WHY IS THE CANADIAN GOVERNMENT BUYING LUXURY CARS?
Rebel Media has made a habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory but never more so than when it ran a story last fall about the federal Environment Department purchasing a number of expensive cars.
The story was a genuine scoop that resurfaced on Twitter this week and is causing indigestion in the upper reaches of the Trudeau government.
Yet Rebel flubbed its exclusive by headlining the story “Climate Barbie Goes on Luxury Car Buying Spree” — a derogatory reference to Environment Minister Catherine McKenna and needless sensationalism that deflected attention from the content.
T he Rebel was happy with its drive- by smear, which seemed to suggest McKenna and her staff were being ferried around in topof- the- range Mercedes; the mainstream media was put off the story because of its source.
As a result, no one asked the question: what possible reason did a government department have for spending $ 112,000 on a new Tesla S70D; $ 92,700 on a Mercedes GLE550; $66,500 on a Lexus Hybrid; $ 67,200 on a used Porsche Panamera; and $ 63,000 on a second- hand Porsche Cayenne?
The answer, it turns out, is that Canada’s vehicle engine testing scientists want to work with the shiniest toys in the showroom.
In order to ensure their due diligence on manufacturers’ performance data is irreproachable, they demand brand new product and they are prepared to pay top taxpayer dollar to get it.
“Consumers expect due diligence to be done, so we buy the cars, test them and sell them,” said one senior official at Environment Canada.
After testing, the cars are sold on a government surplus site. A search suggests the taxpayer took a $ 37,000 hit on the sale of the two second- hand Porsches. Records for the sale prices of the other cars were not available, but dealers say the rule of thumb is to expect 20 per cent depreciation as soon as you drive off the lot.
In the wake of the Volkswagen“diesel dupe” scand al—where the U.S. En- vironmental Protection Agency discovered cars sold in America had a “defeat device” in the engine that could detect when they were being tested, changing the performance to improve results — regulators have been particularly war y about models supplied by manufacturers.
But even before the Volkswagen story broke, Environment Canada was buying luxury cars to test for emissions, cold weather performance and energy claims.
Marlo Raynolds, McKenna’s chief of staff, tweeted out a list of high- performance cars bought by the Conservatives as far back as 2010, including Volvos, Porsches, Mercedes, BMWs and Audis.
The government line is that it is impossible to do independent research on a vehicle unless you take ownership of it.
“I can’t imagine a rental agreement that allows me to get under the hood and take it apart,” said the senior Environment official. But he conceded it’s not a cheap way of doing research.
No kidding. The practice seems much less prevalent in the U.S. A spokesperson for the Environmental Protection Agency said for investigative testing for fuel economy and defeat devices, the EPA has rented vehicles, purchased them and even bought them from manufacturers.
But the standard testing regime is for the EPA to receive pre- production vehicles free of charge from the manufacturer.
Those lab tests are then augmented by an expanded in-use testing program, where the EPA borrows vehicles from the public.
In exchange the EPA provides a loaner vehicle and $ 20 a day. Once done, cars are returned, with a full tank of gas and an oil change.
That is a preferable, and infinitely cheaper, way of testing the claims made by demonstrably unscrupulous auto manufacturers than buying a shiny, top- of- therange Tesla straight out of the showroom.
That this practice has gone on for at least seven years confirms the suspicion that too many public servants have a much too cavalier attitude toward spending other people’s money.
That both Liberal and Conservative governments have displayed a relaxed attitude to such improvidence is more worrying still.