The Ben Mulroney Show - Why are we trying to manufacture an EV Industry when there's not enough demand

Episode Date: June 11, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Canada’s EV mandate must be repealed, Ford Canada CEO says with Guest: Greg Layson, Automotive News Canada -Liberals subsidizing summer jobs, ignoring the real problem If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Ben Mulroney show. It is June 11th, 2025. On this day in 1983, a certain Martin Brian Mulroney became the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. And our lives, my life changed forever. Dad, I miss you every single day. Oh, and on this day, I'm not gonna say what year, my sister Caroline was born. Happy birthday, Caroline. All right. So when the CEO of an automotive company comes out and says the that the appetite for EVs has sunk like a stone has fallen off a cliff, and it is time to reverse course as a country by getting rid of the mandate that would ensure that at a certain point, I think in 2030 or 2035, every single car sold in this country is a zero emission vehicle. It's time to reverse course on that.

That should tell you something. Somebody in the thick of it, a position of authority is telling us that the appetite, the market has spoken and the market does not want these mandates and it's time to change and pivot. We should probably pay attention. So when Melanie Jolie, market has spoken and the market does not want these mandates and it's time to change and pivot, we should probably pay attention. So when Melanie Jolie, our Minister of Innovation,

Science and Industry gets in front of a microphone and says this, I've got some questions. You know, I think our goal has been always the same to get to net zero by 2050. We need to make sure that we take actions towards that. And that's why it was part of our vision and our plan to have EV mandates. I think also that what the government can do, which will help to increase the demand is definitely making sure that we're bringing back EV subsidies. And that's in our platform. So we're looking forward to bring that back and of course continuing to engage with the

auto sector that is going through a very difficult time. But I think that the auto sector is reacting to the fact that there's less demand than anticipated. I think that working on the demand side through subsidies will be helpful. So it sounds like the mandate isn't going anywhere. And on top of that, we're gonna double down by bringing back the federal incentive

for people to buy cars that they have already told us that at this point in time, they don't want. To discuss this to make sense of this. We're joined by Greg Lason of the automotive news Canada, Greg, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Okay, so let's take a step back. And before we talk about what we what we just heard, can you explain what attributed the collapse? What what to what do you attribute

the collapse in the appetite for EVs in this country? Right now, currently, the appetite is not there because there aren't incentives. The bottom line is this electric vehicles cost thousands more than their internal combustion engine gasoline counterparts. And people just don't have the money up front. You know, a parliamentary budget officer report yesterday suggests that in twenty twenty six, EVs will cost nine thousand dollars more up front than an ice vehicle. No one has that right now.

We are out of the people who could afford the early adopters, the affluent buyers, the environmentalists, the activists, they have all purchased their electric vehicles. Now the focus shifts to the middle class and the middle class, the people driving minivans, the people driving pickups, the people driving SUVs, they can't afford that $9,000 additional expense upfront or on their monthly payment. Even though studies suggest you save money on gas in the long run up to about $5,000 over eight years, it's just not worth it for the middle-class Canadians. Yeah, 10 years ago, if I had what I had, if I had in the bank, if I was making what I was making 10 years ago, I would be one of those people. My second car would be an EV. I don't have a second

car right now because my reality is different. I suspect a lot of people are like me. So you got Donald Trump south of the border saying he's dumping all of the EV subsidies, which probably had something to do with his schism with Elon Musk. North of the border, we're going to bring back the individual subsidy, incentive rather. And what do you think that's going to, what do you think the impact of that those dueling systems is going to have on the EV market in North America? In North America, very little in Canada, if you bring back those incentives, you will see sales increase once again. And I suspect if they make that incentive bigger, and now here's what I mean by this. Essentially, globally, the average incentive is about $10,000 Canadian. If you looked at Joe Biden's policies in America over the past few years before Trump was

elected, that incentive was $7,500 US. Do the math, that's about $10,000 Canadian. I think the only way you increase sales here is by bringing back incentives. But here's the thing. We only represent about 2% of the global auto sales. And so we are not going to move the needle for automakers to make more EV. That's not to say they're going to stop making them. They still will. They're still a future in electrification. It's just further out. Anyone ever anticipated. Yeah. The incentives come back, we'll buy them. There are great cars being produced, but they're expensive. They're expensive to buy. They're expensive to insure. Is there any truth to the stories that car companies lose money on EVs because the cost of production is so expensive? Yes. We've run stories at Automotive News,

Tana, and Automotive News out of Detroit, our U.S. Yes, we've run stories that automotive news, standard and automotive news out of Detroit, our U S colleagues, we have run stories that automakers lose upwards of $6,000 per unit. The reason being the auto industry is building a supply chain from the ground up that has never existed. And it's reliant on China. That's also a problem. It's relying on overseas batteries materials. That's a problem. That makes it expensive. And so when you don't have that in place and you don't have economies of scale, you don't make as much money on an EV

and you have to charge more for them just to offset the costs of building a supply chain from scratch. And I understand the stubbornness of various levels of government on a sort of, if not doubling down, then sort of sticking with the plan, despite, you know, Ford Canada coming out and saying, get rid of the mandates, because we have invested so heavily on being part of that supply chain of the future. But it really does seem that we might be throwing good money after bad. And at some point you got to say like, maybe we, we bet wrong or we bet too early on this

EV revolution. Now what do you make of a middle ground of possibly getting rid of the mandate or pushing the mandate so that, you know, we, we hit that target of a hundred percent, I don't know, in 50 years, as opposed to 15 years or now it's 10 years. Like would that make sense? We just discussed this on our editorial call this morning. That is what we as journalists are watching for in this industry. We believe that there will be enough pressure applied by the automakers to get Ottawa to tweak the mandate, maybe less than the panelists. Look to me,

the penalties are the bigger concern. less than the penalties. Look to me, the penalties are the bigger concern. What are the penalties? The $20,000 for every vehicle you fall short of that 20% that you're supposed to sell in model year 2026. And right now with no incentives and faltering sales, none of the 26 models sold this summer will count towards that 20% or you might, or sorry, you're losing those sales because of the incentives. So you're not selling as many as you thought you would. And so those penalties are going to add up in a hurry.

And now here's the rub on that. You have a few ways to pay it. You can invest in infrastructure, which is good for the country, but it's on the automaker to do that $20,000 worth of infrastructure. The other way is to buy credits from your competitors who sold electric vehicles. I don't know many businesses, whether it's muffins or coffee or cars,

that wanna pay their competitor $20,000 a crack. These automakers are fretting over the penalty, fretting over sales. Something has to be tweaked and I'm with you. I see this being pushed out to 2050. I see the percentages falling over those years, not 20%, maybe 10 or 15 in 2026. And I see the penalties being less. Greg, here's a hot take. And I'm not saying I support this, but if they want to get more people into the EV market by making sure that there were low cost EVs available, flooding the

Canadian market with Chinese cars is certainly one way to get there. We've discussed this as well. It is an easy solution for Mark Carney and his liberals to open the doors to Chinese EVs. But here's the thing. You have to ask yourself this question if you are Mark Carney and the liberals.

Is it morally and ethically smart to do so? Is it politically smart to do so? Look, the reason Chinese cars are so affordable is because they are government backed with an endless pool of money. They use coal fired electricity to power their plants. They have suspect and questionable labor practices and don't pay their workers very much.

So there are plenty of reasons why Chinese EVs are affordable. The question becomes, do you support the way in which China makes those? And we know Greg, Greg, we got to leave it there. Thank you very much. I would say that there are certain people on the left side of the spectrum who are performative enough that that is something that they would bite on. Thank you very much for joining us in the conversation. I appreciate it. You're listening to the Ben Mulrooney show. Welcome back to the Ben Mulrooney show. Thanks for spending hump day with us. We appreciate it. Look, it's coming to the end of the school year for kids in high school.

And this is a time of year where if they don't have a summer job, they are, in years past, they were gearing up to get that summer job. They might be going in for interviews at this point in the hopes of starting as soon as the school year ends to make that extra cash to build up their their resume for when it comes time to go to university. But we're living in an increasingly difficult time for young people to find those summer jobs and Ottawa is coming to the rescue. They are going gonna spend $25 million in reallocated internal funding to help subsidize an additional 6,000 jobs.

That's about $415 per job. And this reminds me, and I'd like you to call in so that we can discuss this. This to me is the single use plastics problem all over again. You know, the idea of we were gonna ban plastic straws to save the environment. When plastic straws are a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the pollution in our oceans,

something like 40% of that pollution comes from the massive fisheries industry, where they've got these plastic nets. And when they become a burden, rather than fix them, they just cut them loose. That's the problem. And rather than going after that problem, they go after the performative fraction of a fraction

of a fraction percent, making your life more difficult and my life more difficult and not helping the environment at all. This to me does not address the underlying problem where businesses are incentivized to hire temporary foreign workers to take jobs that used to go to students in Canada. Our youth cannot find jobs because the big companies out there are incentivized to hire temporary foreign workers. So again, it's performance over result. It's let's make an

announcement, cut a ribbon, hand over a giant check that doesn't fix the underlying problem. And this new liberal government is falling into the trap that was the stock and trade of the old liberal government. I am not saying that just because they're liberals, they do this. I'm sure governments of all stripes do this. But look, we are promised a different government. We were promised this is not your father's liberal government. This is not Trudeau's liberal government. And yet here we are not solving a problem, but spending a lot of money to fix a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the issue.

And I'd love to hear from you. Give us a call here at the Ben Mulroney show. Because this happens way too often in this country where we love making bold pronouncements. And then we don't follow through with the requisite work required to solve the problem. We have, and think about the knock-on effects. If our kids, the kids who want, you want them to be taxpayers one day,

their parents are taxpayers. By virtue of their parents being taxpayers, they are entitled to having a job market for their kids. And that job market has been taken away You are depriving future taxpayers from getting into the job market from learning the skills that could allow them to become better employees higher skilled employees From from paying into it from being a taxpayer today by having a job today You're preventing the future taxpayers from becoming taxpayers today

It is it is nonsensical to me that we're gonna spend 25 million dollars subsidizing 6,000 jobs that's a drop in the bucket required to fix the problem It is not fixing the problem It is busy work and I've seen it way too many times and I'm getting really tired of it You want to solve this problem? work and I've seen it way too many times and I'm getting really tired of it. You want to solve this problem? Take away the incentive that you as a government or your predecessor created making it so that is more in the interest of that

corporation to hire temporary foreign workers who are not from here than it is to hire a Canadian. And think about what that must do to a young Canadian who their first kick at the can trying to get that first summer job they knock at every single door and they are turned away at every turn what does that do to their psyche what does that do to their self-worth what does that do with how they view themselves in society I tell you what if it were me I would go right back to my room play fortnight for the rest of the summer. I don't know how that helps anybody. But if nobody wants to hire me, then

I'm going to say to myself, Geez, I really don't have a lot of value here. So I'm going to go back to my room and not provide value to anybody. Hey, John, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Thanks for calling in. Hey, Ben, how's it going? It's funny, you know, we use the term and they're using the new liberal government. 50 fifty percent of the the same old higher liberals that were there before and now if people would take the time to watch the House of Commons I watched Michelle Rembroke who's a rainbow sorry for our beat sorry

Alberta was talking about immigration yeah talking to immigration officer and she presented some facts and she turned around and said those are incorrect facts and that's misinformation. She turned around, she paused and Michelle said I got these right off of your website. Then I watched, I list yeah it's not even the funny part, it's funny but it's not. Yeah. The crazy part and then if you listen to the the public safety officer he was asked some simple questions about just what a pal is, some simple acronyms you should know about, you know, gun control and having a gun. He

couldn't answer the question. So I'll say this, if anybody thinks anything is going to change. Yeah. Well, thank you very much for adding that to the conversation. Look, we have a lot of crises that we have to untangle and take rest control of in this country. And to his credit, Mark Carney, as a leader, is taking a lot on his shoulders. He's got a lot of balls in the air right now. I will absolutely give him credit for managing these crises right now.

Solving them is a different thing. And when it comes to solving it, you have to rely on your team. And it does feel like we are erring on the side of Trudeau and prioritizing making it look like we're doing work, as opposed to actually doing the work. And if that is, in fact, the case, then what we're experiencing, what we've experienced time and time again, which is being very unserious about very serious issues.

I have no doubt that Mark Carney himself takes these issues seriously. But it feels like there are people that he has put in charge of certain things that do not have the requisite depth of knowledge to handle the problem in front of them. And that is going to come and bite us in the butt. Mark, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show.

Thanks so much. Yeah, good morning. Good morning. So I was a little confused by your comment there because when I was, I'm in my 50s, when I was growing up, none of my friends were working. Because I think that the foreign workers, the temporary foreign workers are mostly for

like the agriculture, if I'm not mistaken. I could be wrong, but it's mostly so that the jobs that teenagers used to get back in the day, I hate saying that, but back in the day was out of Tim's or out of McDonald's or out of that's that that's not temporary foreign workers. That's unfortunately grown adults. I'm not anti-immigration, but none of us are. None of us are. Well, yeah, but it's, it's, we have grown adults who can't

find other jobs who are now taking the jobs of kids who would normally start their working career, whatever you want to call it. So I don't think it's a temporary foreign workers. Oh, I've been into enough Tim. I've been into enough Tim's to know that that's not, that that want to call it. So I don't think it's a temporary foreign worker. Oh, I've been into enough Tims to know that that's not the case. They're not just brought here to work on farms. They are, their reach has expanded into the service industry. Hey, thank you very much, Mark.

I really appreciate it. And I hope you have a great day. Bianca, welcome to the show. Hello. Hello. And I don't think I will, I don't think I will say anything new. I fully agree with you fully agree with the with the caller, our previous caller. There aren't jobs for our kids. And there aren't jobs for people who want a part time job for seniors for adults, because they are, they are covered by temporary workers who come here, students from other countries. And again, I'm not against immigration. I am an immigrant. My entire family is. But to bring in temporary workers or to give these jobs to students who

come here to study, and then our kids, when they go look, I have a recent, not recently, a current situation where my two nieces are looking for jobs. They are university students and they can find jobs. And it must weigh on them. They want to be out there. They want to be productive. They want to be useful. They want to lay the groundwork so that they are even more

attractive to employers in the future and if they can't get their foot in the door now what's gonna happen exactly and they they've always had a job they are looking for a job they can't find a job because it's covered by these people bianca thank you very much and i'm really i really hope that both of your nieces get those jobs uh because it does sound like they have an appetite to work and that's what we should be rewarding. So thank you all for your calls. The best high concept sci-fi rig of a role in the universe is back. What the hell?

Oh, how long was I out? Close airlock seven. Seth, please let me out. Rick put you in there for a reason, Speed. Mom, just say it! Get back here! This is for your own good!