Electric cars are among the many necessary solutions to Canada’s environment problems, but they are far from a panacea, Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault told a conference on public transit in Montreal on Monday.
Guilbeault said over-estimating the ability of electricity-powered transportation to solve climate change and other environmental crises would be “an error, a false utopia that will let us down over the long term.”
Guilbeault noted that about one-quarter of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions come from transportation. While his government supports electrification of vehicles, it has also been investing heavily in other programs and plans to move Canadians out of private cars and onto public transit or active forms of transportation.
He said the Liberal government has committed $30 billion to develop public transit since 2016, and has announced the country’s first recurrent financing program for public transit projects, which will provide $3 billion per year for projects starting in 2026. The Liberal government also introduced an Active Transportation Fund in 2021, investing $400 million into projects that encourage walking, cycling, and the use of wheelchairs, scooters, e-bikes, roller blades, snowshoes and cross-country skis. Projects funded include multi-use pathways, bike lanes, footbridges across roadways, new lighting, signage and communication that encourages active transportation.
Besides funding these types of projects, all levels of government must make the hard decision to stop expanding the road network, he said. Adding more roads and new lanes on existing roads has proven to encourage more car use, which means more congestion, and more calls for road expansion, he said.
“Our government has made the decision to stop investing in new road infrastructure. Of course we will continue to be there for cities, provinces and territories to maintain the existing network, but there will be no more envelopes from the federal government to enlarge the road network. The analysis we have done is that the network is perfectly adequate to respond to the needs we have. And thanks to a mix of investment in active and public transit, and in territorial planning and densification, we can very well achieve our goals of economic, social and human development without more enlargement of the road network.”
He said the money that in the past was regularly invested in asphalt and concrete for the ever-expanding road network is better invested into projects that will help fight climate change and adapt to its impacts.
Dr. Eve Riopel agrees with Guilbeault on the need to move beyond the idea that electric cars will solve all environmental issues. Riopel is a doctoral student at Johns Hopkins University and the lead author of a paper released last week by the Quebec Association of Physicians for the Environment, which calls on Quebec to update its air pollution norms to reflect current scientific knowledge.
For example, the paper notes that small particulate pollution, or PM 2.5, is one pollutant that harms human health much more than was previously thought. The small particles, which are emitted by industry, wood-burning and gas-fired vehicles among other sources, are cancer-causing, and increase the risk of premature death due to cardiovascular and respiratory events and strokes. A Health Canada study published last year estimated this type of pollution was associated with about 2,300 premature deaths in Quebec in 2015.
Riopel’s report was published last week with the support of the Collège des médecins du Québec and 13 other associations representing health professionals in Quebec. It noted that the tightening of anti-pollution standards for vehicles and new requirements for cleaner gas has reduced the amount of small particulate pollution emitted by newer vehicles. However, about 60 per cent of the small particulate pollution coming from gas-powered vehicles doesn’t actually come from their tailpipes, but rather from brake friction, tire friction, and road surface dust being churned up as the vehicles travel. And that source of emissions will be even worse with electric vehicles, she notes, because their batteries make them heavier than gas-powered vehicles.
“We think that if we switch to electric cars, everything will be good but it won’t be,” said Riopel, who is also a pediatrician. “That is something we have to be aware of as it could be a very important tool to justify decisions to promote active and public transportation.”
Guilbeault, meanwhile, said he is impressed with the passion of Quebec’s municipal sector for public transit projects. “Sometimes it is at the provincial government level where things go wrong a bit, but things are advancing pretty well in Quebec,” he said, mentioning his support for the REM, as well as the planned extension of the métro’s Blue Line and the tramway project in Quebec City.
He said it is crucial that city and regional planners keep the necessary shift to public and active transit in mind, rather than simply planning for electric car charging stations.
“The solution to mobility will not consist only of electrification. Electrification is a component but it’s not the only thing. There is the question of urban planning that is hyper important. … If you are a decision maker and you decide to build a government institution far from public transit systems, then by default you are inciting people to use their cars to access that public service. All of our planning practices have to be coherent with these mobility objectives, for the reduction of the ecological footprint of transportation and of greenhouse emissions.”