25-year-old fuel efficiency law finally seeing enforcement in Ottawa, Canada
In a lot of places (Pennsylvania, for example, or California), there is a move towards passing new laws that affect tailpipe emissions or fleet standards. But why write new laws when there's already one on the books? This is the situation in Ottawa, Canada where old laws (specifically the 1981 Motor Vehicle Fuel Consumption Standards Act, along with pieces of other existing legislation including the Canadian Environmental Protection Act) were reintroduced last week as the Clean Air Act by a Conservative leader in the Stephen Harper government. The 1981 law doesn't set any mileage standards and was put on ice by Pierre Trudeau's government in favor of a mutual understanding. Auto manufacturers in Canada convinced government after government that they would follow U.S. standards voluntarily, but two weeks ago, Ottawa announced it intends to end the current voluntary agreement by 2010, according to the Hamilton Spectator.
[Source: Hamilton Spectator]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
aaron 11:14PM (10/23/2006)
Voluntary agreements do not appear to be working in Canada. For instance the base Hyundai Accent is sold in Canada for $13500 Canadian versus $11000 US. For our extra $1000 - $1500 (less exchange) we get body coloured mirrors and a radio but only 2 airbags. 6 airbags are only available on the top of the line Accent and Kia Rio. It is my understanding that in the US the companies must provide 6 airbags in all vehicles by 2009. Considering what it costs Hyundai to provide airbags vs radiosmirrors it would seem that they are favouring increasing profit margins over providing safety features. The B platform is much more popular in Canada and the Accent has been the top sub-compact for many years. The new Accent's major competitor the Toyota Yaris is also only available with 2 airbags. Kudos to Honda who actually have a policy about providing full safety features throughout their line-up.
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