On the eve of Earth Day, Equiterre and Green Communities Canada are launching the Canadian Alliance for School Bus Electrification, a new initiative to make all school buses in the country electric by 2040.

“What we want with this alliance is to work for the well-being of our children by accelerating the decarbonization of school transportation across Canada,” explains Andreanne Brazeau, mobility analyst at Equiterre, in an interview with Le Devoir.

The initiative, whose objective is “to obtain more ambitious political commitments, both provincially and federally”, brings together more than fifteen organizations from the school community and environmental groups.

“The famous North American yellow bus [carries] children to school since the 1930s, powered almost exclusively by fossil fuels,” Équiterre said in a statement. “It’s still the case today,” it continues, even though Canada has pledged in its recent climate plan to support public transit agencies and school boards in the transition of their bus fleets towards zero emission technologies.

Take inspiration from Quebec

To promote the transition to electric power, the Alliance intends to “equip the provinces that need it the most”, drawing inspiration in particular from the example of Quebec, which has already implemented a series of measures to promote the purchase of electric school buses, says Ms. Brazeau.

In its Plan for a Green Economy, the Legault government has set the goal of replacing 65% of diesel school buses in circulation with electric models by 2030. To achieve this, the province has set aside an envelope of 250 million dollars for the electrification of school bus vehicles. In addition, since last summer, Quebec has required that all new school buses “be powered by electricity”.

Efforts that deserve to be imitated elsewhere in Canada, believes Ms. Brazeau, even if Quebec must also weigh on the accelerator to achieve its goal. In Quebec, as of January 2021, only 130 school buses were electric, according to government data, which represents only about 1% of the entire fleet.

Since road transport represents a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada, it is “high time” to encourage the electrification of school buses to improve the climate balance, judge Equiterre.
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