Premier Doug Ford pitching Ontario as electric vehicle leader, but not reintroducing rebates

Doug Ford is pitching Ontario as the next electric vehicle manufacturing powerhouse, seemingly a far cry from the premier who three years ago cancelled incentives.

TORONTO — Doug Ford is pitching Ontario as the next electric vehicle manufacturing powerhouse, seemingly a far cry from the premier who three years ago cancelled incentives for people to buy them.

Where some see contradiction, others see calculated election strategy.

Shortly after coming to power in 2018, Ford’s government scrapped Ontario’s cap-and-trade system, and with it the electric vehicle rebates funded by that program.

He 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.

Ford at the time decried the rebates of up to $14,000 as subsidizing purchases for wealthy buyers — and he still does, mostly.

“Before the election I didn’t believe in giving millionaires rebates on over $100,000 Tesla cars,” he said last month. “I just didn’t believe in it. Let’s see how the market dictates.”

In the year after the rebate cancellations, the market for electric vehicles tanked in Ontario. At its highest point, electric-vehicles made up around three per cent of the province’s total passenger vehicle sales. That dropped to below one per cent after the rebate was scrapped.

The introduction of a federal rebate saw Ontario’s electric-vehicle sales begin to climb again. The most recent data from Statistics Canada puts the numbers back to nearly where they were before the provincial cancellation.