Branden Leslie
Portage—Lisgar, Manitoba · Conservative · Canada
“Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has said affordability is the best it has been in decades, but normal, hard-working, everyday Canadians know that is simply not true. Meat Loaf famously once sang Two Out of Three Ain't Bad , but, surely, three out of four is not good.”
“Mr. Speaker, we have a new top export out of this country. It is announcements and MOUs. Not that long ago, Canadians used to dream of buying a home. Now, under the Liberal Prime Minister , many are starting GoFundMe pages just to pay for essential items for life.”
“Mr. Speaker, I recognize that the minister was not here during the last Conservative government. There are members across the way who were here, and they may recall the outrage whenever the Harper government used time allocation.”
“Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to my colleague's speech. She talked about unintended consequences a lot, which was a bit strange for somebody who, just months ago, told Canadians that it was the Liberals making her communities less safe and that it was their “bail not jail” policies and legislation that favoured criminals over victims.”
“Mr. Speaker, the Liberals did not drive our economy into the ditch by accident. They took every wrong turn and ignored every warning sign, and now they want to blame everyone else. After more than a decade of inflationary spending, red tape and anti-development laws, Canada is now the only G20 country in a recession.”
“Meanwhile, the Prime Minister spent nearly $1 million on luxury catering over 14 trips, enough to feed a family for 55 years. The Liberals can blame the mud, the road or the weather, but everybody knows that they have been behind the wheel. Canadians deserve a government that stops—”
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“It is still too early to tell if this office will succeed in any way, and so far it has only announced projects that basically have already been approved or are already under construction. Out of those 11 projects, the office thinks only two will be deemed projects in the national interest. At its core, what this office is doing is providing a “concierge” service for the cherry-picked projects the Prime Minister has decided to move forward on. The mere fact that the Liberals need to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to hire countless new bureaucrats and probably a bunch of consultants to shepherd projects through this maze of regulations is indicative of how bad things have become in this country. Make no mistake: The government is picking winners and losers.”
“The worst part is that these are not harmless daydreams. Every time government chases one of these activist-crafted fantasies, real people are the ones paying the price. While the activists congratulate themselves for a job well done, Canadians are left to deal with higher costs, fewer choices and a government that seems allergic to anything resembling common sense. Personally, as a strong proponent of getting big projects built in this country, a place where it unfortunately has become next to impossible to get anything done, I am quite upset there were no changes in this legislation to the broken impact assessment process the Liberals created in the first place. Instead of fixing their mess, the Liberals have created a new bureaucracy with the Major Projects Office.”
“The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board rolled back its own net-zero portfolio commitment, with experts linking it to these changes. The Royal Bank of Canada ditched its $500-billion sustainable finance pledge and stopped disclosing key green metrics, fearing penalties. The rules created a chilling effect as businesses halted legitimate green claims to avoid the red tape nightmare. Even the Competition Bureau's guidelines could not save this mess, as industry feedback poured in about the unworkable burden. Now the Liberals are quietly relaxing it to “adequate and proper substantiation” and banning private lawsuits, admitting their overreach without any apology. We were yet again handed another policy straight from the activist ivory tower, which was so divorced from real-world consequences that it is quietly getting tossed in this bill.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in this place on behalf of the residents of Portage—Lisgar, those who proudly call south central Manitoba home. I would like to start today with a glaring example of Liberal incompetence buried in the budget implementation act. The government is sheepishly backtracking on its so-called anti-greenwashing rules in the Competition Act, rules that it rammed through the House just last year in Bill C-59 . Do members remember those? In their ideological zeal to police every environmental claim, the Liberals demanded businesses back up statements with “internationally recognized methodology”, imposing rigid tests that invited frivolous lawsuits. What happened? Reality happened, and it hit hard.”
“Madam Speaker, my colleague mentioned in his excellent speech that the GST collected is now going to be less than the entirety of the deficit interest payments we are going to have this year. Should the Government of Canada change the title of the goods and services tax to the debt servicing tax?”
“Madam Speaker, I would like my hon. colleague to continue a bit in this vein. It has clearly touched a pressure point for the government. We talked a lot about how there is a blind trust, but the fact is that we know the shares remain in Brookfield. That is why policies that directly impact and benefit Brookfield, we know, are helping the Prime Minister . Therefore, I am wondering if the member could clarify why the blind trust, as established, is not doing an adequate job in stopping the Prime Minister from enriching himself.”
“Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague worked in business. I would like to get his understanding of this: If a business were to be run in a way that adds $10 million in debt every hour, as the government is set to do with this inflationary budget, how long would it be able to stay in business?”
“Madam Speaker, I suppose it is par for the course. The Liberals break it, promise they can fix it and fail. It is a vicious cycle. Bill C-242 is a solution. The Liberals stole enough Conservative ideas in the last election. They should take this one, run with it and make this country a safer place.”
“Her death did not need to happen. It is so disappointing to have so many Liberal MPs stand up and forget that they defended the status quo that has caused so many tragedies to families like Kellie's and others right across this country.”
“Madam Speaker, it is important to highlight the insane number of promises the so-called new Prime Minister of the lengthy, 10-year Liberal administration has made, how few he has kept and how few he possibly could keep. The member mentioned my community. When Kellie died, it shook our community. My hometown has 13,000 people. Within hours, everybody knew, and then they heard what had actually happened. They were sad. They were heartbroken when Kellie died because she was such an important pillar of our community, but that sadness turned into sheer disgust knowing that her death was entirely preventable. If the Liberals had taken the bail system seriously over the last nine months or, more importantly, over the last 10 years, as we have seen a steady increase in crime rates across this country, she might still be with us.”
“Madam Speaker, the easy question to ask is what took so long. The system has been broken for years. Yes, there is a so-called new Prime Minister . The member was part of the old government that broke the system. I can assure him, having talked to victims and frontline police officers, that there have not been consultations for the last 10 years. They have been ignored. This has been an academic exercise in trying to figure out the best way to stop crime, and it has failed. The soft-on-crime, revolving-door Liberal justice system is an admonishment of the approach the Liberals have taken. It is a complete failure. It is time that we listen to victims and frontline police officers and put criminals behind bars, where they belong.”
“In the face of rising crime across Canada, why did the government fail to use this opportunity to strengthen penalties for other serious offences? It could have used this bill to send a clear message to every would-be criminal out there that their days of terrorizing our streets without consequences are over. (1330) Parliament has a moral duty to do more than just tinker around the edges. We owe it to the family of Meechelle and Ron Best and the families of countless others who have faced serious loss, because no parent should ever have to endure the death of a child thanks to a broken bail system.”
“It is time for laws that put families, victims and communities first. Meechelle and Ron Best’s story reminds us why delay is not an option. Their grief is a call to action. I am so proud of them for coming to deliver their story. The lives of countless Canadians hang in the balance, and no one should have to endure what they have endured. When this legislation reaches committee, I expect members of Parliament to strengthen it and fix the mess the Liberals have created once and for all. I will note, as the Conservative shadow minister for justice has pointed out, that this bill is entitled the “bail and sentencing reform act”, yet out of the 80 paragraphs spanning 35 pages, only a single provision touches on sentencing reform, and it concerns contempt of court, not violent crimes.”
“Governments at every level must act to support the municipalities, including those represented by the Association of Manitoba Municipalities, that are on the front lines of community safety. To the families who have lost loved ones because of this system’s failure, we hear them. To the communities of rural Manitoba, the urban core of Winnipeg and Canadians across this country, we stand with them as Conservatives. They deserve a justice system that protects them, not one that endangers them. The Liberals have had years to get this right. They promised balance, but instead delivered policies that emboldened repeat offenders and eroded the public trust. Too many Canadians have paid the price through trauma, fear and loss, and that simply cannot continue. It is time to fix the bail system.”
“This is not about isolated failures, but about a system that has simply lost its way. If an offender has repeat violent convictions, uses weapons, has breached bail conditions and ignored warrants, we must ask ourselves what responsible jail system would still default to release. It is under the Liberal government that our system has done exactly that, and the consequences have been tragic. That is why I have been unwavering in calling for laws that protect victims, defend our public safety and restore confidence in our justice system. Judges must begin every bail consideration with the highest safety threshold in mind, and repeat violent offenders must not be given a free runway to strike again.”
“Before her death, he had been released on bail three times in the two weeks leading up to the Christmas prior to Kellie's early January killing. Despite his record, he remained free time and time again. After killing her, he was transferred to a behavioural facility, from which he quickly escaped. Meechelle told the justice committee that her heart sank when she heard that news. She feared for someone else’s life and that some other family was about to be destroyed, because his pattern of behaviour was so crystal clear to anybody who paid it any attention. She asked a simple but powerful question of that committee: What good are assurances when someone who shows no respect for the law, police or judges keeps getting another chance? This is the question that every single one of us must answer.”
“They deflected that there was ever a problem and left provinces and municipalities to deal with the consequences. I want to highlight one heartbreaking example from my riding, in my home province of Manitoba. Meechelle and Ron Best recently appeared before the justice committee. They lost their daughter, Kellie, a young woman of 28 from Portage who had her entire life ahead of her. She was engaged to Travis and was expecting to walk down the aisle this year. She worked in tourism in the community. She had started her own small business. Everybody simply loved her. The man accused of killing her had multiple outstanding warrants and a long record of breaches, yet he was repeatedly released. It was when he was out on bail that he caused the crash that killed Kellie.”
“Studies on reconviction and recidivism show that offenders with multiple prior convictions are far more likely to reoffend within months of release than those with fewer convictions. (1325) When someone has a documented history of violence, multiple arrests, convictions and breaches of court orders, releasing them on minimal conditions is not fairness; it is gambling with the safety of the public. Police chiefs, prosecutors and frontline officers all warned that this would happen. Many of us have talked to those frontline officers and heard directly from them. They knew this consequence was coming. For years, they asked Ottawa to provide the tools to keep the most dangerous individuals off our streets. Instead, the Liberals delayed.”
“In its public safety agenda, the AMM outlined the urgent need for federal action and greater support for local policing across the province. Municipal leaders, from those in Winnipeg to those in small rural and northern communities, have been crystal clear that public safety is their top priority. A recent AMM survey found that nearly nine in 10 Manitobans want immediate federal action on bail reform and amendments to the Criminal Code to hold repeat offenders accountable. Those voices can no longer be ignored. Statistics confirm what Canadians already feel. The national data shows that the violent crime severity index has been climbing for years, frankly, ever since the Liberals took power back in 2015, when they began their process of breaking the bail system and the entirety of the justice system. Offences involving weapons are up.”
“In 2023, rural police-reported crime in Manitoba reached 14,846 incidents per 100,000 people, almost 1.6 times the rate of urban areas. When bail decisions fail to account for repeat violent offenders, it is small towns and rural communities that pay the highest price. Municipal policing reports across the country tell the same story time and time again: Repeat violent offenders with long histories of arrests and breaches are being released, only to commit murder or some other serious assault or crime while out on bail. This is not a theoretical debate; it is a tragedy that has been unfolding in real time across our country over the past number of years, and it must come to an end. The Association of Manitoba Municipalities has repeatedly called for bail reform.”
“Under the Liberals' watch, the bail system in Canada has become a revolving door. Dangerous individuals are released back on our streets where they continue to victimize innocent Canadians. That is not justice. That is negligence, and it is literally costing lives. Laws are only as effective as the consequences they produce, yet over the past many years, the Liberal government has prioritized procedure over protection. We were told that reform would come from court interpretations or social programs rather than through tougher laws. Meanwhile, habitual offenders with long criminal records were repeatedly released, breached their conditions and returned to the same cycle of violence and victimization. The results were entirely predicable and preventable.”
“Repeat violent offenders cycled through the system again and again. There was little to no deterrence. Victims were left behind and ignored. Later, the Liberals introduced Bill C-48 , and while it added a few reverse onus provisions, it still failed to give clear direction on detaining repeat violent criminals. Now, once again, we find ourselves trying to fix the mess the Liberals have created over the past 10 years. The consequences of their inaction have been devastating. Countless innocent Canadians have been harmed or have even lost their lives because the government failed to act when it mattered most. We are often told that the justice system must balance the presumption of innocence with public safety, and of course it must, but that balance has been broken.”
“During that time, Canadians have listened to various Liberal MPs and commentators defend the disastrous legislative changes that have directly contributed to the crime crisis that is currently plaguing our communities. When the Liberals weakened the previous bail system, the Liberals told Canadians that they were simply following a court decision. They claimed that by passing Bill C-75 , they were only honouring legal precedent, but the truth is that no court demanded the automatic principle of release to be codified into law. That was a political choice, one the Liberals engineered and that Canadians have paid the price for. Then came Bill C-5 back in 2022. That legislation removed mandatory minimums for serious gun offences and allowed conditional sentences for many other very serious crimes. The results were entirely predictable.”
“Madam Speaker, it is always a humbling privilege to rise on behalf of the residents of Portage—Lisgar, particularly on such an important issue. Before I get into the substance of today's matter, I would like to give a little shout-out of pride to my beautiful wife Cailey. We welcomed our second daughter into the world last month. She has been an absolute rock star. Today is the 22-month birthday of our first daughter, Maeve. I just want to say how much mommy and daddy love both Morgan and Maeve. Before I was even elected to Parliament, the need to reverse the dangerous changes the Liberals made to our bail system was front-page news for years. This issue has been raised time and time again, almost every day in the House, for years.”
“Madam Speaker, just like the Prime Minister , that is an avoidance of an answer. Since day one, the Prime Minister has dodged public disclosure of his financial holdings. He has flipped through every excuse in the book, but he is finally running out of pages. This week, 163 Liberal MPs tried to protect their leader from scrutiny, but they failed. The Conservatives passed a motion to investigate his corporate connections and potential conflicts. Instead of hiding behind a cloak of secrecy, he should finally come clean. I will ask this again. Can the Prime Minister confirm that he has not a single dollar stashed away in offshore tax havens?”
“Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister told young Canadians that they need to sacrifice more. However, when he ran Brookfield, he did anything but that. He hid money on a Caribbean island to dodge Canadian taxes, not in a bank but through a bike shop in Bermuda. If this is the kind of sage financial advice that we are meant to follow, I wonder if we can expect the owner of that bike shop to be appointed the next Liberal Minister of Finance. I have a simple question: Will the Prime Minister confirm that he is not stashing cash in offshore havens?”
“Seniors are struggling to stay afloat and parents cannot afford to put a nutritious meal on their kids' plates. It is clear that Canadians simply cannot afford another dime in Liberal food taxes. When will the Liberals stop driving up grocery store prices and finally give families a break at the checkout line?”
“Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister told us to judge him by the prices at grocery stores, so let us do just that. Food inflation has blown past the Bank of Canada's target. Canadians are paying over $800 more for food this year than last, and 39% of Canadians have experience food insecurity over the last 12 months. However, the Liberals are plowing ahead with measures that will make groceries even more expensive. From the industrial carbon tax on fertilizer and farm equipment to the food packaging tax and inflationary spending, the story is the same. Just this month, representatives of the Liberal government were at an international meeting backing the UN's net-zero shipping tax. Do they not see the obvious? If we tax the farmer who grows the food, those who package it and the shippers who move it, prices will go up.”
“Earlier this year, thousands of Canadians signed my petition calling on the government to act. Now is the time. There is simply no reason to wait. I plead with the Liberals to pass our Conservative jail not bail act because no family should ever get the call that their loved one is not coming home thanks to a broken bail system.”
“Mr. Speaker, the Liberals' reckless bail laws are destroying lives. Kellie Verwey of Portage la Prairie was just 28 years old. She had a bright future and friends and family who adored her. All of that was ripped away when she was killed because of the actions of James Lorne Hilton, a repeat offender who should have never been free. Hilton had a long criminal history. He broke his bail conditions again and again, yet the system looked the other way. Instead of protecting Kellie, it protected him. Because of that failure, her parents lost their daughter and her fiancé lost his soon-to-be wife. Kellie's death was not fate; it was preventable. Her story serves as a painful reminder of the human cost of a broken system that puts criminals ahead of victims.”
“The last time I checked, Canadians care about grocery store prices, out-of-control crime and stronger take-home pay, not photo ops in foreign capitals. Since the Prime Minister has failed to keep his promises, maybe he should park the plane, stay for a while and work on improving the lives of Canadians.”
“Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has been racking up the air miles lately and Canadians are only seeing postcard pictures to show for it. I am starting to wonder if he is travelling to the U.K. so much just to pick up the extra clothes that he left at home. If we measured success by jet lag and passport stamps, the Prime Minister would earn top marks, but here are the facts. He promised to remove tariffs and diversify markets, yet our canola producers are now facing crippling tariffs. He promised the fastest-growing economy in the G7, but we are the fastest-shrinking economy. He said to judge him by grocery store prices, but they are rising faster today than when he became Prime Minister. He said we are going to “spend less and invest more”, but somehow his deficit is set to be billions more than even his predecessor's.”
“We know this agenda is not actually about achieving results. The Liberals, at the end of the day, have sidelined the hard-working Canadians, and at the end of the day, is this—”
“Mr. Speaker, just for frame of reference, the question that was read, but certainly not answered, was whether anyone ever lost their job or received a bonus despite these failures. I am not exactly sure what I just heard, but I know it was a canned response. This is why people get so frustrated with government. The Liberals sit here and they want to look at Parliament. They want to hear what we have to say, the questions that opposition members want to ask the government, and those are the types of responses we get. Speaking of the costly and wasteful programs that we are well aware of in the government, there is a net-zero accelerator fund under the Liberal government. It has doled out $8 billion in subsidies to very large, multinational companies without any commitment to actually reduce emissions.”
“Unfortunately, taxpayers know that I can go on and on, and we know there are many unfortunate, egregious examples, but I would like to ask some simple questions. Has anyone within the government ever lost their job? Even worse, did they receive a bonus for these abysmal failures?”
“As a result, the municipality cannot afford to move forward with the project any longer. To make matters worse, the Liberal government is trying to shake down the Municipality of Rhineland for $50,000 for part of the costs that went into this project. Let me move to the national level. The original budget of the Trans Mountain pipeline was what we would call a measly $7 billion. Then the Liberal government went ahead and nationalized it, and the budget ballooned to over $34 billion, nearly five times the cost of the original estimate. Of course, we can talk about the Liberals' frankly ridiculous and unjustified firearms confiscation scheme. Instead of going after criminals, what they are doing is planning to spend $600 million to expropriate firearms from some of the most law-abiding Canadians in this country, I would argue.”
“Mr. Speaker, last week, I asked the minister a pretty straightforward question: Why can the Liberals not get anything built on time or on budget? It is a reasonable question that most taxpayers ask, unfortunately, on a far too regular basis. His answer at the time was nonsensical. He completely ignored the question and gave some typical government gobbledygook answer. Today, I am going to take the opportunity to outline a few examples of the Liberals' wasteful incompetence, and I would like to start local. The Liberal government committed funds to the Municipality of Rhineland for its Gretna Arena project, but because of delays on the side of the federal Liberal government in signing the contribution agreement and due to, generally speaking, Liberal inflationary policies, the cost of the project ballooned in a huge way.”
“Mr. Speaker, I do not recall the Liberal candidate in my riding openly saying people shall all soon be buying electric vehicles because that is what they must do. I do not recall that coming up. The reality is, again, that if someone wants to buy an electric vehicle, I do not care. I think that is great. I hope it works out well for them. If someone wants to toot around downtown X, that is fine. The difference here is that the government should not control what we can and cannot buy. We should let the market decide. Maybe someday we will all have them, and maybe we will not. It should not be the government telling us how we get there.”
“Mr. Speaker, I will always stand up for the rights of the people I represent to heat their homes and to get where they are going with a little heat in a vehicle of their own choosing. This member might want to try to distract from the motion we are talking about today, but it is simple. Should the government mandate the end of the distribution and sale of gas-powered vehicles, and should the government control every aspect of our life, including how we get where we are trying to go? It is pretty clear where I stand. That member should get on our side.”
“Mr. Speaker, that still exists. If someone wants to do that, they still can. That is the beauty of freedom. We do not believe in trying to impose our beliefs on everyone else. That is up to the Liberals, and I hope they learn from Canadians, because that is not what people want. If someone wants to take a cart and buggy down the gravel road I grew up on, they can do so. That is okay, but what the government cannot do is say they have to take a cart and buggy down there. That is freedom, and I will stand up for that every step of the way.”
“I thought the Liberals might have learned their lesson after the carbon tax, but they seem hell-bent on continuing down this path of forcing Canadians to choose between rent, heat, gas, just the cost of living, and their ideology. (1655) Let us stop the madness. Let us stop punishing the hard-working people who make this country run. Let us support this motion.”
“I will fight to allow them to drive what they think is best for them and their family, not what somebody in downtown Toronto thinks they should drive. This is simply ridiculous. It is unaffordable. It is out of touch. If the Liberals do not listen to me, I think they will hear it loud and clear from Canadians when their choices are taken away. I do not think Canadians are aware that this mandate is about to be pushed down upon them. Let electrical vehicles rise or fall on their own merit, not what the government says they must do. Let us stop pretending this is about saving the planet, because it is not. It is about activists deciding how we should live our lives, what we should drive, how we should drive and how much privilege we have to have to pay to do so.”
“Despite the government's desire, it is not one income bracket either. This is a vast country, a country of gravel roads and busy highways, of farmers and commuters, and of truckers and tradespeople. Let me say this very clearly. I trust Canadians to make their own decisions. The Liberals seem to think differently. They trust the lobbyists, their friends at the green-tech start-ups who line up for subsidies for programs like this, and the left-wing think tanks, which are full of folks always cooking up ways to make people's lives a little more miserable and expensive. I trust the farmer in Morris or Rosenort, the electrician in Portage, the nurse in Morton, the trucker in Winkler and the mom in Altona, juggling groceries and rent and trying to put her kids in hockey or music.”
“I also believe in common sense, something the Liberal government has yet to come close to mastering. If EVs are the future, which they may be, they should not need government mandates to succeed. They should win on the open market by competing on cost and competing on performance and reliability. That is how innovation works, not through force but through freedom. The Liberals do not seem to believe in freedom. They believe in control, a command and control economy. This mandate is not about helping the environment. It is about expanding government power over yet more aspects of our lives. To what end, I do not know, but that is all it seems to be. Worst of all, it ignores a simple truth, which is that Canada is a diverse country. It is not a small country. It does not have one climate. It is not one geography.”
“The battery range plummets, charging takes longer, running the heater or the defroster drains the power, and suddenly the EV becomes a liability when someone gets stuck in the middle of a gravel road on a dark, windy, storm-filled night. Forgive me if I am a little skeptical when the government that is unable to introduce a budget tells me it has figured out this whole plan, this infrastructure plan and this EV mandate plan. It cannot even plant trees right. Do members remember the two billion trees the government was supposed to plant? It cannot even do that right, never mind get a network of EV chargers across this country. I believe in innovation. I believe in technology. I believe in smart environmental policy. However, I also believe in freedom, something the Liberal government seems to have forgotten.”
“It is looking at using two new fuel combustion turbines. We cannot make this up. This is what is happening. The Liberal government is plowing ahead regardless of the generation requirements. If we are talking about common sense, one of the things the Liberal government has forgotten is the Canadian winter. I am from the Prairies, and I can assure the House that winter is not just a season; it is a test of endurance. We might get March break, but it is a long season. It is endurance when we have -20°C days on a regular basis, -30°C for weeks at a time, and wind chills that blow snow across every single street and road. In these conditions, electric vehicles do not perform the way that they were advertised to, that they were supposed to.”
“In rural Canada, there is not a lot of options to charge EVs. Some of our smaller communities do have some and, frankly, they are often empty. We do not have chargers on every street corner. In many parts of my riding, most people are still waiting on reliable cell service. They are not waiting for an electric vehicle charger to be placed up on the gravel road. Even if those chargers existed, what about the electrical capacity required? In my home province, Manitoba Hydro has already warned that we do not have the generation capacity for any major new projects in our province and, worse, even for existing usage within about five years. Manitoba Hydro is proposing about a billion dollars in new spending to try to prepare for that increased demand over the next decade or two. Here is the punchline, though.”
“After paying $150, we walk out wondering what we are actually going home with and how many days it may last, yet the Liberals think that now is still the time to focus on this, to demand and mandate that EVs be in every garage or outside every house or apartment building right away. People cannot afford it. It is easy to mandate something like this when we make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, but try telling this to the families that I represent, the folks who have already picked up that second job after they thought their first one was good. As a welder, they are making a pretty good salary. They had to pick up a second job just to make ends meet, just to make sure their kids have an opportunity for a little bit of a better life. (1650) We could talk about the infrastructure component or, more importantly, the lack thereof.”
“They will need to be upgraded by the local hydro provider, costing thousands of dollars each. Of course, the entire neighbourhood's circuits may then need thicker wires and upgraded breakers, which, if done in communities across our country, will cost billions of dollars. Who is going to pay for it all? First of all, it would be everybody who pays an electricity bill; second, it would be taxpayers. Those are the same people, though. Meanwhile, we have household debt at historic rates. Mortgages are increasing and stretching budgets extremely thin for so many Canadians. Grocery bills are going up every week.”
“It is going to be thousands of dollars, assuming that their home even has the electrical panel and capacity to handle it. There are a lot of houses out there that are 60 amp or 100 amp. A level 2 EV charger can draw up to 50 amps of power. We add in our air conditioner, our hot water tank, our dishwasher, our lighting, just life, and a lot of electrical panels cannot handle it. Therefore, we would have to upgrade the amperage availability within our homes. We can talk about the street transformers that we all know from our own homes. Each pole-top transformer typically serves five to 10-ish homes. This is based on traditional electrical loads. When everyone starts having to charge their EVs at night, those transformers may not be able to handle the extra load per home.”