The Quebec government is on the wrong track by threatening to eliminate subsidies for the purchase of Roulez vert electric vehicles from 2027, deplore opposition groups in the National Assembly.
“Are we abolishing our goal of having 2 million electric vehicles by 2030 on the roads of Quebec? “, asked the interim leader of the Liberal Party of Quebec, Marc Tanguay, on Wednesday with a touch of irony. “The latest statistics we have are that we are talking about 240,000 vehicles. »
The government of François Legault formalized Tuesday in its 2024-2025 budget its intentions to gradually abolish the “Roulez vert” program, which offers purchasers of zero-emission vehicles or plug-in hybrid cars rebates on purchase. From January 2027, three years before the date on which Quebec wants to see two million electric vehicles on the roads, it will no longer be possible to access them.
“We are talking about optimizing programs. Certainly, we are there, we are open to that. But to go from 400 million [de subventions] to 0 while maintaining a target of 2 million electric vehicles, that does not hold water,” Mr. Tanguay said on Wednesday.
If he supports a revision of the program, the co-spokesperson for Québec solidaire Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois has difficulty explaining why the funds freed up by the withdrawal of Roulez vert cannot instead be used for public transport. In its Quebec Infrastructure Plan tabled on Tuesday, the Legault government plans to increase spending in this area by 3% over ten years. In a context of deficits within large public transport organizations, no one-off support measures are included in the budget.
“I think it was reasonable to review this program to prioritize investments in public transportation, but the government is not going that far. This is the big problem with the budget,” he insisted.
The leader of the Parti Québécois, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, criticizes the Legault government for moving “very quickly”. “There is a tipping point, but we have not reached it. And here we want to move quickly to remove the incentives because we assume that the difference between the price of an electric car and a gasoline car will be minimal. It’s far from clear,” he said.
“Unfortunately, it could give oil companies and gasoline-powered cars a second chance to make a cheaper offer again. And there, we will have undone the progress we have made,” he added.
On Tuesday, the Minister of Finance, Eric Girard, justified his government’s choice by arguing that the funds devoted to Roulez vert would be better used in other “more effective” measures to combat climate change.