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Who in the Manitoba government decided to exclude Tesla from the province’s electric vehicle rebate program, and why, is still unclear following a court hearing on the decision, the company’s lawyers argued in court Monday.<\/p>\n
Lawyers for Tesla Motors Canada asked a Manitoba Court of King’s Bench judge to overturn the NDP government’s decision to exclude the company from electric vehicle rebates in the province in 2025 and 2026.<\/p>\n
That move was unreasonable and unfair, and lacked transparency, the lawyers argued.<\/p>\n
Manitoba’s EV rebate program, which rolled out in 2024, entitled Manitobans to a $4,000 rebate on some new electric or hybrid plug-in vehicles, or $2,500 on used vehicles. <\/p>\n
But in its spring 2025 budget, released just after the trade war began between the U.S. and Canada, the provincial government cut Tesla out of the rebate program<\/a>. Chinese EVs were also excluded.<\/p>\n Manitoba’s cut followed similar moves in B.C.<\/a> and in Ontario, where Tesla won a 2018 legal case against<\/a> the provincial government over its exclusion. Nova Scotia<\/a> and Prince Edward Island<\/a> also announced Tesla exclusions from rebate programs the same month Manitoba did.<\/p>\n Tesla filed a judicial review application over the Manitoba exclusion earlier this year, naming the province, Manitoba Public Insurance and the ministers of finance, the environment and justice as respondents.<\/p>\n WATCH | Manitoba’s 2025 budget cuts Tesla out of EV rebate program: Manitoba budget targets Tesla, U.S. contractor in midst of trade war<\/p>\n The threat of tariffs loomed over Manitoba’s latest provincial budget, released Thursday, which includes nearly $500 million for a “tariff response contingency” that could kick in if tariffs imposed by the U.S. continue.<\/p>\n The company argued its exclusion must be invalidated, since it’s not clear which of the respondents made the decision or whether any of them were legally allowed to do so.<\/p>\n Michael Parrish, a lawyer for Tesla, called the province’s decision to exclude Tesla “incredibly unfair.”<\/p>\n A slim stack of documents provided by the province to show how it made the decision did not shed light on how a “still unidentified group of people” decided to exclude the company from the program, he told Justice Elissa Neville.<\/p>\n “What is at issue in this proceeding is the actual decision,” he said. “We don’t know why Tesla Canada was excluded, we don’t know what information or documents were considered.”<\/p>\n Tesla says it was not consulted before the exclusion and received no rationale from the province, aside from reading media reports that the decision was “made in order to be ‘elbows up’ in relation to the United States of America,” the application says.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1791247811_237_default.jpg\")
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