Canada’s electric vehicle (EV) rebate program will make a comeback, Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin confirmed this week — but how exactly it will return remains to be seen (via CityNews Toronto).
The original federal rebate program, known as the Incentives for Zero-Emission Vehicles (iZEV) program, launched in 2019 and offered Canadians up to $5,000 off the purchase of a new EV. However, the program exhausted its funding earlier this year, prompting Ottawa to temporarily pause it.
Speaking to The Canadian Press on Tuesday, Dabrusin said the government is actively working on bringing the rebate back. “Will it be named iZEV? That I can’t tell you. But there will be a consumer rebate,” she noted after Question Period in the House of Commons.
Since its inception, the iZEV program helped subsidize more than 500,000 vehicles, with the government spending nearly $3 billion over the last six years. Tesla habitually dominated iZEV rebate claims. The company claimed a whopping $43 million CAD (more than $31 million USD) over just three days in March, triggering a federal investigation.
Calls to reinstate the incentive have grown louder, especially after a noticeable drop in EV sales following the program’s suspension. According to Statistics Canada, EVs accounted for just 7.53% of all new vehicle sales in April 2025 — a steep drop from the 18.29% peak in December 2024. By comparison, not a single month in 2024 saw the EV share dip below 10.65%.
The timing of the rebate’s pause has also intensified criticism of the federal EV sales mandate, which requires 100% of new light-duty vehicles sold in Canada to be zero-emission by 2035. Starting next year, 20% of new vehicles offered for sale must be EVs.
Conservative MPs are now pressuring the government to scrap the policy entirely. “Right now [the Liberals] have a mandate in place that makes it so that Canadians will have to buy EVs. But that does not fit the needs of Canadian families,” said Conservative MP Rachel Thomas during Question Period.
Dabrusin dismissed calls to change course. “It’s been in place since 2023. I don’t see why the Conservatives believe we need to change it in the face of what we’re facing with the U.S. tariffs on the auto industry,” she said.
While no timeline has been set for the renewed EV incentive, Dabrusin’s comments signal Ottawa is unlikely to back away from its electrification goals — even as public support and affordability concerns continue to shift.
