Are you considering getting away from gas powered, and buying an electric vehicle instead?

Canada’s Environment Minister is calling for a national mandate which would require auto dealers to sell a certain number of electric vehicles.

And Steven Guilbeault wants this mandate in place by the end of next year.

“We’ll see more and more of these vehicles being sold in Canada, different price ranges, different sizes, more choices for consumers,” Guilbeault explained, “We know that when this happens, EV sales go up. This will not come into effect in the next few months, but it will come into effect very soon.”

The Trudeau Liberals campaigned on bringing in a mandate to meet a goal that half of new vehicles sold would be electric by 2030, and 100-percent would be electric by 2035.

Canadians bought more electric vehicles in the last two years than the previous eight combined, but still only three per cent of new cars registered were battery-electric or plug-in hybrids.

Growth in electric vehicles has been swift in the last few years, but almost entirely in Quebec and British Columbia, both of which have a provincial sales mandate.

Guilbeault says a sales mandate would stimulate automakers to boost supplies of electric cars across Canada, just like provincial mandates in B.C. and Quebec have already done so.