Automotive News Canada - February 2018 - 3

SECOND FRONT
Electronic payments dent EV-rebate backlog
Ontario dealers report
some improvement
getting the millions of
dollars owed to them by
the provincial government
By STEPHANIE WALLCRAFT
TORONTO CORRESPONDENT

THE ONTARIO GOVERNMENT HAS
begun electronic funds transfers and
stepped up its effort to reduce wait
times to dealers for rebates under the
Electric Vehicle Incentive Plan (EVIP).

What's the
best dealership
to work for?
Automotive News Canada is partnering with
Best Companies Group to identify dealerships that have excelled in creating quality
workplaces.
Canadian winners will be profiled in the
October issue of Automotive News Canada
and celebrated at a special
event on Oct.
23 in Toronto.
Register at:
The prowww.autonews.ca/best
gram,
Registration fee: $170
called Best
Exclusive lead sponsor:
Dealerships To
Royal Bank of Canada
Work For, measures workplace satisfaction through a confidential survey of employers and employees. To be eligible for consideration, a dealership must
be a new-vehicle store, must have at least
25 employees working in Canada, and must
have been in business at least one year.
Dealerships that are part of a group
should register individually. Each dealership
must register as a single rooftop.
Registration deadline is April 6.
Automotive News Canada Publisher
Jason Stein will moderate a free webinar on
Feb. 20 which explains more about the process and benefits. To register, go to:
www.autonews.com/bestwebinar.

KEY FACTS

While a significant number of paybeing purchased each month," Bob
ments remain outstanding, stakeholdNichols, senior media liaison officer
ers report that funds have
for the Ontario Ministry
begun to flow back to dealof Transportation, told
erships.
Automotive News Canada.
Automotive News
"However, this signifiCanada first reported on
cant growth - 100 per
the delays in the September
cent over the last year -
issue and again in
impacted application proNovember, at which point
cessing and payment timesome dealers said they had Frank Notte of TADA
lines."
been waiting as long as
The EVIP program
says the province has
five months, with the govreduced some backlog. is designed to increase
ernment's balance pushing (FILE PHOTO)
sales of EVs in Ontario
into the millions.
by offering rebates of up
"Ontario now has over 17,000 EVs
to $14,000. To ease the process for their
on the road, with hundreds more
customers, dealers routinely discount

02.18

the value of these rebates at point of
sale and complete the administrative
legwork required to collect the funds
from the government.
"[The Ontario Ministry of
Transportation] has launched an electronic application process for dealers
that provides a point-of-sale discount
that will significantly improve the
application processing and payment
timelines,"
Nichols said. "The new process
launched in December, and full implementation commenced in January 2018.

SEE DEALER PAGE 26

GM hunts for tech engineers
Hundreds of jobs
to be filled at the
new Markham Technical
Centre and elsewhere
By JIL McINTOSH

OSHAWA CORRESPONDENT

MARKHAM, ONT. - GENERAL
Motors is hiring hundreds of engineers this year for its recently
opened fourth Ontario technology
campus, the GM Technical Centre,
which will specialize in hardware
and software for electric, connected,
autonomous and shared vehicles.
Director Brian Tossan said about
half the centre's 700 engineers have
been hired, with 40 of them brought
on in one day in early January, and
another 40 the following week.
"We're not waiting months to do

GM Canada President Steve
Carlisle announces a $1.8 million
STEM commitment at the opening
the new GM Markham Technical
Centre. (PHOTO: GM CANADA)

this," he said. "We get thousands of
applications a month."
Another 300 jobs are being filled
at the company's technology campus
in Oshawa, Ont.
GM also has its Communitech
Lab in Kitchener-Waterloo, about

100 kilometres west of Toronto,
and a cold-weather test facility in
Kapuskasing, about 850 kilometres
north of Toronto. GM is also building a new urban-mobility lab in
downtown Toronto.
The Markham centre is currently concentrating on infotainment
systems, active safety systems, and
software and controls for self-driving cars. Its employees come from
all backgrounds, not just automotive, and many of them rotate
between the various centres. Tossan
says that collaboration is the key.
As with California's Silicon Valley
IT labs, employees are encouraged
to brainstorm over snacks in the
Markham centre's numerous cafeterias, while whiteboards can be
detached from the walls and their

SEE TO LURE PAGE 26

CORRECTION

In the January issue of Automotive News
Canada, a Page 9 photograph of Subhojit
Das, general manager of Yorkdale Dufferin
Mazda in Toronto, was incorrectly identified
as Ali Erol.

GM says the new Markham centre
is Canada's largest automotive software hub.
(PHOTO: GM CANADA)

TRANS-CANADA NEWS

5,000 KILOMETRES OF STORIES

CBB's Kathy Ward
blazed new trails

Kathy Ward, who died Dec. 24, 2017,
led Canadian Black Book through the
2008-'09 recession and brought the
company into the digital age.
(PHOTO: CANADIAN BLACK BOOK)

TORONTO - CREDITED
with leading vehicle valuator Canadian Black
Book through the 2008-'09
recession, taking the company into the digital age
and modernizing it, Kathy
Ward, 60, was adept at
building relationships.
Ward became president
and chief executive officer of CBB in 2006, taking

the business over from her
father, Bill, who founded
the company in 1951. She
died on Christmas Eve 2017
after a lengthy bout with
cancer.
Ward delivered CBB
into the digital age, said
Brad Rome, her successor and current president.
As the business evolved
from predominantly a publishing house into a provider of data electronical-

ly, she emerged "as the
driver," Rome said, overseeing "a paradigm shift"
at Canadian Black Book
with its release of data
to consumers through
CanadianBlackBook.com.
In 2015, Ward negotiated
the sale of Canadian Black
Book to U.S.-based Hearst
Business Media.

Salesman jailed
for faking loan docs
OSHAWA, Ont. -
A once-registered salesman
at an Oshawa dealership
was jailed in December

2017, intermittently for 30
days, for falsifying documents and providing false
information contrary to
the Ontario Motor Vehicle
Dealers Act, and for committing an unfair business
practice in violation of the
Consumer Protection Act.
Ryen Maxwell was charged
by the Ontario Motor
Vehicle Industry Council
(OMVIC) after the regulator's investigation found
he falsified employment
information on a credit

SEE TRANS-CANADA PAGE 26

http://www.autonews.ca/best http://www.autonews.com/bestwebinar http://www.CanadianBlackBook.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Automotive News Canada - February 2018