Liberal Minority Government 2025 - ???

[brihard]

Let's see if I'm on the right track about EVs and China.


The Liberal government pushed hard for Canada switching to EV'S, including attempting to ban gas vehicle sales by 2035. (In many cases people who didn't pledge the jump to EVs were vilified as climate deniers [drawing from holocaust denier themes] but that's a different story.)

Canada's infrastructure to switch to all EV's is no where near ready.

From mining and refining critical minerals (lithium, cobalt, rare earths) to battery manufacturing, China controls most global production capacity and dominates the supply chain

Even if Canada mines its own minerals, nearly all refining and processing must go through Chinese facilities (creating a refining chokehold)

Canada risks swapping dependence on imported oil for dependence on Chinese controlled minerals and components.

Any Chinese export restrictions, political tension, or supply disruption could halt Canada’s EV industry overnight.

Chinese government-supported corporations have quietly bought stakes in mines and processing operations worldwide, consolidating control.

Canada and its allies currently lack the large-scale refining and battery manufacturing infrastructure to compete or operate independently.

Much of China’s refining is powered by coal, meaning EV production indirectly relies on high-emission energy sources (Making Canada's attempts to paint ourselves as climate change leaders hypocritical).

Weak labour and environmental standards in Chinese supply chains undermine Canada’s “green” and “ethical sourcing” image.

As Canada commits deeper to EV adoption, Beijing gains greater influence over a critical part of Canada’s economy and energy transition.

The more Canada pushes “clean technology” without domestic capacity, the more control shifts from Ottawa to Beijing.

We want Canada to rely on EV's and we want China to control practically all aspects of it?

Can’t say you’re bang on for every single point (you might be; I’m just not sure) but in general I largely agree. With that said, the walk back on the EV mandate has already started, and that’s good. As you say, domestic infrastructure and supply chains are nowhere near ready.

 

[Czech_pivo]

Can’t say you’re bang on for every single point (you might be; I’m just not sure) but in general I largely agree. With that said, the walk back on the EV mandate has already started, and that’s good. As you say, domestic infrastructure and supply chains are nowhere near ready.

AI needs and EV needs are going to be massively competing with each other going forward.
Until we start cranking out new compact nuclear reactors like m&m’s, I just do t see EV’s flipping over to 50% market share anytime soon.

 

[Altair]

Let's see if I'm on the right track about EVs and China.


The Liberal government pushed hard for Canada switching to EV'S, including attempting to ban gas vehicle sales by 2035. (In many cases people who didn't pledge the jump to EVs were vilified as climate deniers [drawing from holocaust denier themes] but that's a different story.)

Canada's infrastructure to switch to all EV's is no where near ready.

From mining and refining critical minerals (lithium, cobalt, rare earths) to battery manufacturing, China controls most global production capacity and dominates the supply chain

Even if Canada mines its own minerals, nearly all refining and processing must go through Chinese facilities (creating a refining chokehold)

Canada risks swapping dependence on imported oil for dependence on Chinese controlled minerals and components.

Any Chinese export restrictions, political tension, or supply disruption could halt Canada’s EV industry overnight.

Chinese government-supported corporations have quietly bought stakes in mines and processing operations worldwide, consolidating control.

Canada and its allies currently lack the large-scale refining and battery manufacturing infrastructure to compete or operate independently.

Much of China’s refining is powered by coal, meaning EV production indirectly relies on high-emission energy sources (Making Canada's attempts to paint ourselves as climate change leaders hypocritical).

Weak labour and environmental standards in Chinese supply chains undermine Canada’s “green” and “ethical sourcing” image.

As Canada commits deeper to EV adoption, Beijing gains greater influence over a critical part of Canada’s economy and energy transition.

The more Canada pushes “clean technology” without domestic capacity, the more control shifts from Ottawa to Beijing.

We want Canada to rely on EV's and we want China to control practically all aspects of it?

China owns 80 percent of the rare earth minerals production on earth.

Everything from phones, to EVs to F35s needs those rare earth minerals.

And it's not like rare earths are in fact, rare. Canada has a lot, the USA does too.i believe Canada is top 10 in the world for rare earth reserves. But the problem with rare earths is that they are not concentrated in clusters. They are scattered in small quantities in multiple locations, and it's the methods to extract them are deeply polluting. This leave China in a good spot because they don't give a damn about strip mining and polluting lakes and rivers with toxic mineral runoff. And they aren't priced particularly high because of how China floods the market. You want rare earths in Canada, you need to subsidize it, drop any environmental regulations and prepare to mine for a few years before the deposit is spent and repeat the process.

When America launched its trade war the Chinese banned exports of rare earths to the USA and the USA cried uncle real fast.

So yes, China dominates the EV market, and unless we want to subsidize our rare earth industry and create environment dead zones, that's not going to change. China dominates the market because the cost to extract these minerals is not something we particularly want to do. It's like the Philippines dominating the import of other nations trash, sure, they own the market, but why the hell would we want to compete with them? That said, technology is changing to make it less environmentally harmful, but it's not really there yet.

So this talk about letting the Chinese dominate the or gain influence over our industries, respectfully, what do we do? Stop buying phones? Don't buy the F35? Don't buy subs or ships or phones? Everything high tech we buy has Chinese fingerprints all over them.

So I find it highly hypocritical to be saying don't buy or build cars,EVs, whatever, because it supports China. Everything high tech we buy supports China.

 

[brihard]

China owns 80 percent of the rare earth minerals production on earth.

Everything from phones, to EVs to F35s needs those rare earth minerals.

And it's not like rare earths are in fact, rare. Canada has a lot, the USA does too.i believe Canada is top 10 in the world for rare earth reserves. But the problem with rare earths is that they are not concentrated in clusters. They are scattered in small quantities in multiple locations, and it's the methods to extract them are deeply polluting. This leave China in a good spot because they don't give a damn about strip mining and polluting lakes and rivers with toxic mineral runoff. And they aren't priced particularly high because of how China floods the market. You want rare earths in Canada, you need to subsidize it, drop any environmental regulations and prepare to mine for a few years before the deposit is spent and repeat the process.

When America launched its trade war the Chinese banned exports of rare earths to the USA and the USA cried uncle real fast.

So yes, China dominates the EV market, and unless we want to subsidize our rare earth industry and create environment dead zones, that's not going to change. China dominates the market because the cost to extract these minerals is not something we particularly want to do. It's like the Philippines dominating the import of other nations trash, sure, they own the market, but why the hell would we want to compete with them? That said, technology is changing to make it less environmentally harmful, but it's not really there yet.

So this talk about letting the Chinese dominate the or gain influence over our industries, respectfully, what do we do? Stop buying phones? Don't buy the F35? Don't buy subs or ships or phones? Everything high tech we buy has Chinese fingerprints all over them.

So I find it highly hypocritical to be saying don't buy or build cars,EVs, whatever, because it supports China. Everything high tech we buy supports China.

“Environmental dead zones”? Could you be any more dramatic about it? Yeah, the metallurgy for REE extraction from element-bearing ores isn’t a particularly clean process, but it’s not some exceptionally bad environmental atrocity. You’re talking stuff that’s comparable to other chemical extraction of mined minerals from ore.all those tailings can be managed.

Western REE projects have floundered in large part because China will, when needed, drop spot prices to kill the economic viability of outside projects. Exploration and development stage projects have to fight to raise multiple periodic tranches of investor capital in order to keep going, and this is dependent on the end product prices being high enough. China has weaponized that repeatedly to sink projects outside of China.

We should absolutely establish a crown corporation to help backstop and guarantee critical mineral exploration and development. This is a matter of national and economic security, so yes, Canada should pick champions as necessary. It will not mean the most economically efficient outcome, but it will mean an outcome where we can guarantee critical supply chains against adversarial fuckery by China.

 

[Altair]

“Environmental dead zones”? Could you be any more dramatic about it? Yeah, the metallurgy for REE extraction from element-bearing ores isn’t a particularly clean process, but it’s not some exceptionally bad environmental atrocity. You’re talking stuff that’s comparable to other chemical extraction of mined minerals from ore.all those tailings can be managed.

What are we talking about? lanthanum? cerium? neodymium? gadolinium? Promethium? And what will we do to keep costs down? Gut every environmental standard like China? Because that's the only way they are going to be competitive. The ones in China are absolutely environmental dead zones

Western REE projects have floundered in large part because China will, when needed, drop spot prices to kill the economic viability of outside projects. Exploration and development stage projects have to fight to raise multiple periodic tranches of investor capital in order to keep going, and this is dependent on the end product prices being high enough. China has weaponized that repeatedly to sink projects outside of China.

We should absolutely establish a crown corporation to help backstop and guarantee critical mineral exploration and development. This is a matter of national and economic security, so yes, Canada should pick champions as necessary. It will not mean the most economically efficient outcome, but it will mean an outcome where we can guarantee critical supply chains against adversarial fuckery by China.

As long as the west is willing to absolutely decide the free market (which doesn't exist as China manipulates the market) is not going to win out here, and is willing to absolutely dump billions into these crown corps, it's fine. But we can barely keep Canada post open, so colour me skeptical.

But as long as the current market is cornered by China, this whole "oh no, we cannot buy anything from China" rings extremely hollow. The entire military industrial complex in the west enriches China and China, tomorrow, can shut it all down.