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Over the past six years, the federal government alone has spent or committed to spending more than $50 billion on the production and sale of electric vehicles (EVs). Provincial governments (primarily Ontario and Quebec) have committed over $20 billion more.

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It’s not just about ultra-expensive EV battery factories, but also subsidies for EV buyers, as well as money for EV infrastructure, such as charging stations and chargers domestics.

The federal government is giving $5,000 to everyone who buys an electric vehicle, even for exotic and expensive models. British Columbia adds another $4,000. Quebec adds $8,000.

Canadians spend just over $80 billion a year to buy just under two million cars and trucks. With all those billions of taxpayer dollars flowing into the electric vehicle market, you might guess that 10 to 20 percent of the vehicles on our nation’s roads are electric vehicles.

Fake.

Of the 25.7 million vehicles currently registered in Canada, just under 330,000 are fully electric. This represents approximately 1.3%.

Nearly 6% of new cars sold are currently electric vehicles (even though this market has stagnated). However, of the entire Canadian fleet – new and used – just over 1% are battery electric. There simply aren’t many electric vehicles in Canada, certainly not enough to justify the waste of all those billions of taxpayer dollars lavished on the industry by “green” politicians such as Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Ontario Doug Ford and Quebec Premier François Legault.

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The Liberal government’s forced transition to electric vehicles simply isn’t working. Electric vehicle sales are expected to nearly triple next year to meet Trudeau government regulations dictating that 20% of vehicle sales must – must – be electric vehicles by 2026. They are expected to increase 10-fold to reach the target of 60% by 2030 and be multiplied by 15 to reach the 100% mandate set for 2035.

Over the next decade, electric vehicle technology will improve. The batteries will propel vehicles further on one charge. Cooldown times will be reduced and perhaps even costs will go down. But not enough or fast enough to respond to the environmental fantasies of Trudeau and his Minister of the Environment, Steven Guilbeault.

Canada is a big country with many winters, so even with improvements in electric vehicle technology, it’s hard to imagine that electric vehicles will soon replace good, old, reliable gas and diesel vehicles.

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Even the Liberal government isn’t entirely convinced of the wisdom of its own electric vehicle mandate. There is an exclusion in the regulations that allows police cars, ambulances, emergency vehicles and fire trucks to retain internal combustion engines. If electric vehicle technology isn’t reliable enough for first responders, why should we all be forced to adopt it?

Yet the Trudeau Liberals remain eco-fanatics.

At a hearing of the House of Commons trade committee this week, federal Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne reaffirmed the Liberals’ commitment to selling 100% electric vehicles within 11 years.

“When you’ve been doing the same thing for a hundred years,” Champagne said, “and you’re changing the technology the same way we’re doing it, you have a short-term adjustment.”

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Or, perhaps, you are faced with total chaos and market destruction.

Most major manufacturers have sharply reduced their production of electric vehicles since the start of the year because the market for electric vehicles simply does not exist. Last week, BMW CEO Oliver Zipse said that if the EU maintained its electric vehicle mandate (which matches Canada’s), it would lead to “a massive shrinkage of the (auto) market.”

But maybe that’s exactly what liberals want: a lot fewer people owning a lot fewer cars.

The Trudeau government’s own internal research shows its electric vehicle mandate will likely eliminate a quarter or more of Canadians from the car and truck market.

There are two ways to reach 100%. Either you continue to sell current levels of new vehicles and subsidize electric vehicles like hell. Or you sell a lot fewer cars, but they are all electric.

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