Canada wants to join the 35mpg by 2020 club

Now that the energy bill and its attendant fuel economy standards has been passed here in the U.S., it looks like the Canadian government wants to officially adopt the same standards. Canada has never actually had fuel efficiency standards of its own but in 2007 committed to implementing one. Since the Canadian auto market is so intertwined with the U.S. but the sales volumes are only about one tenth of America's, car-makers have traditionally just taken vehicles designed for U.S. regulations, switched the speedometers and odometers to km and sold them north of the border. Because of higher gas taxes, the sales mix in Canada has typically skewed more toward the smaller, more-efficient vehicles anyway so any move add fuel economy standards there looks more like a government posturing before an election than a real effort to improve efficiency. The fleet average for cars and trucks in Canada was 27.3mpg (U.S.) in 2006 but Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon announced at the Montreal Auto Show that the government would establish standards that meet or exceed the U.S. 35mpg by 2020 level.
[Source: CTV]