Tax writeoffs coming for off-road electric cars, Trudeau tells miners

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Ottawa is making off-road vehicles and automotive equipment eligible for an immediate tax writeoff.

Trudeau is in Toronto this afternoon at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada conference, where he is imploring Canadians to end the polarized debate over how to address climate change.

He says Canadians need to see the opportunities ahead for Canadian businesses to profit from the transition, including as the world’s “cleanest” supplier of metals and minerals used in solar panels and electric batteries.

To help Canada’s mining industry lower its carbon footprint while extracting those resources, Canada will add off-road vehicles like mining vehicles to the list of electric cars that are already eligible for a 100 per cent tax writeoff in the year they are put into service.

Last year’s federal budget introduced the full writeoff for electric cars purchased by businesses, as long as those cars did not also benefit from the cash rebate for electric and hybrid-electric vehicle purchases.

The expanded incentive is expected to cost $62 million over the next five years.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 2, 2020.

The Canadian Press