By Samir Syed
February 28, 2008 -
The Government giveth, and the Government Taketh. In the same budget that contained a $250m initiative for Automotive Innovation to help the Canadian auto industry make the transition to greater mandated fuel efficiency, Canada's Conservative government quietly canceled the Clean-Car Rebate scheme. Introduced in the 2007 budget, the rebate provided up to $2000 cash back to consumers who purchased new cars with high MPG ratings. The Canadian Press reports that the rebate still applies to vehicles up to the 2008 model year, but expires in March of 2009. Union appeasement may have been behind the kibosh, as virtually all of high mpg whips covered by the scheme were imports. In any case, environmental groups lambasted the Clean-Car Rebate's extinction. "They've missed a great opportunity to be a global environmental leader," declared Andrew Van Iterson of the Green Budget Coalition. "Canadians want to be a leader - and the government's not catching up." Lead, follow or green out of the way? 
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POWERED
February 28th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
The other half of the program, stiff tax surcharges on some high fuel consumption vehicles, will continue.
February 28th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Ah, what else is new. I think a V8 Mustang is waiting in a lot for me. LOL
February 28th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
To be fair, they need to get back some of the tax dollars they’ll lose from allowing up to $5000 to be saved, and not taxing return on investments. So, of course, the logical thing to do would be to treat new green car buyers the same as average car buyers.
February 28th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
With the price of gas skyrocketing, I guess buying a fuel efficient vehicle is its own reward. Gas is rapidly approaching five bucks a gallon here. (currently $1.20/litre)
Glad my wife and I took advantage of this when we did.
February 28th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
Good. It’s bad policy with an arbitrary cutoff.
February 29th, 2008 at 12:22 am
Well Gas or Petrol has now come down a few cents per litre here in Ontario and according to a few experts it will come down more soon as the Canadian dollar is currently well above parity with the US dollar closing today at $1.02!!
This program was only going to run for two years in the first place so nothing has changed and yes Gas users vehicles will still pay extra for that convience!
February 29th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Here in BC, the carbon tax is a bigger issue.