Last year’s Trump-Musk arguments over EV mandates made one thing clear: Electric vehicles have become a political proxy for much larger questions about affordability, industrial policy and climate change action.

Canada saw a similar shift in 2025. Ottawa not only paused the first step of its zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) sales mandate, but also shut down the national EV purchase rebate program after it ran out of funds.

This year, the Carney government signed an agreement with China to allow up to 49,000 Chinese EVs a year into the Canadian market at the most-favoured-nation tariff rate of 6.1 per cent. They had faced tariffs of 100 per cent for several years.

Ottawa then unveiled a new auto strategy that repeals the mandates that had required manufacturers to sell a certain percentage of EVs each year and that all new vehicle sales be EVs by 2035. It replaced the mandates with stronger greenhouse gas emission standards for new vehicles — a move the government claims will put Canada on a path to reaching a target of EVs being 75 per cent of all new auto sales by 2035.

It also reintroduced subsidies for consumers to purchase new battery electric, fuel-cell and plug-in hybrid vehicles, and pledged to invest $1.5 billion to expand Canada’s charging network.

These measures put far too much political and rhetorical weight on new vehicle sales targets and purchase incentives in the hope they can carry the entire green transition in this industry. The goal is to increase the number of new EVs on the road. But this alone won’t succeed. Ottawa also needs to ensure that these new EVs are replacing older vehicles that contribute far more to pollution.

Unless that happens, there will be no benefit for the communities most impacted by traffic-related air pollution, no reduction in inequity in exposure to pollution and no way to lock in the biggest health gains.

Mandates versus subsidies

The Union of Concerned Scientists calls ZEV sales mandates among the most forward-looking climate policies. Working on the supply side, they require automakers to ensure a growing share of the vehicles they sell will be zero-emission – therefore forcing investment in EV availability and creating a clear path to long-term targets.

But Ottawa’s new strategy repealing these mandates continues to allow the sale of gasoline-powered cars as long as the total emissions remain below a certain level through a cap-and-trade program.

By tightening the cap each year, Ottawa is indirectly incentivizing a transition to EVs. The drawback is that this policy can be less effective than a sales mandate in shrinking gasoline-vehicle sales.

Given that EVs can be more expensive than traditional cars, a rapid and equitable green transition in the transportation sector requires another policy on the demand side, such as consumer subsidies (rebates, tax credits), so people can afford to buy EVs.

The conversation needs to shift

Putting more vehicles on the road, even if they are EVs, without first retiring the oldest and dirtiest existing vehicles, may help us to reach climate targets on paper. But in reality, that might worsen the air people breathe.

If Ottawa can cap the flow of Chinese EVs for trade reasons, we can ensure all new sales are capped and are replacing the worst vehicles, rather than simply adding more cars to the road.

We can’t keep treating new EV sales as the whole solution. Even though an EV has no tailpipe exhaust, they still generate pollution through brake and tire wear. The climate and air-quality impact can vary by region. In places where pollution from power generation and other existing emissions already strains air quality, simply adding more vehicles can trigger unintended health consequences rather than bring relief.

In fact, the dirtiest areas on Canadian roads do not come from new vehicles. They come from older ones. Cars and trucks built decades ago were designed under far weaker emissions standards and have deteriorated over time. Measurements consistently show that a small share of older vehicles produces a wildly disproportionate share of pollution – nitrogen oxides, particulates and other compounds that drive asthma, heart disease and premature death.

Chinese EVs : the wrong security debate

Why cheap Chinese EVs may cost Canada more in the long run

What will happen when all those EV batteries reach their end of life?

Health Canada estimates that long-term exposure to traffic-related air pollution results in about 1,200 premature deaths, 2.7 million acute respiratory symptoms, 1.1 million restricted activity days and 210,000 asthma symptom days per year. About 63 per cent of the premature deaths are attributed to heavy-duty vehicles. Reducing the total number of vehicles on roads and replacing the older, more polluting ones with EVs can reduce this burden considerably.

This matters because traffic-related air pollution is not evenly distributed. About four in 10 Canadians live near high-traffic roads. This type of pollution hits children, seniors and low-income communities hardest. Research by my colleagues and me on traffic pollution and childhood asthma shows that long-term health gains do not come from adding new EVs to the existing fleet. They come when old, high-emitting vehicles are replaced by EVs.

What can we do?

EV policy is really about two debates: what powers our fleet and how big our fleet becomes. If incentives and flexible standards mainly grow the EV market without shrinking the gasoline-vehicle market, the total number of vehicles on the road increases – and so does non-exhaust pollution from brake wear, tire wear and road dust, in addition to emissions from burning gasoline.

If cheaper EVs simply expand the total number of vehicles on the road (e.g., families buying EVs as a second vehicle or switching from public transportation to EVs), we will increase the public health burden. This will be particularly harmful in provinces where the electricity grids depend on coal and fossil fuels.

A better plan pairs subsidizing the replacement of the worst-polluting vehicles with EVs and investing in public and active transportation, so fewer trips require a car at all. California pairs its EV mandates with programs that pay people – especially in disadvantaged communities ­– to scrap the oldest, dirtiest cars and replace them with EVs. European countries have also used targeted “cash-for-clunkers” programs to remove high-polluting diesel vehicles.

Canada, by contrast, is stuck in a false binary. Some say we must choose between EV mandates and consumer subsidies, between climate ambition and affordability, between industrial policy and public support. This framing is wrong. The real choice is between whether we continue to focus almost exclusively on new vehicle sales or whether we acknowledge the public health burden of our existing gasoline-powered fleet.

There is a more grounded path forward. We can keep long-term ZEV sales goals but use this opportunity to pivot toward a national strategy that aims to reduce the burden of traffic-related air pollution on public health. We can, for instance, identify the highest-emitting older vehicles and make it easy and worthwhile to replace them with EVs.

We could also design targeted programs for communities with the highest traffic-pollution burdens, where the health benefits will be largest and fastest.

If Canada is serious about climate and public health, it’s time to stop putting all our eggs in the new EV basket – and start retiring the worst polluters first.