Tag: technology

Elec­tric car trans­ition run­ning low on power

Com­pan­ies pulling back tar­gets amid slow­ing sales

Chinese automaker BYD is poised to become the top purveyor of batteryelectric cars, though it's having growing pains, with total sales falling in each of the past three months.

This article was written by Craig Trudell and was published in the Toronto Star on December 17, 2025.

Ford Motor Co. has announced $19.5 bil­lion (U.S.) in charges tied to the retreat from an elec­tric strategy it vowed to go all in on eight years ago

The global trans­ition to elec­tric vehicles is begin­ning to unravel the way major changeovers often do: slowly at first, then all at once.

This week brought a cas­cade of sig­nals that the EV era is enter­ing a more uncer­tain, more con­tested phase. The European Com­mis­sion backed away from what had been the world’s most aggress­ive timeline for phas­ing out internal­com­bus­tion engines, grant­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers and con­sumers more time to move off gas­ol­ine. A day earlier, Ford Motor Co. announced $19.5 bil­lion (all fig­ures U.S.) in charges tied to the retreat from an elec­tric strategy it vowed to go all in on eight years ago.

The pull­back is no longer con­fined to a few lag­gards or skep­tics. From rel­at­ive new­comers to leg­acy giants, the signs of reck­on­ing have been mount­ing for months.

Take Tesla Inc., the U.S. com­pany that did more than any other in the world to kick­start the EV upris­ing. The Elon Musk­led man­u­fac­turer was never going to keep up the met­eoric rise pulled off at the begin­ning of the dec­ade, but it’s no longer just slow­ing down — world­wide vehicle deliv­er­ies are poised to drop for the second year in a row. Musk’s interests have wandered from pur­su­ing a $25,000 elec­tric car to devel­op­ing humanoid robots and driver­less taxis.

China’s BYD Co. will become the new No. 1 pur­veyor of bat­tery­elec­tric cars in 2025, though it too is now hav­ing grow­ing pains, with total sales fall­ing each of the last three months. The com­pany is still pro­du­cing one plug­in hybrid with a gas engine under the hood for every bat­tery­only EV, and its momentum is stalling in part because author­it­ies in Beijing are increas­ingly scru­tin­iz­ing pri­cing prac­tices.

Ford has had plenty of com­pany in strug­gling to catch up with the elec­tric lead­ers.

Its rival Gen­eral Motors Co. recently incurred $1.6 bil­lion in charges tied to par­ing EV pro­duc­tion capa­city, and flagged more such moves may be in the off­ing. Stel­lantis NV has scrapped plans for a fully elec­tric Ram pickup and revived gas­guzz­ling V­8 engines it will have no trouble selling in a U.S. mar­ket that has hol­lowed out fuel eco­nomy and emis­sions stand­ards.

When Volk­swa­gen AG — Europe’s car­maker that was once most motiv­ated to chase Tesla — ends out­put of elec­tric ID.3 hatch­backs this month in Dresden, it will be the first time in 88 years the car­maker will have ceased pro­duc­tion at a Ger­man assembly plant. VW, too, has taken sub­stan­tial fin­an­cial blows, book­ing 4.7 bil­lion euros ($5.5 bil­lion) in charges tied to its sub­si­di­ary Porsche AG revers­ing from EVs.

For all the chal­lenges the industry is hav­ing, the trans­ition isn’t being aban­doned.

“EVs remain our North Star,” GM CEO Mary Barra told investors recently, and she’s repeatedly stated bat­ter­ies are fun­da­ment­ally bet­ter than internal com­bus­tion engines.

Volvo Car AB, which had lob­bied for the EU to keep in place its effect­ive phase­out of ICE­powered cars by 2035, noted EVs are a seg­ment of the car industry that is grow­ing.

But the real­ity that poli­cy­makers in Brus­sels are bow­ing to this week is that EV sales aren’t grow­ing at nearly the pace required to reach tar­gets set for a dec­ade from now.

The degree of relief the European Com­mis­sion is grant­ing is some­what incre­mental, with tailpipe emis­sions still need­ing to drop 90 per cent by 2035, instead of the pre­vi­ous object­ive for a 100 per cent reduc­tion. The com­mis­sion also is con­di­tion­ing its relief on car­makers com­pens­at­ing for addi­tional pol­lu­tion by using low­car­bon or renew­able fuels, or loc­ally pro­duced green steel.

“It’s prob­ably a win for the con­sumer more than a win for the industry,” said Phil­ippe Houchois, an auto­mot­ive equit­ies ana­lyst at Jef­fer­ies.

“For car­makers, if you have mul­tiple power­trains, you have more time to make the invest­ments, but you have to spread your invest­ment over mul­tiple tech­no­lo­gies.”

For Ford, the eye­pop­ping charges the car­maker expects to record are linked to moves includ­ing the can­cel­la­tion of a planned elec­tric FSer­ies truck line, shift­ing pro­duc­tion toward gas and hybrid vehicles and repur­pos­ing bat­tery plants to pro­duce energy stor­age sys­tems instead of EVs.

“We’re see­ing the same thing around the world,” Ford CEO Jim Far­ley told Bloomberg Tele­vi­sion. “We need to give cus­tom­ers choice, and then use our man­u­fac­tur­ing flex­ib­il­ity to go where the cus­tom­ers are.”

Canada broke its elec­tric vehicle mar­ket

The federal government made several decisions that have collectively broken Canada's EV market over this past year, and while that likely wasn't the intention, it has certainly been the end result, Rachel Doran and Joanna Kyriazis write.

This article was written by Rachel Doran and Joanna Kyriazis, and was published in the Toronto Star on December 8, 2025.

RACHEL DORAN IS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND JOANNA KYRIAZIS IS DIRECTOR OF POLICY AND STRATEGY AT CLEAN ENERGY CANADA, A THINK TANK AT SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY.

Des­pite what you may have heard, the elec­tric vehicle has not fallen out of favour.

On the con­trary, global EV sales are up 23 per cent year to date so far in 2025, and it’s not just China, where sales are up 22 per cent, or Europe, up 32 per cent — it’s also the less­talked­about rest of the world, which has col­lect­ively seen a 48 per cent increase in EV sales.

Indeed, it is North Amer­ica that is the EV out­lier with its paltry four per cent sales increase in 2025. And believe it or not, des­pite everything U.S. Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump has done to stack the deck against EVs down south — includ­ing weak­en­ing tailpipe emis­sion stand­ards, worsen­ing fuel eco­nomy for gas cars, too — the fig­ure has been even worse here in Canada, where sales have declined to approx­im­ately 2022 levels.

Case in point: one can hardly ima­gine read­ing “Canada” in this recent Bloomberg head­line: “Europe Car Sales Keep Climb­ing as Auto­makers Tout Budget EVs.” If that sounds like another real­ity than the one you’ve been exper­i­en­cing, it’s because fall­ing EV sales is an almost uniquely Cana­dian prob­lem, and it’s also a 2025 prob­lem.

After warm­ing to the myriad bene­fits of EVs over the past dec­ade, it isn’t the case that Cana­dians have sud­denly decided they’re no longer styl­ish in 2025. Rather, this has been a recent policy choice. Which is to say the fed­eral gov­ern­ment made a num­ber of decisions that have col­lect­ively broken Canada’s EV mar­ket over this past year, and while that likely wasn’t the inten­tion, it has cer­tainly been the end res­ult.

The first piece fell last fall, when Canada erec­ted a 100 per cent tar­iff on Chinese EVs to appease the U.S. While Europe, Mex­ico and Brazil all have sim­ilar tar­iffs, they are sig­ni­fic­antly lower (the U.K. and Aus­tralia have no spe­cial tar­iffs on Chinese EVs). Canada and Amer­ica opted to wall their com­pet­i­tion out entirely.

Then, a few months later, the fed­eral EV rebate ran out of money. But it wasn’t just the fact that there was no longer a $5,000 incent­ive that left would­be buy­ers on the side­lines — it was also a lack of clar­ity. The fed­eral gov­ern­ment for months said it would bring back a rebate, then did not do so in the recent budget.

Even still, it’s not entirely clear if some new incent­ive pro­gram may yet return. The vast major­ity of inter­ested EV buy­ers under­stand­ably said in a Septem­ber poll that they would rather wait to make a pur­chase than poten­tially lose out on a rebate.

For almost the entirety of 2025, the next wave of Cana­dian EV buy­ers has been left wait­ing in incent­ive pur­gat­ory.

And still, yet another blow for EV con­sumers came about this Septem­ber, when the fed­eral gov­ern­ment paused its Elec­tric Vehicle Avail­ab­il­ity Stand­ard (or EV man­date). The mar­ket sig­nal for auto­makers and con­sumers alike has been a resound­ing ques­tion mark ever since.

The EV Avail­ab­il­ity Stand­ard requires auto­makers to make more EVs avail­able to con­sumers, mean­ing they must offer afford­able mod­els to grow their mar­ket share.

But rather than build­ing those eco­nomy EVs, U.S. auto­makers have lob­bied to both kill Canada’s man­date and to keep out any Chinese or even European com­pet­i­tion that might bring in the lower­priced mod­els they’ve largely ignored.

A Septem­ber Clean Energy Canada study found that Europe has 21 EV mod­els selling for less than the equi­val­ent of $40,000 (only seven of which are Chinese, by the way), while Canada has only a single EV in that price range.

Yes, Tesla boy­cotts didn’t help, but if this was just a Tesla pop­ular­ity prob­lem, year­on­year EV sales wouldn’t be up dra­mat­ic­ally in Ger­many (53 per cent), France (40 per cent), and the U.K. (24 per cent).

The dif­fer­ence is those mar­kets have everything Canada does not: lower tar­iffs on Chinese EVs, act­ive reg­u­la­tions to make cars cleaner, exist­ing or soon­to­be renewed con­sumer incent­ives and access to more European mod­els cur­rently unavail­able to Cana­dians (this, too, Canada could and should change).

The fed­eral gov­ern­ment is presently weigh­ing a num­ber of key EV decisions — from reg­u­la­tions, to tar­iffs, to incent­ives — the com­bined out­come of which could be announced in the weeks to come. For now, we can only hope Industry Min­is­ter Mélanie Joly meant it when she said her “gov­ern­ment will be hawk­ish on com­pet­i­tion” to restore afford­ab­il­ity for Cana­dians.

That starts by acknow­ledging that Canada broke its EV mar­ket and it did so alone.

Fix­ing it requires an end to the radio silence and a pack­age of policies to improve access to more afford­able EVs, aligned with Canada’s long­term eco­nomic aspir­a­tions in crit­ical min­er­als, innov­a­tion and a more diver­si­fied auto sec­tor.

The EV industry needs to prove it can survive without subsidies and incentives

This opinion was written by Gus Carlson and was published in the Globe & Mail on December 8, 2025.

A visitor looks at a Ford electric pickup truck at the Essen Motor Show in Germany on Thursday. Ford reported that sales of its EVs fell more than 60 per cent in November.

The nosedive in U.S. sales of electric vehicles since the elimination of the federal EV tax credit at the end of September is the latest moment of truth for the sector.

And that truth, when free market forces determine the true value of a product stripped of artificial sweeteners and incentives for buyers, is harsh.

Ford’s report last week was a grim reminder of how precarious the way forward for EVs has become. Sales of its EVs fell more than 60 per cent last month, continuing a downward trend from October. Ford said that due to weak demand, it had paused production of its F-150 Lightning EV pickups to focus on gas-powered trucks.

Despite strong EV sales in the third quarter – when buyers raced to make purchases before the tax credits expired – Ford said its EV business lost US$1.4-billion in the period.

But Ford was not alone. Sales of Hyundai’s Ioniq EV models dropped 50 per cent in November, as did sister company Kia’s EV sales. Honda EV sales dropped 80 per cent.

The post-tax-credit tumble exposes the wide valley of death between the ideological aspirations of early EV adopters and the economic reality holding back the next wave of buyers.

Prices of EVs are still too high. Charging infrastructure is still inadequate to ease range anxiety. The quality of the products made by legacy automakers continues to lag that of pure-play manufacturers such as Tesla. And the development of new models has been slow and inconsistent.

Even Tesla’s not looking at a particularly bright future. As was the case with Ford, its U.S. sales were juiced in the third quarter by buyers trying to beat the expiry of the rebate, but its international numbers were down sharply.

Many blame U.S. President Donald Trump for hobbling the sector by eliminating the tax credits as part of his crusade to dismantle the green agenda of his predecessor, Joe Biden, which included incentives of US$7,500 for new EVs and US$4,500 for used vehicles.

But Mr. Biden had a golden opportunity to advance the EV ball and fumbled. Early in his term he earmarked nearly US$8-billion to build a nationwide network of EV changing stations. By the time he left office, the program had created only a handful.

The EV faithful also complain that legacy automakers are partly to blame because gas and hybrid models are more profitable and there is no incentive for manufacturers to fast-track EV design and production – and no penalty for not doing so.

But automakers are not charities, and altruism is not a winning corporate strategy in a competitive global marketplace, especially with high-quality, competitively priced Chinese models gaining share.

Like any business, automakers prosper, grow and create jobs based on their ability to meet customer demand. And the economic reality is that there is a huge universe of car buyers out there who remain unconvinced that EVs are right for them.

Two recent moves by big legacy automakers in Canada underline the point.

Ford’s decision to shelve plans to convert its Oakville, Ont., assembly plant to EVs was made well before Mr. Trump imposed tariffs on Canadian-made vehicles. The rationale for the move was market-driven – weak demand for its EVs – and the company made the call to convert the plant to build strong-selling heavy-duty trucks instead.

Stellantis blamed tariffs in part for its recent decision to halt the conversion of its Brampton, Ont., plant to EV production, but it is worth noting that the company’s redeployment of resources and people from Canada to several U.S. plants is not focused on EVs.

The hard truth is this: The EV sector needs to start standing on its own. For it to grow and avoid becoming a footnote, legacy automakers in particular must step up and address the deficiencies themselves.

Recent history has shown that it is hard enough to push forward with an administration such as Mr. Trump’s that doesn’t favour EVs. But having an ineffectual champion such as Mr. Biden has been no help, either.

Prices need to come down, charging station deployment needs to become a priority, model refreshment must keep customer engagement high, and quality must at least match that of Chinese rivals.

For too long, the EV sector has been living the charmed life of an adolescent whose mom and dad (in this case, taxpayers) have paid the freight. When the tax incentives expired, it was akin to the teenager being kicked out of the house and forced to make it on his own. He stumbled, and even recent rebates from automakers did not soften the fall.

The EV sector is out of the nest now, at least in North America. It needs to prove it is a viable, sustainable business that can survive and thrive without being propped up in an artificial environment of subsidies and incentives. Simply put, it needs to grow up – and quickly.

Rollback of Europe’s green agenda is boost for China’s electric vehicle industry

This opinion was written by Eric Reguly and was published in the Globe & Mail on December 6, 2025.

Workers assemble Zeekr 001 EV models at the Chinese automaker’s Ningbo plant in April. China’s battery and hybrid cars are racing ahead pretty much everywhere except Canada and the U.S.

German carmakers have always used a peculiar mix of solid, retro engineering and dazzling technology to create machines that were built like safes but loaded with features that, if not invented by the Germans, were refined by them – anti-lock braking, all-wheel drive, stability control, adaptive suspension and other gadgets. The combo turned Germany in the postwar decades into an automotive superpower.

The German automotive minds were less adept at leadingedge drivetrain technology. They were slow to mass produce pure electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrids, handing that market to Tesla in the United States and, lately, to the Chinese auto giants, among them BYD, Geely and SAIC Motor. Of course, the German automakers’ showrooms are full of EVs, but they are neither mass produced nor bargains for average families.

The most “affordable” Volkswagen EV, for instance, is the compact, and not especially luxurious, ID.3, which starts at about €30,000 ($48,000) and can top out at a hefty €48,000 ($77,000). No wonder VW is in trouble and, for the first time in 88 years, closing domestic factories.

The sales and profits crisis in the German car industry has sent the technocrats and politicians in Berlin and Brussels into a lowgrade panic as auto jobs disappear, not just in Germany, but also in France and Italy. Their response is to dilute the European Union’s green agenda.

The upshot is that old-tech cars – those powered by gasoline and diesel engines – may live on for another decade or two, or three. Aside from the obvious outcome that Europe’s air will be less clean as the death sentence for internalcombustion-engine cars is lifted, the less obvious outcome is that it will take some of the pressure off Europe’s car companies to develop advanced technologies (which may or may not use batteries) simply because they can keep relying on the old ones.

Talk about a gift to China, whose battery and hybrid cars are racing ahead pretty much everywhere except Canada and the U.S., where 100-per-cent tariffs on Chinese EVs shut them out of the market.

The green rollback is picking up momentum in many big markets. In the U.S., President Donald Trump, no fan of EVs in spite of his bromance with Telsa boss Elon Musk, this month gutted the tight new fuel efficiency and tailpipe emission rules for cars and trucks. The U.S. automakers cheered the move, with Ford chief executive officer Jim Farley calling it a “victory for common sense and affordability.”

In the European Union, rightwing party gains in recent elections have amplified the shouts to “stop the Green New Deal.” At the moment, the EU’s environmental agenda calls for the phase-out by 2035 of new cars powered by internal-combustion engines. That deadline is expected to be delayed if those engines are powered by low-emission fuels, such as biofuels, or highly efficient combustion technology. Details should be known on Dec. 10, when the EU is to unveil a new package of automotive policies.

At the same time, holes are also being poked through the EU’s painfully named Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D), which was adopted in 2024. Its dizzying web of regulations requires large companies to shift their global supply chains to low-carbon operations. In a comment piece in the Financial Times this week, Andrew Puzder, the U.S. ambassador to the EU, called CS3D “economic suicide” for the EU.

The EU won’t fully comply, but lobbying efforts from French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and the bosses of several bigname industrial and energy companies are removing CS3D’s fangs. The directive’s net-zero goals are being eliminated, for instance – another victory for the Chinese auto industry, which would face lower compliance barriers to sell its EVs in Europe.

While the EU green-dilution campaign might save a few car factories from closing over the next few years, it may not do the automakers any favours over the medium to long term. Removing some of the pressure on them to find alternatives to gas and diesel engines only provides a market opening for the Chinese automakers, who have turned into the world’s leading makers of EVs. Their autos are generally much cheaper than those of European rivals, and the quality has improved fast, to the point where they are rated on par with Teslas, or close to them.

The automakers’ soaring market shares outside China say as much. Germany’s Schmidt Automotive Research said Chinese EVs will capture 11 per cent of the Western European EV market this year, up from 9.6 per cent last year and a mere 3.8 per cent in 2021. The gains will continue now that Hungary is about to build Chinese EVs and car batteries in huge volumes. Because Hungary is a member of the EU, those products can escape the bloc’s hefty import tariffs on EVs.

Sometimes industries and businesses need a swift kick to get them moving. Allowing the European automakers to keep their old technologies alive for another generation will do them no favours. It will just ensure they lose more ground to the fast-moving Chinese companies in the EV war.

B.C. Premier says he could back new pipeline if tanker ban remains in place

This article was written by Marie Woolf and was published in the Globe & Mail on December 1, 2025.

Crude oil tankers docked at the Westridge Marine Terminal in Burnaby, B.C., on Nov. 19.Jimmy Jeong/The Globe and Mail

B.C. Premier David Eby says he would be prepared to talk with Alberta and Ottawa about the prospect of a new oil pipeline, but only if the existing ban on tanker traffic off his province’s northern coast remains in place.

Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith signed a memorandum of understanding last week that, among other things, includes a potential exemption to the north coast tanker ban if a bitumen pipeline is eventually approved.

Mr. Eby has opposed lifting the tanker ban and also complained that he had been cut out of talks about the agreement. The Coastal First Nations, an alliance of nations on British Columbia’s north coast, have condemned the agreement and said they intend to fight it.

“If we can agree that the oil tanker ban is going to stay in place, then let’s have those conversations,” Mr. Eby said in an interview withCTV broadcast on Sunday.

“I think that would make life a lot better and easier in British Columbia in terms of our relationship with Coastal First Nations. [It] would definitely take down the temperature and maybe enable some creative solutions.”

Opinion: Ottawa risks billions in investments for a pipeline to nowhere

Mr. Eby said scrapping the ban would be a “grave mistake,” adding, “I think that the risk of an oil spill is really significant in terms of the economic harm.”

Alberta has long advocated for an oil pipeline to the north coast, an idea that was rejected by the government of former prime minister Justin Trudeau when it blocked the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline nearly a decade ago.

Ms. Smith has repeatedly called on Ottawa to repeal the tanker ban, and her province is now working with several companies on a potential proposal. The Alberta Premier has made it clear that her preferred route for a new pipeline would end on the north coast.

Carolyn Svonkin, a spokesperson for federal Energy Minister Tim Hodgson, said in an interview Sunday that it’s “not impossible” to approve a pipeline while still maintaining the tanker ban – if the proposed route ends somewhere not covered by the ban, such as in the Vancouver region.

She said the federal government plans to have talks with Alberta and B.C. on a path forward.

Opinion: A pipeline is just the beginning: More threats coming for Indigenous rights

Ms. Svonkin said that aroute has yet to be decided for a potential pipeline. She added that “formal and robust consultation” with First Nations in northern B.C. would also take place.

She said maintaining a tanker ban was potentially feasible if the pipeline’s terminal is at a port where tankers are currently allowed, such as Trans Mountain Pipeline’s Westbridge marine terminal in Burnaby, near Vancouver, which already handles crude oil exports.

“Alberta has been clear that they would like it to go from B.C.’s north coast,” Ms. Svonkin said. “In particular, Prince Rupert would be their stated preference.”

She said she expected Alberta, as the federal government had done, had “noted the Premier’s comments, and this will be a point of discussion.”

“I’m sure they’ll be factoring it into their work as they proceed,” she added.

Mr. Hodgson met with Mr. Eby on Friday.

The B.C. Premier had previously expressed frustration about his province’s exclusion from negotiations between the federal government and Alberta on the memorandum of understanding.

Coastal First Nations in B.C. say they’re prepared to challenge pipeline projects in court

The agreement removes the oil and gas emissions cap, suspends clean electricity regulations and includes a commitment from Ottawa to enable the export of bitumen, a viscous oil product, from a deepwater port to Asian markets. The deal states this could include adjusting a 2019 law that prohibits oil tankers carrying more than 12,500 tonnes of oil from loading or unloading at ports along B.C.’s northern coast.

Ms. Smith’s and Mr. Eby’s offices did not respond to requests for comment on Sunday.

The route of the proposed pipeline, which will not receive federal funding, is expected to provoke intense debate.

Richard Masson, executive fellow at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy and former chief executive officer of the Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission, said maintaining the tanker ban could mean the pipeline going to Vancouver, rather than Prince Rupert or Kitimat, further up the coast.

He said Prince Rupert’s deepwater port is closer to both Edmonton and the Asian markets, and is less congested than the Vancouver port.

“My understanding is that there are no other ports that could work,” he said.

Rather than a new pipeline, Mr. Eby has proposed increasing the amount of oil that could be shipped through the existing Trans Mountain pipeline. This could boost its capacity by about 40 per cent. The province has given the go-ahead for the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority to dredge the Second Narrows waterway to allow tankers to load more oil at the Trans Mountain marine terminal.

Ms. Svonkin said the final decision about a potential route for a new pipeline would need to follow studies and conversations with First Nations.

“You can’t do formal consultation on a project if you don’t know what the route is,” she said.

Ontario lands $3.2B graph­ite fact­ory

Plant will hire up to 1,000 to pro­duce bat­tery com­pon­ent

This article was written by Rob Ferguson and was published in the Toronto Star on November 21, 2025.

Ontario’s elec­tric vehicle industry is get­ting a boost with a $3.2­ bil­lion feeder fact­ory, but the new jobs won’t make up for thou­sands lost recently at auto assembly plants in Bramp­ton and the Lon­don area.

Nor­we­gian com­pany Vian­ode said Thursday it will make syn­thetic graph­ite — a key com­pon­ent of lith­ium ion bat­ter­ies — in St. Thomas, near the site of a massive EV bat­tery plant under con­struc­tion by Volk­swa­gen sub­si­di­ary PowerCo.

Vian­ode will get a $670 ­mil­lion loan from Ontario tax­pay­ers for the project, expec­ted to cre­ate 300 jobs when pro­duc­tion begins and 1,000 when full capa­city is reached, sup­ply­ing cus­tom­ers in North Amer­ica and Europe while chal­len­ging China’s 80 per cent dom­in­ance of the industry.

“We’re going to keep doing everything in our power to sup­port our work­ers, attract new invest­ment,” Premier Doug Ford said at the announce­ment in an empty field, call­ing it “the best birth­day present” as he turned 61.

His gov­ern­ment also pro­posed legis­la­tion Thursday that would require pro­vin­cial and muni­cipal gov­ern­ments and pub­lic sec­tor organ­iz­a­tions such as transit agen­cies to “Buy Ontario,” pri­or­it­iz­ing the pur­chase of mater­i­als and sup­plies made here over goods made else­where in Canada or abroad to counter the dam­age from U.S. Pres­id­ent Don­ald Trump’s trade war.

The new plant — which will also sup­ply the nuc­lear, steel, semi­con­ductor and defence indus­tries — comes weeks after auto­work­ers got bad news when Gen­eral Motors scrapped pro­duc­tion of its poorsell­ing Bright­Drop elec­tric deliv­ery vehicle in nearby Inger­soll and Stel­lantis moved pending pro­duc­tion of the Jeep Com­pass to Illinois from Bramp­ton.

Neither plant has a product to build and more than 4,100 work­ers are wor­ried about their futures.

“We’re look­ing at dif­fer­ent options, we’re work­ing with the com­pany itself to see if we can get another line in there, and we’re work­ing with the fed­eral gov­ern­ment,” Ford said of the Inger­soll fact­ory.

At Queen’s Park, oppos­i­tion parties said the Pro­gress­ive Con­ser­vat­ive gov­ern­ment needs to do more to buoy the auto industry, which has seen Cana­dian pro­duc­tion drop by half since the turn of the cen­tury.

“We are fall­ing farther and farther behind,” Lib­eral MPP John Fraser (Ott­awa South) told report­ers.

“It’s great when we get something, but we’re going to lose more jobs.”

Across the eco­nomy, more than 400 com­pan­ies inves­ted $40 bil­lion in Ontario last year to cre­ate 24,000 jobs in part because they see the province as a safe haven in a “tumul­tu­ous world,” Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment Min­is­ter Vic Fed­eli said in St. Thomas.

“Canada itself has a stable, pre­dict­able polit­ical sys­tem and situ­ation, so that’s very import­ant for com­pan­ies invest­ing a lot of money,” Vian­ode chief exec­ut­ive Burkhard Straube added at the fact­ory announce­ment.

The plant will provide enough syn­thetic graph­ite to sup­ply three mil­lion elec­tric vehicles a year, he said.

With sales growth of EVs in Canada lower than fore­cast a few years ago, Green Leader Mike Schreiner urged the premier to do more to stim­u­late the industry, such as bring­ing back rebates for pur­chases of elec­tric vehicles which are often more expens­ive than auto­mo­biles that run on gas­ol­ine.

Ford has said his gov­ern­ment prefers to use pub­lic money to provide dir­ect sup­ports to the EV industry.

How to win the race for data centres

This editorial was written and published by the Globe & Mail on November 15, 2025.

Technology companies are throwing around extraordinary numbers as they race to build data centres.

OpenAI and Meta alone have promised to sink US$1-trillion into these facilities. Other companies are pledging to spend hundreds of billions more.

Although the bulk of the spending will happen in the United States, many Canadian politicians are hoping to get a piece of the action. Alberta is dreaming of $100-billion in data centre investment and Quebec wants to put out the welcome mat for these projects. They should be cautious.

These centres use huge amounts of power and water.

They provide few local jobs once they are built. And if rising fears of an AI bubble prove accurate, communities could be left with white elephant facilities.

This is not to say that data centres should be blacklisted or banned. It would be hypocritical to do so considering how much of Canadians’ life is online. But governments should also not dangle incentives such as tax breaks to attract them.

Canada and Ontario’s recent woes with subsidizing electric-vehicle battery production is an example to avoid.

In that case, the governments eagerly offered billions to companies, in the hopes of creating a local EV economy that has proved elusive. One glimmer of a silver lining is that, in some cases, the proposal failed before serious money began to flow. But the whole saga suggests governments too eager to hitch their wagons to the hot new idea.

It’s good that some Canadian provinces are starting to think more critically about how to handle an influx of data centres, even if their approaches raise questions.

In Ontario, the government is seeking input on a proposal that would prioritize electricity requests based on how well the use would serve the province’s economic interests. In a worrying indicator that the province is buying into tech hype, though, the idea comes dressed up with some highly speculative language about how data centres “could anchor new high-tech ecosystems” in northern and rural communities.

British Columbia, meanwhile, announced last month that priority for power would go to natural resource and manufacturing projects. Data centres, AI and other users would be further down the list when applying for electricity supply.

This attempt at preserving local industries could result in rewarding lower-productivity businesses at the expense of more productive ones.

It’s understandable to want to prevent a situation in which new data centres put enormous additional demand on the power supply, pushing up costs for everyone. But if the companies are willing to pay the true marginal cost of providing additional power then there is no reason to refuse them. Long term, building out the electrical grid to maximize economic development is a good thing.

In the same way, provinces and municipalities should look more closely at how much large-scale users are paying for water. Too often, the heaviest consumers pay the least per litre. That can’t be allowed to continue, especially if new demand forces costly expansion of water infrastructure.

There are also questions about the federal approach. Fortunately, Ottawa’s promise last year to provide up to $15billion for loans and equity stakes in data centre projects was missing from this month’s budget. It did pledge, however, to change the Canada Infrastructure Bank’s mandate to allow it to invest in these facilities. The government is also developing a new AI strategy, and is considering whether there should be new incentives.

As well, the budget promised nearly $1-billion towards data sovereignty. This issue is on a lot of minds, understandably, given the drumbeat of threats from United States President Donald Trump. But the term itself is not easily defined and Ottawa risks being captured by tech prophets spinning an alluring web.

The history of industrial policy is littered with embarrassing examples of government largesse that didn’t pan out.

Hydroponic cucumber cultivation in Newfoundland springs to mind, as does the ill-fated Bricklin sports car.

Governments shouldn’t get starry eyed about data centres. Instead, make sure the appropriate regulations are in place and then let the market take over.

The Sunday Editorial: The airport of the future has arrived – just not in Canada. Landing tomorrow morning at theglobeandmail.com

PM confirms mining, energy projects added to fast-track list for major infrastructure

This article was written by Stephanie Levitz and was published in the Globe & Mail on November 14, 2025.

Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks about the second batch of referrals to the Major Projects Office in Terrace, B.C., on Thursday.

The next round of referrals includes six mining and energy proposals that span from B.C. to New Brunswick

Prime Minister Mark Carney confirmed new mining and energy projects have been added to a list of natural-resource developments the government wants to see fast-tracked in a bid to wean Canada off its economic reliance on the United States.

The six projects are the second batch of referrals to the Carney government’s Major Projects Office (MPO), given the task of speeding up what the Prime Minister has described as “nation-building” infrastructure. The first round was announced in September.

The projects announced Thursday are the Ksi Lisims liquefied natural gas project in British Columbia; Ontario’s Crawford nickel project; New Brunswick’s Sisson mine; Nouveau Monde Graphite’s Matawinie Mine in Quebec; the Iqaluit Nukkiksautiit Hydro Project and the North Coast Transmission Line in northwest B.C.

Mr. Carney also said the Canada Infrastructure Bank is lending $140-million to BC Hydro for the transmission line.

“Each of these projects that we are referring to the MPO today is transformational, and their impacts will be amplified by being part of bigger national strategies to boost Canada’s competitiveness,” Mr. Carney said at an event in Terrace, B.C.

The office was set up under the Building Canada Act, legislation passed in the spring to follow through on a key campaign promise from Mr. Carney: find faster ways to build big things.

Led by former Trans Mountain chief executive Dawn Farrell, the office can designate projects that meet certain criteria as “national interest,” which would expedite regulatory processes. None of the projects referred to her office to date have received that designation.

Many projects now on the MPO list have been in development for decades, have most permits and financing in place, as well as buy-in – if not outright ownership – from Indigenous communities.

That led to numerous questions Thursday on how the involvement of the federal office changes anything.

“For projects like Crawford, we’re working to come up with processes where we can run all the permitting in parallel, so that we’re not doing it sequentially,” Ms. Farrell said.

“So, something that might have taken five or six more years can now take two years.”

Canada Nickel Co.’s Crawford nickel project is touted as the world’s second-largest nickel-sulphide reserve, located 42 kilometres north of Timmins, Ont.

Canada Nickel CEO Mark Selby told reporters on Thursday that the referral will help attract international investors and partners to chip in for construction as well as put its remaining permits in the priority line.

Ontario Energy Minister Stephen Lecce said the Crawford project could start construction next year.

“It’s also a critical step in reducing the Chinese regime’s grip on the critical-mineral supply chain,” he said in a statement on social media.

B.C. Premier David Eby said the MPO’s involvement could help resolve tensions with First Nations, arrange financing and sell the projects to international markets.

Many projects now on the Major Projects Office list have been in development for decades.

The Building Canada Act passed in June with the support of the Conservatives. Party Leader Pierre Poilievre had also campaigned on a promise to speed up naturalresource development.

However, he criticized Thursday’s announcement.

“He’s not actually getting anything done, he’s just showing up to take credit for things that were going to happen anyway,” he said during a speech in Kelowna, B.C.

Environmental and Indigenous groups are also concerned, arguing that the government’s fast-tracking powers will trample ecological protections and treaty rights.

Ksi Lisims is being led by Nisga’a Nation, but other B.C. First Nations are challenging it in court.

Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs lost their own challenge of the project in B.C. Supreme Court in August. The group raised concerns that included the potential the project could threaten salmon populations travelling up the Nass River to their territory.

“Our lands and rights to salmon are unceded, and this means consent and consultation are required,” Simogyet Watakhayetsxw, also known as Hereditary Chief Deborah Good, said in a statement.

The minority Liberals’ budget, tabled last week, sets aside millions to help Indigenous leaders engage in the consultation process around proposed projects, and also funding for the MPO itself.

Climate groups singled out the LNG infrastructure proposals Thursday, pointing to American investor involvement, and that the projects support a dying industry in a world focused on eliminating emissions.

“Saying that building LNG infrastructure is in the national interest is oxymoronic,” said Alex Walker of Environmental Defence.

The proposed Sisson Mine in New Brunswick – an idea that’s more than a decade old – would extract tungsten and molybdenum, two minerals used for energy storage and production, and that also have military applications. The U.S. Defence Department has funded the mine’s development.

The five projects announced in September were: LNG Canada Phase 2, which would expand the liquefied natural gas export facility at Kitimat, B.C.; modular reactors at Ontario’s existing Darlington Nuclear Generating Station; an expansion by the Port of Montreal in Contrecoeur, Que.; Saskatchewan’s Foran McIlvenna Bay copper mine project; and the Red Chris Copper and Gold Mine expansion in B.C.

The Red Chris mine is part of the Northwest Critical Conservation Corridor, an area with a significant deposit of critical minerals. Two of the projects announced Thursday – the LNG proposal and the transmission line – are also part of the area.

The entire corridor was referred to the MPO in September, though on Thursday Mr. Carney announced its referral again, stressing the potential for the area to play a major role in economic growth.

“The Northwest corridor has extraordinary potential to unlock critical minerals development, clean-power transmission, all under Indigenous leadership,” he said.

“We’re talking tens of billions of dollars of investments, and in parallel, creating a new conservation area the size of Greece.”

Who’s killing Canada’s EV dreams? It’s not just Trump and his tariffs

This opinion was written by Chris Severson-Baker and Adam Thorn, and was published in the Globe & Mail on October 31, 2025. Chris Severson-Baker is executive director at the Pembina Institute, where Adam Thorn is director of transportation.

General Motors announced this month that Ontario will lose production of its BrightDrop electric parcel vans.

Who put Canada’s EV opportunity at risk? Was it Donald Trump’s tariffs? Partly. But the bigger issue may be our own half-measured approach. Canada has poured billions into electric vehicle (EV) and battery manufacturing. But while we’ve gone all in on building the supply, we’ve done almost nothing to secure the demand. The risk is painfully evident: We could end up with world-class factories and no domestic customers to buy what they make. That’s not a fully thought-out strategy.

The recent announcements that Ontario will lose production of the Chevrolet BrightDrop electric parcel van and Stellantis’s Jeep Compass EV (moving to Illinois) are a case in point. While Canada has committed billions in public funding to U.S. companies to build EVs, support for Canadian businesses and consumers to buy them or install charging infrastructure remains limited. Truck and van incentives exist but uptake has been slow, and passenger vehicle incentives have been paused. A complete strategy must invest in both production and adoption. After all, the best subsidy is a paying customer.

This has never been a hands-off market; major industries have long benefited from government support. Investing in both EV supply and adoption future-proofs Canada’s ability to compete globally, build independent supply chains and reduce our reliance on U.S. decisions. Canada must diversify our trade and secure a stronger presence in the global market, and to do this we need to move where the momentum is – not wait and fall behind. California and China have shown that increasing domestic demand is a catalyst for developing globally competitive supply chains and manufacturers like Tesla Inc. and BYD. Whether we like it or not, the global auto market is moving toward electric, and sooner or later we will have to meet that demand.

This is not hypothetical. One in four passenger cars sold globally this year will be electric. In China, it’s already more than half. Europe is approaching 20 per cent. Electric vans and trucks are growing, too, capturing nearly onefifth of the commercial fleet market in China and projected to reach almost half by 2030. While we hesitate, the world is not waiting.

With smart demand-side policies like business incentives, accessible charging networks and regulatory clarity, we could unlock jobs, supply chains and tech leadership.

Instead, we’ve stopped at building the production lines and failed to build the customer base. You can have the most advanced EV plant in North America, but if Canadian’s aren’t buying, the line goes idle, jobs are lost and taxpayers pick up the bill. It’s like building a home and never connecting it to water or heating systems – technically complete, but unlivable.

Critics, including many in the auto industry now pausing or shutting Canadian factories, will argue that automotive manufacturing in Canada will always focus on exports to the United States. That is part of the challenge, but that is something Canada cannot control.

What Canada can control is whether we build a strong domestic market that supports the development of a world-class EV supply chain. One that builds affordable vehicles and components that can meet market demand in Canada, the U.S. or globally. If Canada wants a competitive EV manufacturing sector, and it would be economically wise to do so, domestic demand is an essential piece of the puzzle.

Developing the knowledge and skills to be world-class leaders at home is key to building the capacity to compete globally.

Canada has the tools to succeed as a global exporter of EVs and batteries: a skilled work force, clean and abundant electricity and access to critical minerals. Critical minerals have been trumpeted by both federal and provincial governments as a new economic opportunity but global demand for critical minerals ultimately follows demand for batteries. A smart industrial strategy includes stimulating domestic adoption to support the development of a supply chain that can compete globally.

When our governments threaten to sue automakers, they may be focused on the wrong risk. The more immediate question might be, what is Canada doing to ensure that EVs built here actually get bought here? Because without a domestic market, we’re still depending on someone else’s policy to make our strategy work.

The opportunity isn’t gone, but it won’t wait. If Canada can pair industrial investment with real demand-side policy, we can secure long-term jobs, lead in the next era of automotive innovation and export to the world. If we continue with only half a strategy, we’ll watch others define the market while we pay for factories that never run at full capacity.

Exxon sues California over climate disclosure laws

This article was written by Chandni Shah and was published in the Globe & Mail on October 27, 2025.

Exxon Mobil Corp. sued California on Friday, challenging two state laws that require large companies to publicly disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and climate-related financial risks.

In a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, Exxon argued that Senate Bills 253 and 261 violate its First Amendment rights by compelling Exxon to “serve as a mouthpiece for ideas with which it disagrees,” and asked the court to block the state of California from enforcing the laws.

Exxon said the laws force it to adopt California’s preferred frameworks for climate reporting, which it views as misleading and counterproductive. The oil giant said it already reports emissions and climate risks voluntarily, and objects to California’s frameworks.

Democratic-ruled California has long had some of the strictest environmental rules in areas like vehicle fuel efficiency standards and planning policy, after passing a climate-change law in 2006. California passed two laws in 2023 that would require companies to report their greenhouse gas emissions and climate-related financial risks. The California laws were supported by several big companies including Apple, Ikea and Microsoft, but opposed by several major groups such as the American Farm Bureau Federation and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which called them “onerous.”

SB 253 requires public and private companies that are active in the state and generate revenue of more than US$1-billion annually to publish an extensive account of their carbon emissions starting in 2026. The law requires the disclosure of both the companies’ own emissions and indirect emissions by their suppliers and customers.

SB 261 requires companies that operate in the state with over US$500-million in revenue to disclose climate-related financial risks and strategies to mitigate risk. Exxon also argued SB 261 conflicts with existing federal securities laws, which already regulate what publicly traded companies must disclose regarding financial and environmental risks.

“The First Amendment bars California from pursuing a policy of stigmatization by forcing Exxon Mobil to describe its non-California business activities using the State’s preferred framing,” Exxon said in the lawsuit.

The California Department of Justice and the California Air Resources Board did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

SB 253 requires public and private companies that are active in the state and generate revenue of more than US$1-billion annually to publish an extensive account of their carbon emissions starting in 2026.