Natural Resources Canada has agreed to pay up to $801,521 for three electric vehicle chargers at Bear Hills Casino, the Louis Bull Tribe’s casino on the Queen Elizabeth II Highway at Maskwacis, south of Edmonton. On the record’s own numbers that is $267,174 a charger.
The agreement, running from July 24, 2026 to December 31, 2027, appears in the federal grants and contributions dataset under the Zero Emission Vehicle Infrastructure Program (ZEVIP). Its description says the money supports “the installation of 3 electric vehicle chargers in Alberta.” The record gives no charger size and no breakdown of costs.
The program’s published guide caps the federal share. For the largest fast chargers, 200 kilowatts and up, the maximum is $100,000 per charger, or $150,000 for Indigenous businesses and communities, which may receive 75 per cent of project costs instead of 50. Three chargers at the top Indigenous rate would be $450,000. The record does not say what the other $351,521 covers.
It is one of ten ZEVIP agreements with July 2026 start dates, worth $12,178,881 together. The two largest, $5,000,000 to Hydro-Québec for 80 remote-site chargers and $2,000,000 to Propulsion Québec for truck charging sites, are utility and corridor projects. The rest are smaller. Greater Vancouver Zoo Ltd, a privately run zoo in Aldergrove, B.C., gets $250,000 for 22 chargers. Dixie Motors LP gets $99,999 for two chargers at 401 Dixie Hyundai in Mississauga. A numbered company, 1792318 Ontario Inc. of Milton, gets $725,754 for three chargers. PowerON of Toronto gets $1,000,000 for one heavy-duty charger. In November 2025 the department announced more than $9 million for 1,230 chargers, about $7,300 each, most of them Level 2.
No federal news release naming the casino, zoo or dealership agreements was found. Prime Minister Mark Carney paused the federal EV Availability Standard in September 2025 and ended it in February 2026, replacing it with emissions standards and a $2.3 billion rebate program. Asked in February whether ZEVIP would continue past March 2027, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson said, “We’ll spend the money and in 2027 we’ll see where we are.”
The record names no official who approved the agreement. Hodgson, the minister responsible, was appointed on May 13, 2025, is the MP for Markham-Thornhill and was chief executive of Goldman Sachs Canada until 2010.
The mandate is gone. The casino chargers are still on the taxpayer’s tab.
