A Conservative MP’s call for a Parliamentary committee to study the nearly $50 billion in taxpayer money that has gone into the electric vehicle industry in the form of government subsidies was voted down on Thursday,
Conservative MP Rick Perkins, who represents South Shore—St. Margarets, NS, requested that the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology study the billions given to automakers in the EV industry as it continues to move away from EV manufacturing, instead returning to fossil-fuel powered vehicles.
The three key reasons Perkins addressed in his call for the study were firstly that the Northvolt $7 billion dollar EV battery power plant in Montreal, Que. delayed construction of its plant for upwards of a year while it undergoes a strategic review of its future operations, despite receiving $7.2 billion dollars worth of taxpayer money.
Secondly, Umicor’s $2.7 billion dollar EV factory component plant in Kingston, Ont. has also halted construction, despite receiving taxpayer subsidies.
Thirdly, Ford’s $1.8 billion EV expansion in Oakville, Ont. being scrapped and retooled to make gasolene pickups, despite receiving $590 million dollars worth of taxpayer subsidies.
“Given that the government of Canada has invested upwards of $50 billion dollars towards the creation of an EV battery ecosystem in Canada and has mandated that all automobile sales in Canada be zero emitting by 2035,” said Perkins, before asking that the committee “agree to conduct a four meeting study beginning in the first week of November to review the feasibility of the government’s EV strategy.”
He said that given the “significant amount of taxpayer support amid a global slowdown of EV sales and that the committee agree to hear from witnesses submitted by members of the committee proportional to their representation in the House and report its findings to the House and request that the government table a comprehensive response to the report.”
Perkins addressed the major scaling back of EV manufacturing that these automakers are doing elsewhere around the world, like Sweden, Germany and Norway.
“The only place where we seem to be continuing with this thing that consumers and the market aren’t buying, is the place where we have a massive government subsidy,” said Perkins. “In this case, when it comes to Stellantis and Volkswagen EV plants, what we have is a 100% assembly subsidy from the taxpayers of Canada through 2029. Then it’s 75% the year after and then 50% the year after that, 25% the year after that.”
According to Perkins, the result of this agreement is unsurprising given that global companies will only invest in EV production in countries where they’re getting 100% subsidies and where that isn’t the deal, they’re scaling back.
Several Liberal MPs repeatedly accused the Conservatives of denying climate change as their grounds for calling the study, despite Conservative members of the committee stating that was not their stance on the issue.
Conservative MP Michelle Rempel-Garner pointed out that there was no motive assigned when calling for the study.
Liberal MP Chandra Arya argued that the EV subsidies were necessary to attract businesses to Canada and to keep the country a player in the global supply chain.
“It’s time for us to encourage as many global players as possible to come to Canada and set up their plants,” said Arya. “We should not interfere in their day-to-day operations and their short-term strategies or tactics that they use.”
Arya went on to say that the government should not be getting involved in corporate decision-making, which Rempel-Garner took issue with this sentiment, saying that she often hears the Liberal and NDP members bemoaning “rich, corporate, executives.”
The Bloc and NDP also opposed the bill, claiming the motion was unfair to the auto industry and also poorly timed.
“Everybody in the Bloc knows I have patience, but I’ve run out of patience,” said Bloc Quebecois MP Jean-Denis Garon. “This motion seeks to try an entire industry, it could have been written to be productive but it’s written to be complacent.”
NDP Premier Brian Masse called the timing of the motion “difficult to deal with” and that he “can’t support this motion at this time.”
The motion was ultimately defeated.