Canada spent fifty billion trying to force an electric shift

Markets move when people want them to move and they shift when: price, preference, and practicality line up. When politicians shove them in a direction no one asked for, we generally waste money and fail. History proves it. When Henry Ford rolled out the Model T, he didn’t need a parliamentary mandate, and he didn’t have to outlaw horses. He built something: cheaper, faster, and better, and the world stampeded to it. That, my friends, is what real innovation looks like.

Now contrast that with Canada’s EV subsidy experiment. Billions upon billions have been poured into subsidies, grants, and tax credits to push EVs onto the market. According to the Parliamentary Budget Office, governments in Canada, both federal and provincial, have committed over $50 billion since 2020 to try and force this shift in the name of saving the planet. That is the kind of money that could build entire industries, and what do we have to show for it? A market that: still resists, charging infrastructure that still lags, and Canadians who still overwhelmingly prefer the reliability of internal combustion engines.

Look at the marquee projects. Volkswagen’s Ontario battery plant; up to $19 billion in subsidies. Stellantis-LG; more than $15 billion. Northvolt and others bring the total closer to $44 billion just for battery plants. Then add the rest of the programs and you are well north of fifty billion dollars. Politicians dress this up as “Investing in the future,” but if EVs were the obvious future, there would be no need to bribe the market with taxpayer (your) billions. Ford did not hand out coupons for the Model T, but he set a price an ordinary family could afford, and demand took care of itself.

The fallacy here is breathtaking. Leaders think they can buy a market shift, but markets generally do not bend to government coercion for long. Subsidies can distort, mandates can delay, but preference and price eventually decide, and right now, the preference is still largely with ICE. Most people trust a gas truck to start at forty below and they trust it to haul a trailer across the Rockies without a map of charging stops. There is certainly a market for alternative fuels such as: batteries, hydrogen, and natural gas, but let the market decide.

Here is the real kicker. Just imagine if instead of burning $50 billion trying to manufacture demand for EVs, Canada had aimed that money at something bold: a clean-burning, world-class internal combustion engine. Something revolutionary, built here, branded here, and exported globally.

This is no fantasy. Automakers spend billions every year refining engines. GM just invested US$ 888 million into upgrading its Tonawanda plant for next-gen V8s. A brand-new engine line today costs about US$1-2 billion. Do the math; with $50B, you could fund the R&D for a revolutionary Canadian engine, fund two, or three state-of-the-art production lines, and still have billions left for infrastructure investments and export marketing.

Picture a Made-in-Canada engine that runs clean, delivers emissions so low regulators cannot object, and outperforms EVs in range, towing, and durability. Imagine licensing that technology to automakers around the globe. Instead of being a subsidy sinkhole, Canada could be a propulsion powerhouse, exporting the very tech that keeps the world moving while cutting emissions without cutting freedom.

Markets shift rapidly when the product is undeniably better. If we had built that engine, adoption would have been organic. No bans, no subsidies, no lectures. Just like the horse did not disappear because Ottawa, or Washington passed a law. It disappeared because the car was: better, faster, cheaper in the long run.

Instead, we have spent tens of billions to force a transition that still has not happened, and it may never happen on the scale bureaucrats dream of, because the technology does not yet match the reality of Canadian life. You cannot legislate away: physics, geography, or consumer preference, but you can certainly build something better.

The lesson from Ford still holds, do not outlaw the old if you want to get rid of it. Just out-invent it. Canada had the money to do that, but sadly we just did not have the imagination.