Ontario’s electric vehicle policies get a failing grade

With details about the federal government’s zero-emission vehicle mandate expected in January, a highly detailed report card was released that ranked the policies and overall readiness of each province and territories for electric vehicles.

And the results, released in September, weren’t good for Ontario, which not only received a failing grade, but also ranked lower than the national average. It placed slightly above Alberta.

British Columbia was the only province identified as a Global Leader. Out of a 100-point scale, it received an 80, followed by Quebec with a 73. All other provinces received a score under 50, with Ontario’s 19.5 lumping it in the bottom, followed by the three prairie provinces, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. They were all in the Getting Started category.

“We’ve been working on the scorecard over the past year,” said Lindsay Winginton, a senior consultant for Dunsky Energy + Climate Advisors, a consultancy firm that produced the inaugural report for Electric Mobility Canada.

Provinces were ranked against international standards in six key areas: EV regulations and strategy, infrastructure and charger deployment, consumer EV adoption, commercial EV adoption, industry and workforce development, and government leadership.

“You need points in each of these categories, which we benchmarked to global best practices, so there’s no one in Canada who had a perfect score,” said Winginton, while presenting the results at September’s Electric Mobility Canada conference.

Quebec and B.C. were the only provinces to feature healthy EV sales incentives, robust public charging investments and a zero-emission vehicle mandate. But it was Ontario’s poor Getting Started ranking that really stood out. It was the first province to bring in EV rebates back in 2010, and eventually increased those rebates to $14,000, or double the current highest incentive that Quebec offers, before cancelling them. Ontario is far from getting started, but clearly has a long way to catch up.

Michael Bettencourt bought his first EV in late 2011 and has followed the Canadian EV scene ever since. Follow him on Twitter @MCBet10court