An EV charging sign in Squamish, B.C.JONATHAN HAYWARD/The Canadian Press
The British Columbia government is set to pass amendments this spring that will water down its electric vehicle sales mandate, after admitting that the province’s aggressive legislated targets were not realistic.
The zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) sales mandate will be 75 per cent, down from 100 per cent, for the year 2035 in B.C.
In Quebec, the target for 2035 is 90 per cent, but that province has introduced more flexibility than B.C. by offering partial credits for sales of the popular conventional hybrids that Canada produces in large numbers. B.C. continues to freeze out conventional hybrids, treating the Toyota RAV4 hybrid the same under its law as a Ford F-350, even though the tailpipe emissions are far lower for the Toyota.
The rest of the country will be guided by Ottawa’s decision in February to eliminate federal EV sales mandates in favour of policies that will encourage Canadians to adopt electric vehicles without saddling the auto retail industry with costly regulations, and without limiting consumer choice.
The Carney government has abandoned the inflexible regulatory approach of EV mandates, instead opting to toughen emission standards for new car models starting in 2027 alongside new EV incentives and investments in additional charging infrastructure. That approach allows for more consumer choice, and simply makes more sense: every new hybrid vehicle that replaces an aging internal-combustion clunker reduces greenhouse gas emissions, just not quite as much as a fully electric vehicle.
Editorial: The Liberals’ incomplete lane change on EVs
According to Prime Minister Mark Carney, these measures will get the country to the same place as B.C. – with a drop in tailpipe emissions by 2035 equivalent to a 75-per-cent uptake in EVs.
British Columbia, with the amendments introduced in late March, says its new policy aligns with Ottawa’s. Beyond the numerical overlap in goals, it is starkly different. B.C. is limiting consumers’ options on the car lot (and likely driving up prices for hybrids and internal combustion models), while contributing to a patchwork of confusing regulatory standards from a national standpoint.
Last November, B.C. Energy Minister Adrian Dix promised to reconsider his province’s EV mandate after Ottawa hit pause on the federal Electric Vehicle Availability Standard.
At the time, Mr. Dix said he would take guidance from Ottawa’s revised national standards, noting that a single, national framework makes sense, rather than having different rules in B.C., Quebec and the rest of Canada. He was right then.
To its credit, the B.C. government still sees the climate crisis as a genuine policy challenge of our time. But the federal government has forged a path that it says will achieve the same outcome, without the prescriptive solution.
B.C.’s law targets auto manufacturers, requiring that an ever-increasing share of the new vehicles they sell in the province must be electric or plug-in hybrids. Automakers that don’t meet those targets will either pay penalties or buy credits from companies that do. That credit-trading system benefits Tesla and other zero-emission vehicle manufacturers.
Editorial: The regulations for e-bikes lack balance
In other words, the B.C. policy benefits foreign automakers. Quebec’s amendments to its EV mandate allows Canadian automakers to benefit as well, allowing them more time to develop passenger vehicles with zero emissions.
Canada’s largest auto manufacturer, Toyota, built more than half a million vehicles in this country in 2025, mostly conventional hybrids shipped to the United States. And in January, the company’s Woodstock plant began all-hybrid production of the RAV4, after an investment of more than $1-billion to retool the facility.
B.C. still does not consider those conventional hybrids coming off the line in Woodstock to be a climate win, although they typically reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 25 per cent compared to an all-gasoline SUV. This space has been skeptical of using market-distorting regulations to support a mostly theoretical electric-vehicle industry.
But it’s a different matter for British Columbia to take steps that place existing Canadian manufacturers at a competitive disadvantage.
Ottawa has shown that there are other ways to achieve the same emission reduction goals without forcing choices on consumers with the blunt tool of sales mandates. B.C.’s legislators still have time to reconsider, and pick a different path that will reduce emissions and not undermine Canadian automakers at the same time.