Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin says the federal government will bring back a popular consumer rebate program to help make electric vehicles more affordable.
The federal government launched its rebate program — the Incentives for Zero-Emission Vehicles program or iZEV, — in 2019, but it ran out of funding earlier this year, leading Ottawa to pause the program.
Speaking to The Canadian Press while leaving the House of Commons — where she spent the better part of question period fending off Conversative criticisms of Ottawa's EV mandate — Dabrusin said a renewed consumer rebate is something being worked on.
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"Will it be named, iZEV? That I can't tell you. But there will be a consumer rebate," Dabrusin said.
She also indicated Canada's electric vehicle mandate — which requires all light-duty passenger vehicles sold off the lot to be zero-emissions by 2035 — won’t be changing.
Conservatives spent Tuesday in Ottawa calling for the mandate to be scrapped, citing concerns about an auto sector threatened by U.S. tariffs, and debating an opposition motion to compel the government to "immediately end their ban on gas-powered vehicles."
"It's been in place since 2023. I don't see why the Conservatives believe we need to change it in the face of what we're facing with the U.S. tariffs on the auto industry," Dabrusin said.
Canada's auto manufacturers have grown on their calls for the government to repeal the mandate, as EV sales dropped in early 2025 as the rebates ended.
The first quarter of 2025 saw zero-emissions vehicles represent only 8.11 per cent of all new vehicle sales in Canada — a drop from the 16.5 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2024, according to data from Statistics Canada.
On a monthly basis through 2024, the share of EVs among new vehicle sales never dropped below 10.65 per cent, and peaked at 18.29 per cent in December.
In April of 2025, the most recent data from StatCan, EV sales dropped to 7.53 per cent of all new vehicles off of Canadian lots.
Beginning in 2026, the government's EV mandate requires at least 20 per cent of new light-duty vehicles offered for sale in that year be zero-emission. That share rises each year until it reaches 100 per cent in 2035.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 17, 2025.
