Federal Government: 1)Ottawa sets 100-day timeline to fix CRA call centre delays; 2)Carney delays electric vehicle sales mandate by one year, launches cost review; 3)A look at the race to replace Canada’s rapidly aging fleet of submarines

1)Ottawa sets 100-day timeline to fix CRA call centre delays

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Craig Lord, Sept. 2, 2025

Ottawa sets 100-day timeline to fix CRA call centre delays

Minister of Finance and National Revenue Francois-Philippe Champagne speaks to reporters as he arrives at a cabinet meeting on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Thursday, June 19, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Patrick Doyle

The federal finance minister said Tuesday he wants to address service delays at the Canada Revenue Agency within 100 days, even as Ottawa plans spending cuts across the public service.

François-Philippe Champagne set the timeline in a letter to Liberal MP Karina Gould, chair of Parliament’s finance committee, which was posted to his X account Tuesday morning.

In that letter, he said it’s “increasingly apparent” the CRA is not meeting Canadians’ standards.

“The service delays and access challenges Canadians are experiencing from CRA call centres are unacceptable,” he wrote.

Champagne said he spoke to officials at the agency and has asked the CRA to take concrete steps to address the issues with a 100-day action plan.

That could involve reallocating or adding personnel, piloting a call-scheduling system and expanding digital filing options for Canadians, he said.

The letter comes after Champagne sent letters to his fellow ministers in July asking most to find savings of 15 per cent over three years in their departments’ day-to-day spending.

The Union of Taxation Employees says waiting times for Canadians calling to reach CRA agents have ballooned to as long as three and a half hours.

More than 3,000 jobs have been lost at the CRA since May of last year, the union said. It warns services will only get worse if the planned cuts materialize.

The CRA confirmed last week that it already offered extensions to 850 call centre employees whose contracts were set to expire in September.

The size of the CRA workforce grew during the pandemic and over the last few years, from just under 44,000 in 2019 to around 59,000 in 2024.

As of 2025, employee numbers are down to around 52,500.

Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson François Boileau, whose office is responsible for reviewing service-related complaints about the CRA, recently told The Canadian Press that his office is “swamped.”

His office’s last annual report, released in June, found around 24 per cent of complaints are related to issues with call centres.

Champagne said in his letter that he and other tax agency officials will appear at finance committee to update Parliamentarians on the work to get the CRA back up to speed.

Parliament is set to resume on Sept. 15.

— with files from Catherine Morrison

2)Carney delays electric vehicle sales mandate by one year, launches cost review

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Nick Murray, Sept. 5, 2025.

The federal electric vehicle sales mandate will not be implemented in 2026 as planned, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Friday, pushing back by at least a year a policy that would have set minimum sales targets for electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles.

Introduced by the Liberals under former prime minister Justin Trudeau, the mandate would have required 20 per cent of all new vehicles sold in Canada next year be electric.

The standard as written is to rise steadily each year until 2035, by which point all new light-duty vehicles sold in Canada were to be fully electric or plug-in hybrids.

But at a press conference in Mississauga, Ont., Carney said he is suspending the mandate for 2026 and launching a 60-day review of the program to help find “future flexibilities and ways to reduce costs.”

In a background document provided to journalists, the government said the review “will consider potential amendments to the annual sales targets, including the 2035 goal, and will explore possible additional flexibilities.”

Carney said Canada’s domestic automakers need more liquidity in the face of pressures from the ongoing trade war with the United States.

“They’ve got enough on their plate right now,” Carney said. He did not commit to fully repealing the mandate, as the larger car manufacturers have recommended.

“We’re using this as an opportunity, as part of a broader strategy on climate competitiveness, to look at all our measures to help get greenhouse gases down in the key sectors,” he added.

EV sales in Canada hit a monthly high of 18 per cent last year when the government was offering consumer rebates of up to $5,000.

Sales plunged after the government abruptly ended the popular rebate program when its funding ran out. The most recent data from Statistics Canada showed EV sales accounted for nearly eight per cent of all new vehicle sales in June.

Ottawa has promised to bring back consumer rebates for EVs but it hasn’t said when — much to the annoyance of automakers, who say the lack of clarity is hurting EV sales as buyers await the return of the rebates.

The decision to suspend the mandate for a year comes after months of lobbying from the auto industry — and a recent pledge from the federal Conservatives to target the mandate when Parliament returns this month.

David Adams is president of the Global Automakers of Canada, which represents several carmakers, including Toyota, Honda and Hyundai. He said he welcomes the suspension, but added Quebec and British Columbia — which also have EV sales mandates — need to follow Ottawa’s lead.

“Our members are pleased that the government has recognized that the consumer adoption of electric vehicles is not where government nor industry anticipated it might be,” Adams told The Canadian Press.

“A few short years ago this is what we had asked of the government, that they undertake a pause-and-review approach so they can figure out what the latent demand is for these vehicles, without necessarily incentives or anything else.”

In July, Carney met with the heads of Ford Canada, Stellantis Canada and GM Canada, who told the prime minister there was no way for the industry to meet the targets set out in the EV mandate.

The head of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association, which represents those three companies, said the pause on the EV mandate is “an important first step” but still called for its repeal.

“The EV mandate imposes unsustainable costs on auto manufacturers, putting at risk Canadian jobs and investment in this critical sector of the economy,” Brian Kingston said in a media statement.

Speaking with The Canadian Press, Kingston said not even the return of consumer rebates for EVs would be enough to make the sales mandate sustainable.

“The only way you could achieve the arbitrary targets established in the mandate is by introducing very strong consumer incentives. You see a direct correlation between EV demand and incentives in the market,” Kingston said, adding Ottawa would have to put up at least $1 billion a year to achieve a 20 per cent sales target.

“That’s not good public policy and that’s not sustainable from a fiscal perspective.”

In 2024, electric vehicles neared almost 15 per cent of total new vehicles registered across the country but that was concentrated in two provinces. British Columbia and Quebec both exceeded the 20 per cent marker — Quebec hit 31 per cent — and accounted for almost three in every four new EVs registered across the country.

No other province even hit 10 per cent.

Carney on Friday promised new options to bring more affordable electric vehicles to Canadians. He wouldn’t commit to repealing the 100 per cent tariff Canada imposed on cheaper Chinese EVs, a measure up for review by the end of this month.

China imposed tariffs on Canadian canola in August which were widely seen as retaliation for the EV duties.

Canada introduced tariffs on Chinese EVs last year in lockstep with the United States. Kingston said repealing them would damaging the domestic auto industry by putting it on an uneven playing field with highly subsidized Chinese EVs.

Carney was also pressed by reporters on his overall commitment to climate change, given recent policy changes which moved away from aggressive climate action from the Trudeau government.

He said, in French, the fight against climate change is a “moral obligation” and he committed to reducing emissions.

“We will keep the industrial carbon pricing. We have to improve its function. And there will be a political strategy for climate competitiveness, and a strategy for nature,” Carney said in French.

“We will put emphasis on results as it relates to greenhouse gas emissions.”

Still, those words gave little reassurance to environmental groups who lambasted the government for its pausing of the EV mandate.

“What was the point of electing Mark Carney when we get Pierre Poilievre’s climate policy?” said Keith Stewart, a senior energy strategist with Greenpeace.

“We should be aligning with Europe, which is doubling down on renewable energy and electric vehicles, rather than bowing before Trump’s attack on people and planet.”

3)A look at the race to replace Canada’s rapidly aging fleet of submarines

Who is bidding to supply Canada?

Carney announced in Berlin on Aug. 25 that Ottawa has narrowed the competition, or “downselected,” to just two firms.

One of the two finalists is Hanwha Oceans, which makes the KSS-III submarine at a shipyard in Geoje, South Korea. It’s used by the Republic of Korea Navy and runs on lithium ion batteries. The company is vying to quickly become a top global defence supplier.

Hanwha’s hard sell is how quickly it can supply Canada with vessels. If it gets a contract by next year, the company has said it can deliver its first sub by 2032, a total of four subs by 2035 and then another sub each year. The company has yet to export one of these new subs to another nation.

Its competition is ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, or TKMS, an established submarine maker that supplies the vast majority of NATO’s conventional submarine fleet.

It’s pitching Canada on the new 212CD subs which it is manufacturing for the German and Norwegian navies. They run on hydrogen fuel cells and diesel engines and are based on the older 212A, used by Germany and Italy.

TKMS’ hard sell: interoperability and resource-sharing with NATO allies, who will use the same subs.

Germany and Norway already have orders for 12 in the queue. If Canada joined it wouldn’t be stuck at the back of the line but would have to work out agreements with both the company and the other customers about delivery dates.

The company says it can meet Canada’s tight 2035 deadline for delivering the first of the subs. Its presentation this past week to Canadian officials showed first delivery in 2034 and a second one by 2037.

The model of sub it’s pitching Ottawa, however, has not yet been deployed in action.

What is Canada looking for from the purchases?

While the procurement comes with the decidedly unflashy name of the “Canadian Patrol Submarine Project,” government documents specify that stealth and lethality are key capabilities the Navy wants the subs to have.

Canada’s last major defence policy update “Our North, Strong and Free” singles out protecting the Arctic as a priority, as Russia builds up its military presence there and climate change creates new problems for national security.

The Royal Canadian Navy is looking for a fleet of subs with under-ice capabilities as it eyes stepped up presence in the Arctic and the ability to track and deter threats, and if needed engage in combat.

“In Canada, submarine means weeks under the sea ice, as well as in the Pacific,” Carney said in Berlin this past week. “We need to be able to have year-round fleets on all three coasts under quite demanding conditions, so that’s how the field narrows quite quickly.”

Carney has also said Canada needs to see a return to the domestic economy when the country opens up its wallet for such a large purchase.

Hanwha reportedly offered establishing maintenance facilities on both coasts, while TKMS has said it wants to involve all three major Canadian ship yards.

How much will the new subs cost?

This is expected to be the largest defence procurement project in decades. The government has not put a price tag on how much exactly it’s looking to spend on submarines, nor has it given potential suppliers a range or a price ceiling.

They could cost to the tune of tens of billions to acquire, depending on how many subs Canada ultimately decides it wants.

Ottawa has not answered questions in part because it plans to negotiate with suppliers.

But this procurement also follows the F-35s stealth jets purchase, which very recently embarrassed Ottawa when they came in at $27.7 billion — far more than initial estimates of $19 billion.

At one point last year, Trudeau had suggested Canada might shop around for nuclear subs, which can stay underwater for much longer periods of time. Experts expressed doubt and it quickly became obvious that Ottawa was not interested in that kind of commitment.

Nuclear subs are significantly more expensive — billions more — and can be demanding acquisitions with steep repair costs due to their complexity. They would also likely need to be serviced elsewhere, probably in the U.S.

What are the next steps?

Ottawa will enter into intense discussions with both competitors. It will have to choose whether to issue a formal request for proposal, or to go directly into negotiations.

Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee, head of the Royal Canadian Navy, has said it’s possible for Ottawa to decide on one by the end of the year, if it moves aggressively.