🚗 Do You Really NEED That Car?
by Tina Winterlik (Zipolita)
When I was growing up in British Columbia, I thought electricity came from waterfalls. 💧
Our teachers told us hydro was clean, green, and endless — just water making light and warmth. No one talked about the dams that drowned valleys, the salmon that never came back, or the metals needed to build all the “clean” machines of the future.
Now, decades later, we’re told electric cars will save us. But will they?
Let’s be honest — we don’t need more cars. We need fewer.
We need better transit, safer bike lanes, and walkable communities where people don’t have to burn or charge their way to freedom.
🌍 The Hidden Cost of “Green”
Every EV battery starts with mining — lithium, nickel, cobalt — torn from the earth in someone else’s backyard. And while we pat ourselves on the back for “going green,” entire ecosystems are sacrificed so we can keep driving, scrolling, and consuming at the same pace.
In BC, we still tell ourselves it’s clean because it’s powered by hydro. But those giant batteries, those endless electronics, those “smart” cars — they all come from somewhere. Every shiny gadget has a dark beginning.
🚨 The New Car Loan Trap
There’s a quiet scam happening — one that looks a lot like the U.S. housing crash, but with car loans.
Temporary Foreign Workers (TFWs), international students, and newcomers to Canada are being pushed into debt by a mix of poor transit, high living costs, and targeted advertising.
When people arrive, they’re told they “need” a car to survive here — that it’s freedom, independence, a status symbol. Dealerships know this and prey on that desperation. They sign people up for high-interest loans, often with hidden fees, and sometimes without verifying stable income or credit history.
It’s not that different from how subprime mortgages were handed out before 2008 — people were set up to fail, and corporations profited when they did.
Years ago, it wasn’t like this.
When I was a mature student in Castlegar in the early 1990s, I had a car. It was a necessity back then — I was going back to school after developing chronic tendonitis, and public transit was practically nonexistent.
I remember tutoring a Japanese student in English conversation. She lived with a local homestay family, and one day she told me her parents had asked the family to help her buy a car — about $5,000. That was around 1992.
Back then, that was reasonable. People could pay cash, buy used, and get around.
Today, that same student would likely be pressured into a loan, signing contracts she barely understands, and spending years paying it off — all for the privilege of driving to class.
It’s heartbreaking — and it’s a sign of how “normal” debt has become, especially for young people and newcomers.
💔 A Car-Shaped World
Cars take up space — not just on roads, but in our minds.
We measure distance, freedom, even success by whether we can drive there. But what about the cost of that thinking?
Paved-over farmland. Parking lots instead of parks. A generation growing up in traffic, breathing exhaust, disconnected from the land and each other.
🚸 For Students, Newcomers, and Dreamers
If you’re a student, a newcomer to Canada, or just starting out — please pause before signing that car loan.
Many people are coerced or pressured into buying vehicles they can’t afford, told it’s “the only way” to get around or succeed here. But the truth is, debt chains you down faster than traffic ever could.
Public transit might not be perfect, but neither is a lifetime of payments, insurance, and stress.
Ask yourself: Is that car really freedom — or another trap disguised as convenience?
🌱 Imagine Something Different
What if we slowed down?
What if we chose to walk, to share, to stay local?
What if the dream wasn’t a car in every driveway, but a tree in every yard, a bus that comes on time, and neighbours who talk instead of honk?
You don’t have to be perfect. Maybe you need a car right now — that’s okay. But maybe, next time, you ask:
“Do I really NEED that car?”
Because the earth is already paying for our convenience.
And we can’t keep charging our future on borrowed time. ⚡🌿
💭 Reflective Questions
- How much of your income goes toward transportation — and how does that affect your freedom or stress levels?
- Have you ever felt pressured to buy or lease a car to “fit in” or feel successful?
- What alternatives could work for your lifestyle — carshare, e-bike, transit, walking, or community rides?
- Do you think society measures success by ownership rather than connection?
- What would your life look like if everything you needed was within walking distance?
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