OTTAWA - The federal electric vehicle sales mandate will not be implemented in 2026 as planned, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Friday, pushing back by at least a year a policy that would have set minimum sales targets for electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles.
Introduced by the Liberals under former prime minister Justin Trudeau, the mandate would have required 20 per cent of all new vehicles sold in Canada next year be electric.
The standard as written is to rise steadily each year until 2035, by which point all new light-duty vehicles sold in Canada were to be fully electric or plug-in hybrids.
But at a press conference in Mississauga, Ont., Carney said he is suspending the mandate for 2026 and launching a 60-day review of the program to help find "future flexibilities and ways to red