In their zeal to win votes, many politicians don’t appreciate policies that impact car dealers
As I write this, the Ontario Progressive Conservative party has thrown out not only its leader but also its well-crafted policy platform for the upcoming Ontario election in favour of a populist leader not only cut from the same cloth as President Trump, but birthed from the same womb as the original populist politician — brother Rob Ford.
Yet despite the fact that the PCs have gone through a divisive and clunky leadership race, thrown a substantive policy platform out with the bath water, and turned hard right with the election of the trumpian Doug Ford as their leader —the party still looks poised to win the next provincial election in Ontario.
This perhaps speaks volumes about how Ontarians view the current government under the leadership of Premier Kathleen Wynne and how the PCs are buoyant in the polls not because of Doug Ford being crowned as leader, but perhaps in spite of it, as the populace simply seems to be willing to take a flyer on anyone that isn’t Kathleen Wynne.
We’ve seen this movie before and we are dealing with the consequences daily of our American brethren making a choice when they voted “just to see what would happen.”
Perhaps I am being too critical of Mr. Ford and too cynical of the electorate in Ontario. Mr. Ford and the PCs may yet cobble together a cogent platform that makes fiscal sense prior to the election in Ontario.
However, right now there seems to be the suggestion of a lot of undoing of things e.g. Ontario’s cap and trade emissions program, without any consideration of how his government would find the revenues to replace those generated by that program.
Whether one likes the cap and trade program or not, it’s irresponsible to talk about cutting that program and reducing other taxes without being clear with how you are going to replace the revenues for the provincial coffers.
The memory of Jean Chretien claiming that he would kill the GST if elected — which he, of course, didn’t — should serve as a reminder that talking about reducing and eliminating taxes is one thing while doing it is another.
Although I admit I didn’t read every word of “The People’s Guarantee,” the fact that the PCs had developed a thoughtful, compelling, fiscally responsible, and progressive policy platform was, in my view, brilliant.
Whether one likes the cap and trade program or not, it’s irresponsible to talk about cutting that program and reducing other taxes without being clear with how you are going to replace the revenues for the provincial coffers.
Any time you form the Opposition, it is far easier — especially in the current Ontario environment — to simply oppose and be critical of the government and its policies without offering up any alternatives or policy positions of your own. So, again, I will tip my hat to the PCs for their courage in putting such a policy platform together and committing to it.
However, that is not where the PCs are at, as I have noted above. While it is likely true that in the majority of elections the electorate are voting against the current government as opposed to voting for another party, I think it is dangerous when any party — regardless of political stripe — ends up getting elected on platitudes and sound-bites as opposed to a transparent policy platform. The whole Brexit vote in the UK is but one such example.
What about elsewhere in Canada? Last year we saw the end of a Liberal dynasty under Gordon Campbell and then Christy Clark came crashing down in British Columbia, replaced by an NDP/Green Party Coalition. Quebec is also poised to undertake its own provincial election on October 1st, and in that province the tenured Liberals are being beaten handily in the polls by the Coalition Avenir Québec, in spite of being fiscally prudent.
Sometimes the electorate simply wants change and seems prepared to try on any party person or party that seems to offer that or the promise of “better days ahead.”
Arguably both Justin Trudeau and Donald Trump capitalized on that sentiment in their rise to power.
What has all of this got to do with the automotive industry and the environment in which readers operate?
I would suggest the answer to that question is: plenty. When the Liberals came to power federally, Justin Trudeau was in the enviable position of having Liberal counterparts in the vast majority of provinces theoretically making federal-provincial relations easier.
B.C. has been lost, and based on the polls it would appear that both Ontario and Quebec will be lost as well.
If that ends up being the case, or even if only Mr. Ford prevails in Ontario it changes the dynamic federal provincial relations and the willingness of Canada’s largest province to work with a federal government or Prime Minister Mr. Ford has openly been very critical of.
As many readers are aware, the federal government is currently working on a National Zero Emission Vehicle Strategy.
One such example. Mr. Ford shares his younger brother’s passion for “ending the war on the car.”
There are many of us in the industry that may fully support that view, but while the federal government isn’t anti-car, it was elected on a platform of doing something on climate change which has led to the national carbon pricing initiative and other policy initiatives that are in keeping with the broader global consensus that doing something to address climate change is critical and, as a consequence addressing light duty vehicle emissions is part of that solution.
The industry now has some momentum towards alternative propulsion technologies whether they be some variant on the continuum of electrification i.e. from conventional hybrids all the way to pure battery electric vehicles, or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, which are on the tipping point of being more broadly commercialized.
If Mr. Ford decides to eliminate cap and trade — which may be very difficult — there will be no revenues to continue to provide incentives to Ontarians to reduce the still substantive price gap between conventional vehicles and electric or hydrogen vehicles. Without those incentives, sales of these vehicles will plummet.
As many readers are aware, the federal government is currently working on a National Zero Emission Vehicle Strategy.
In the face of plummeting sales of electric and hydrogen vehicles in Ontario, which sold the most electric vehicles last year nationally for the first time, it would be very attractive for the federal government to consider a zero emission vehicle mandate nationally — similar to what Quebec imposed beginning this year.
As you may or may not know, such a mandate requires manufacturers to sell a certain percentage of zero or near zero emission vehicles or face punitive penalties.
While the onus is on the manufacturer under such a mandate, it quickly becomes a dealer problem if zero emission vehicles are sold from the manufacturer to the dealer but the dealer cannot sell the vehicle owing to the lack of an incentive to make these vehicles more comparably priced. Having manufacturers and dealers both lose money is not a recipe for long term business success.
As an industry we should be working now, with the current opposition parties in Ontario and Quebec, the current NDP government in B.C. and the federal government to not only demonstrate the ongoing need for the continuation of incentives in the marketplace for new propulsion technologies but also with our suggestions for other ways to continue to decarbonize light-duty transportation without completely disrupting the industry.
