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CBC
an hour ago
- CBC
Third Place Studio aims to revitalize Ottawa's downtown community
A new creative studio space in Centretown aims to revitalize the area and provide a 'third place' to foster community and connection.
CBC
an hour ago
- CBC
Can the ZEV mandate survive political pressure and industry objections?
Social Sharing With the federal carbon tax dead and gone, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has found a new target among the Liberal government's climate policies — the electric vehicle availability standard, otherwise known as the zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate. "We will legalize, into the future, your right to drive a gas or diesel-powered truck or car by repealing the Liberal EV mandate," Poilievre said last week, while restating his desire to see a number of Liberal policies repealed. In a Conservative fundraising email in June, Poilievre's deputy leader, Melissa Lantsman, put the issue in even more bracing terms, writing that the "radical Liberals" were planning to make gas-powered vehicles "illegal" and "force" people to buy "expensive" EVs. Appealing to supporters in rural areas — where EVs might be less practical at the moment — Lantsman added that "Liberals in Ottawa and in busy downtown cores think they know better than you." On Thursday, Poilievre announced that Conservatives would be launching a " nationwide campaign" to stop the mandate. The Conservative leader is smart enough to know he is pushing against a policy that is already under pressure. But that may set up the ZEV mandate as a test of the ability of Mark Carney's government to defend and meaningfully advance climate policy — a test Justin Trudeau's government arguably failed on the carbon tax. Whether or not the Charter can be read to give Canadians the "right" to own an internal-combustion engine, it's not quite the case that gas-powered vehicles will be made illegal. More specifically, the ZEV mandate establishes a series of escalating light-duty vehicle sales targets for auto manufacturers and importers, starting at 20 per cent in 2026 and reaching 100 per cent in 2035. Companies have some flexibility if they are unable or unwilling to meet the annual target — they can buy credits from other sellers or invest in charging infrastructure. The debate over EV policy Advocates of action to fight climate change have supported mandates as a way to guarantee a predictable supply of EVs and accelerate adoption — British Columbia and Quebec have each had ZEV mandates for several years. But North American automakers have bristled at the prospect of additional regulation and would prefer to stick with less-prescriptive regulations aimed at emissions from passenger vehicles. Though those "tailpipe" standards have typically been harmonized with the United States and the Trump administration is currently intent on repealing its regulations. Automakers have called on Carney's government to change or scrap the mandate. Against the backdrop of a trade war, the government seems willing to hear them out — Industry Minister Mélanie Joly told the Globe and Mail in July that the government was working with industry to "find what would be that right level." WATCH | Automakers want EV mandate removed: Automakers push Ottawa to drop EV mandates 1 month ago In arguing against the mandate, the auto industry also now points to a recent slump in EV sales in Canada. But auto executives themselves have said the recent slump is a " direct response" to changes in the rebates offered by federal and provincial governments. The federal government's EV incentive ended in January, Quebec's incentive was temporarily paused in February and British Columbia halted its rebate program in May. The Carney government has said it's working on a new rebate, but that promise might be pushing prospective buyers to wait. Joanna Kyriazis, director of public affairs at Clean Energy Canada, says the Liberal government should broadly stay the course with its mandate, but there are compromises it could make. The Liberals could, for instance, build in additional flexabilities or adjust some of the near-term targets. It could even adjust the ultimate target of 2035. "If this idea of a 100 per cent sales target is really polarizing and really scary to Canadians, then bring it down to 95 per cent — show that there's room for the niche applications or niche situations where in 10 years EVs still might not work," Kyriazis says, though adding that she thinks the technology will have advanced enough by then that such an allowance won't be necessary. Such changes might have the effect of watering down the initial policy without deviating from the larger goal — significantly increasing the use of non-gas-powered vehicles for the sake of reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. "[The current sales targets are] in line with where the rest of the world is going," Kyriazis argues. "North America is on a little detour right now, but in the rest of the world, EV sales keep on rising." Worldwide, electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids accounted for 22 per cent of all new car sales in 2024, according to data from the International Energy Agency. In Canada, according to the IEA, EVs accounted for 17 per cent of all sales (Statistics Canada says it was 14 per cent). In the U.K. — where a Conservative government introduced a ZEV mandate in 2024, which was then amended by a Labour government — EVs accounted for 28 per cent of all new cars sold last year. In France, they accounted for 24 per cent. "If you look at jurisdictions that have high levels of EV adoption, it's because they have put in place the conditions to create strong consumer demand. So you have incentives … and you have a much more effective charging infrastructure rollout," says Brian Kingston, president of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association, which represents Ford, General Motors and Stellantis. Beyond the question of which type of regulations make more sense, that argument might make the case for governments putting even more money toward building charging infrastructure, alongside reintroducing rebates for consumers. The politics of EVs In the meantime, there will be a political fight — and it will apparently be waged in terms of a culture war. In a video posted in June, Poilievre said the mandate was not about reducing emissions, but about "imposing elite ideology on the common people." The last time a federal climate policy came under this much concentrated pressure, the carbon tax suffered from both the surging inflation that followed the pandemic and the falling popularity of the prime minister who introduced it. The Trudeau government then undercut its own policy with a carve-out aimed at voters in one region of the country. Appearing before a Senate committee not long after the Trudeau government made that move, Mark Carney said that "if something is going to be changed, then something at least as good is put in its place. Ideally, if you're going to change something, you put in place something better that still has that credibility and predictability that has the power that drives investment." That stated principle might hang over whatever the Carney government is considering now. Ultimately — for Carney and Poilievre, for Canadians in urban and rural communities — there is the unforgiving math of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. Canada is currently aiming to reduce its total national emissions by at least 40 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. The federal government is further aiming to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. The transportation sector accounted for 156.6 megatonnes of emissions in 2023 — 22.6 per cent of Canada's total emissions. Specifically, passenger cars and light trucks for 91.5 megatonnes — 13.2 per cent of the national total.
Winnipeg Free Press
2 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
AI-powered personal finance is here: for better and for worse
Opinion Financial advice at your fingertips is by no means a new innovation. Yet with the rise of artificial intelligence, getting insights about your money has been taken to new heights of potential benefit — and dangers. 'There is a lot of upside to using AI, especially for budgeting, and it's often good as a first draft for anything you want to do,' says Monisha Sharma, Toronto-based chief revenue officer at Fig Financial, which provides consolidation, home improvement and unsecured loans. Fig has some insight on AI's benefits. The fintech company leverages AI technology to make loans quickly to Canadians, but its use case is contained to Fig's own specific data to ensure a low error rate. When generative AI tools like ChatGPT are used by consumers to search for answers to their questions about personal finance, 'it's by no means perfect,' she adds. Yet AI-driven insight and advice is likely to get much better in the years — maybe even months — to come. A 2024 study by MIT's Laboratory for Financial Engineering suggests that AI already shows potential in providing good financial advice. Yet it still has challenges ensuring the advice is based on correct information. Overall, the research points to how, with the right data and protective guardrails, generative AI could be pretty good at providing financial advice. Just don't blindly trust it. That said, blind trust in finance is a bad idea with human experts too. By now, anyone who has used the AI tools — Google's Gemini, Microsoft's CoPilot, Perplexity, among many others — understands what a 'hallucination' is. These fabricated errors produced from generative AI models range from rates of less than one per cent to close to 30 per cent, depending on the search engine, according to one study from early August. When it comes to your money, a hallucination could prove costly. 'A lot of people focus on the pros and forget about the cons,' says Jessica Moorhouse, financial counsellor and bestselling author of Everything but money: The Hidden Barriers Between You and Financial Freedom in Toronto. The stakes are higher with finances, more complicated and nuanced than, by comparison, meal planning, she adds. 'It's unlikely that ChatGPT is going to give you a recipe that is super unhealthy, but when it comes to using AI for money management advice, you have to be cautious.' That said, a lot of Canadians are using generative AI searches to provide them with money know-how. One BMO study from last year found that a third of respondents use it for their finances, though mostly for financial literacy, and the younger you are, the more likely you're going to use it. AI can be a truly valuable personal finance tool if you remember its limitations, says Christi Posner, a Winnipeg-based fintech strategist helping financial companies develop AI tools for personal finance. 'The beauty of gen-AI is that you can talk to it like you text a friend, and it turns complex topics into something you can understand fast,' she says, noting the algorithmically driven software 'learns' from potentially hundreds of millions of documents on a variety of subjects that it can access. It excels at building budgets, discovering savings and investing strategies, while explaining complex financial concepts in plain language. It can even tell you, based on your savings, age and forecast retirement date, whether you're on track to reach your goal. 'AI makes money choices easier,' says the former debt counsellor, who understands well the impact of emotionally driven poor choices. 'From comparing mortgage options to meal planning, AI can simplify the hardest parts of money management.' That includes helping individuals find the best deals on travel, which another recent study found. The research by Adyen, a payment services provider, found a third of respondents are using it to help with travel decisions. 'We found it's used mostly to build a personalized travel itinerary,' says Sander Meijers, Canada country manager at Adyen in Toronto. He's used it himself when on vacation for finding suitable activities for his kids. 'What might take me a couple of hours to plan, maybe, takes seconds.' Still, the study found people still prefer the human touch — like getting one-the-ground advice from a hotel concierge. Similarly, it's difficult to replace the human mind and its ability for nuance required for personalized financial advice because of the emotions that often factor into them. 'It's tempting to let AI figure it out for you, but financial planning has emotional and behavioural components that AI can't handle,' Posner says. Monday Mornings The latest local business news and a lookahead to the coming week. It can draft a budget, but it can't make you stick to it. It can point to places where you can cut expenses, but it does not know which ones bring joy to your family, Posner adds. But it does make learning about money more approachable. 'People's financial lives are deeply personal, and talking about money can be scary,' she says. 'AI takes away the fear and stigma about money and debt, and provides a non-judgmental starting point.' Joel Schlesinger is a Winnipeg-based freelance journalist joelschles@
