Prime Minister Mark Carney is steering Canada toward an economic wreck with his plan to ban the sale of new gas and diesel vehicles by 2035.

Carney has announced a one-year pause and a two-month consultation to find a way out.

Meanwhile, the policy is still dangling over Canadians like a sword of Damocles.

Carney may have bought time, but not credibility. The ban remains an ideological fantasy that ignores reality, punishes taxpayers and threatens a vital industry.

The normal-car ban began under former prime minister Justin Trudeau. Instead of correcting a bad policy, Carney has chosen to carry it forward.

His government is sticking to the 2035 zero-emission mandate, forcing automakers to replace every gas or diesel model with an electric or plug-in hybrid, no matter the cost or practicality.

Ottawa expects 60% of new vehicles to be electric by 2030 and a complete transition by 2035.

Here’s a reality check: Fully electric models represent approximately 8% of sales today and demand keeps falling.

According to Statistics Canada, electric car sales have gone from 14.6% of all new vehicle registrations in 2024 to 8.7% in the first quarter of 2025.

Automakers have warned that the plan is unrealistic. Executives from Ford and Stellantis already warned Carney about battery shortages, weak demand and limited production, making the government’s targets impossible to achieve.

Companies that fall short must buy credits from competitors like Tesla for roughly $20,000 each, costing the industry an estimated $3 billion by 2030.

That’s a tax that goes straight from Canadian car dealerships and automotive plants to Elon Musk and other American billionaires.

That tax will fall on consumers, draining money away from innovation and jobs. Automakers may be forced to cut gas and hybrid models, leaving fewer affordable options.

Prices will rise, older cars will stay longer on the road and families will find it harder and far more expensive to buy a vehicle.

Even if automakers could meet these quotas, Canada’s power grid couldn’t handle the load. Natural Resources Canada estimates that electrifying the fleet will cost more than $300 billion by 2040.

As Ottawa prepares to post a record deficit that could reach $100 billion, one must ask: Where will the money come from?

Canada has about 35,000 public chargers. We would need more than 400,000 by 2035 to meet Ottawa’s targets. The auditor general found existing chargers unreliable and unevenly distributed, especially in rural and northern areas.

Families will bear the cost through higher electricity bills, grid upgrades and rising taxes to fund EV subsidies.

The average Canadian household uses about 10,861 kWh of electricity per year, while charging one electric vehicle adds roughly 4,500 kWh. That’s a 40% increase in power use or the equivalent of running eight refrigerators non-stop for a year.

Multiply that by millions of homes and you get a heavier strain on the grid and a policy that looks like a financial goal.

Taxpayers are already paying for Ottawa’s electric obsession. The federal government has coughed up more than $30 billion for automakers like Volkswagen, Honda and Stellantis to build EV battery plants. Meanwhile, families struggle to afford groceries, gas and rent.

Nearly half of Canadians say they are within $200 of missing monthly payments — that’s how fragile household finances have become.

Families are already choosing between paying rent, heating their homes and putting food on the table. Forcing them to shoulder higher taxes and electricity bills to fund a ban they don’t support is cruel.

A Léger poll shows 56% of Canadians oppose the plan to eliminate new gas and diesel cars, with opposition strongest among lower- and middle-income households. These are the people Ottawa should be helping, not punishing with higher costs and fewer choices.

Carney is staging a consultation to buy time. However, both automotive experts and ordinary Canadians have already spoken. It’s time to scrap the ban on new gas and diesel vehicles.

Nicolas Gagnon is the Quebec director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation