Quebec Liberals ready to abandon 2035 deadline for ban on gas-powered vehicles

The Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ), along with Éric Duhaime’s Conservative Party of Quebec (PCQ) want to rethink banning the sale of gas-powered vehicles in 2035.

The Legault government has moved forward with the motion, but interim PLQ leader Marc Tanguay said his party could ignore the 2035 target, even though other countries around the world have also adopted it.

He was responding to a Synopsis survey, conducted on behalf of Cogeco, which suggested that 54 per cent of respondents disagree with ban’s target date.

“If it is not realistic, we have to stop insisting with a target of 2035,” he said in a press scrum on Wednesday. “It is not just up to the government, in its ivory tower, to say this is the target, we have to change everything. The government should examine the market, the citizens’ ability to pay and then decide itself whether the target is realistic.”

The PLQ is following behind Éric Duhaime’s Conservative Party.

The PCQ leader launched a campaign in August to get people to sign the memorandum that he was going to submit to oppose the 2035 objective.

“There are so many parameters today, it is utopian to say that the objective is realistic, it is becoming more and more unrealistic,” said Liberal MNA Monsef Derraji, referring to the American presidential election and the possible tariffs that could be imposed on electric vehicles made in China.

“It is certainly much too early to raise the question, it’s a bit defeatist to announce that the 2035 deadline already failed,” added Quebec Environment Minister Benoit Charette.

However, he conceded that he could push back the deadline. 

“We have said it from the start, we are not dogmatic, if we realize over the years that the market is not ready, we will adjust.”

Quebecers want electric vehicles, and the transition is going better here than in other states in North America, the minister suggested.

The draft regulation calls for a ban on “the offer for sale or lease, the display for the purpose of sale or lease, the sale and lease, in Quebec, of certain motor vehicles whose gross nominal weight is less than 4,536 kg that are not powered exclusively by an electric motor or by another mode of propulsion that does not emit any pollutants, as of Jan. 1, 2035.”

The consultation period following its pre-publication ended at the end of August and a final version will be published at a later date. 

The ban coincides with Quebec’s objective to reach carbon neutrality by 2050.

According to the 2021 Quebec greenhouse gas emissions inventory, 42.6 per cent of Quebec’s emissions came from the transportation sector. More than half of these emissions come from light road vehicles, the Environment Ministry pointed out.

The government’s Green Economy Plan aims to have two million electric vehicles on the roads by 2030.

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews