PLQ would authorize gasoline cars after 2035

Photo: Olivier Zuida Le Devoir According to the 2021 inventory of Quebec greenhouse gas emissions, 42.6% of Quebec's GHG emissions come from the transportation sector.

Patrice Bergeron – The Canadian Press in Quebec City

Published at 7:09 p.m.

• Quebec City

Like Éric Duhaime's Conservative Party of Quebec (PCQ), a Liberal Party (PLQ) in power would be ready to push back the ban on the sale of gasoline vehicles beyond 2035.

The Legault government has moved forward with a draft regulation setting that deadline, but interim Liberal leader Marc Tanguay has suggested his party could ignore the 2035 target, even though other countries around the world have also adopted it.

He was responding to a Synopsis poll conducted on behalf of Cogeco that suggested 54% of respondents disagreed with the target.

“If it’s not realistic, we’re going to stop sticking to a 2035 target,” he said in a press scrum Wednesday morning in Parliament.

“It’s not just up to the government, in its ivory tower, to say: that’s the target, we have to change everything. The government must take stock of what the market is, what the citizens' ability to pay is and itself assess whether its target is realistic.”

The PLQ is therefore riding the same hobby horse as Éric Duhaime. The PCQ leader launched a campaign in August to get people to sign the brief he was going to submit to oppose the 2035 target.

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“There are so many parameters that today it is utopian to say that the target is realistic, it is becoming more and more unrealistic,” argued Liberal MP Monsef Derraji, referring to the American presidential election and the possible customs duties that could be imposed on Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers.

“It is certainly much too early to decide the question, it is a bit defeatist to announce the failure of the 2035 deadline already,” declared Environment Minister Benoit Charette, in a press scrum, in response to the PLQ.

He himself nevertheless conceded that he could push back the deadline.

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“We've said it from the start, we're not dogmatic, if we realize over the years that the market isn't ready, we will adjust.”

But currently, Quebecers are demanding electric vehicles and the transition is going better here than in other federated states in North America, the minister suggested.

The draft regulation provides for “prohibiting 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 with a gross vehicle weight rating of 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 January 1, 2035 for some of them and as of their placing on the market for certain others.”

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

The ban on the sale of electric vehicles is part of Quebec’s broader objective of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, in accordance with the agreements international.

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

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