect will be profound. Workers displaced from their jobs, supply chains that have existed for decades disrupted,” Carney said.
Carney’s announcement comes amid a sluggish Canadian economy that shed 66,000 jobs in August. Friday morning, new data showed Canada’s unemployment rate hit a nine-year high at 7.1 per cent last month.
This makes decisive action crucial,” Carney said of the new bleak unemployment numbers.
Buried within the announcement is also a review of a series of controversial Justin Trudeau-era climate policies, including promising unspecified changes of the Clean Fuel Regulations. Mockingly branded the “carbon tax 2.0” by Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, the regulation aim to boost innovation and adoption of green technologies and expand the use of low carbon intensity fuels.
“The government intends to amend the Clean Fuel Regulations to strengthen the resiliency and spur the development of Canada’s low-carbon fuel sector. Only targeted amendments that advance this objective will be considered at this time,” reads a background document published by the federal government.
Thursday, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne’s office told National Post work is underway for an upcoming review on whether the tariffs Canada applied to China’s electric vehicles, steel and aluminum should remain at the current rates.
More to come.
National Post, with files from Stuart Thomson.
cnardi@postmedia.com
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