Nova Scotia the only province in Canada that does not have any electric school busesPublished Jun 14, 2025 • Last updated 2 hours ago • 8 minute readSchool buses parked in Yarmouth County awaiting another day to transport students. Supporters of electric school buses hope to see Nova Scotia start to introduce these alternative buses to the province. TINA COMEAUWhile the wheels on the bus go round and round, those hoping to see electric school buses in Nova Scotia continue to wait for movement.Dr. Cathy Cervin is among them.The retired family doctor went from using a rotary dial phone in the 1970s to a smartphone in the present day.Whereas decades ago she drove – in her words – “an old ugly, brown Dodge station wagon that guzzled gas,” she now drives a plug-in hybrid that rarely uses gas, and when it does it gets amazing mileage.THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY.Subscribe now to access this story and more:Unlimited access to the website and appExclusive access to premium content, newsletters and podcastsFull access to the e-Edition app, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment onEnjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalistsSupport local journalists and the next generation of journalistsSUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES.Subscribe or sign in to your account to continue your reading experience.Unlimited access to the website and appExclusive access to premium content, newsletters and podcastsFull access to the e-Edition app, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment onEnjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalistsSupport local journalists and the next generation of journalistsRegister to unlock more articles.Create an account or sign in to continue your reading experience.Access additional stories every monthShare your thoughts and join the conversation in our commenting communityGet email updates from your favourite authorsSign In or Create an AccountorArticle contentBut when it comes to their emissions, the school buses she grew up riding in as a child in southern Ontario, she says, haven’t changed much from the ones that now drive kids to and from school each day in Nova Scotia.“There are catalytic converters and filters, but they still burn diesel, they still have the pollution effects. We have not made as much progress in the health and safety of school buses that we could.”Cervin spoke about electric school buses at a Yarmouth session sponsored by the Yarmouth Environmental Think Tank and TREPA (the Tusket River Environmental Protection Association).“Since I rode a school bus for nine years, I was quite distressed to learn some of the information about the effect of diesel on children,” said Cervin, noting parents do much to keep their children safe. “Car seats are way better. Children wear helmets. We try to keep their clothing safe. We make playgrounds with soft surfaces. And yet we’re still having our children ride in unhealthy transport.”Article content Tri-County Regional Centre for Education diesel-fuelled school buses parked at the bus depot in Yarmouth. Supporters of electric school buses hope to see them in Nova Scotia in the future. TINA COMEAUCervin said there are many pollutants that come out of diesel tailpipes. She said the New Brunswick Lung Association carried out a study that determined C02 levels are higher inside the back of a school bus than outside of the bus. “And of course, if the school buses are lined up nose to tail and idling, the levels of pollutants will get even higher.”She pointed to PM2.5 (particulate matter) which is prevalent in such things as wildfire smoke. It’s also present in exhaust emissions.“The reason they’re so damaging is because they’re so small. They’re one-third the diameter of a human hair and they get deep into our lungs and into our circulatory systems and they carry toxins,” said Cervin, who after retirement became a member of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, which has an active Nova Scotia chapter.She said the noise of diesel engines, the smell, the exhaust, can also all contribute to stress for students riding school buses.Article contentSTUDYING THE ISSUEThe Department of Education and Early Childhood Development says most of the province’s Regional Centres for Education (RCEs) operate and manage their buses. Those buses are owned by the province and contracted out to the RCEs.There are also bus contracts through private transportation providers. “HRCE are all contracted. And AVRCE and CSAP, some are contracted and some are self-operated,” said department spokesperson Krista Higdon. A school bus stops in Clare to let kids off at the end of a school day. TINA COMEAUAs of the first of May, Nova Scotia had 965 school buses that are operated by the RCEs.“The Council of Atlantic Ministers of Education and Training (CAMET) coordinates an Atlantic procurement for buses through Nova Scotia procurement. We worked with our partners in the other Atlantic provinces under the coordination of CAMET to conduct an Electric School Bus Feasibility Study,” said Higdon. “We are reviewing the findings.”Article contentAt the Tri-County Regional Centre for Education (TCRCE) in southwestern Nova Scotia, Ashley Gallant, the coordinator of communications, says electric school buses have been discussed.The TCRCE’s longest route is 183 kilometres with four bus runs in this route.“A route refers to the entire path that a bus takes in a day. A run is a single journey that the bus makes along the route,” Gallant noted. “So, a bus could have multiple runs (i.e. to different schools) in one route.”The daily average TCRCE distance is 165 kilometres for a bus run.“The goal is to have routes no longer than 60 minutes, where possible,” Gallant said. A Tri-County Regional School Bus at Barrington Municipal High School after dropping off students for the start of the school day. TINA COMEAUADVOCATING FOR ELECTRICThe Ecology Action Centre in Nova Scotia is an advocate of electric school buses.It says there are around 72,000 students a day in the province that ride on buses with around 1,300 buses on the road. That figure includes the ones that are privately contracted.Article contentIt says these buses produce roughly 23,000 tons of CO2 emissions annually. The typical lifespan of a diesel bus is around 12 years. The lifespan of an electric bus is about the same.“We are one of the only provinces in Canada that has yet to start electrifying their fleets,” Abby Lefebvre, the Ecology Action Centre’s energy coordinator, told the Yarmouth session.She said Alberta has six electric school buses, with another 50 on order. British Columbia has 158. Saskatchewan has five. Ontario has 88. Quebec has 1,606. PEI has 107. New Brunswick has 22. Newfoundland has one.“And we have none in this province,” she said. Retired family doctor Cathy Cervin (left), a member of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, and Abby Lefebvre, the Ecology Action Centre’s energy coordinator, hope to soon see electric school buses in Nova Scotia. It’s the only province in the country that doesn’t have any. TINA COMEAU“There’s a lot of serious health implications associated with inhaling diesel. You have lung health effects … immune system, your nervous system,” Lefebvre said, noting there can also be mental health effects for passengers riding daily in loud transit.Article content“Bus drivers, they often get left out of the conversation,” she added. “There’s numbers of case studies of bus drivers who have lost hearing and suffered from mobility issues, because of loud, bumpy buses.”She said 2023 polling data showed high support amongst Canadians for electric school buses.She said electric vehicles, like a car, have one electric battery. An electric school bus has four to five.“That is a lot of power that you’re able to play with,” she said, saying buses are usually charged overnight at drivers’ homes or a bus depot. Charging stations can also be made available during the day.Read More One company’s struggles no reason to hit the brakes on electric school buses P.E.I. delays EV school bus purchase over manufacturer’s financial woeshttps://www.saltwire.com/prince-edward-island/p-e-i-delays-ev-school-bus-purchase-over-manufacturers-financial-woes Will big yellow buses go green? Environmental group pushing for electric school buses in N.S. Union says P.E.I.’s electric school buses ‘overrated’ due to low range DEBUNKING MYTHSLefebvre said she often has to debunk myths and misconceptions about electric school buses. She said people often quote an incident that occurred in Alberta involving an electric school bus that didn’t operate on a cold day.Article content“They say, electric school buses don’t work because there’s that one in Alberta that couldn’t run on a cold day,” she said.But at a conference in British Columbia, with people from all provinces who operate school buses, she asked, “When it’s that cold, can you drive your diesel bus? They said, ‘Well, no.’”Range also often comes up. She noted an electric school bus has a range of 200 kilometres per charge.She said in Atlantic Canada snow tires are kept on buses year-round to save costs.“What you might not know is these snow tires are typically heavier and do cause a bit more restraint on diesel and electric buses. You typically lose a little bit of your range. It’s anywhere from like 20 to 30 kilometres. So we’re working with 210 to 230 kilometres a range per charge,” she said.She said the average school bus in North America travels 100 kilometres a day, so there is sufficient range.Article content“I will acknowledge not all ranges are 100 kilometres a day. Some routes will be longer, specifically more so in rural communities that have longer bus routes that reach further places. That will take a little bit longer to electrify,” Lefebvre said, pointing to an industry rumour that a 320-kilometre range bus is on the horizon. Concerns over diesel emissions from school buses in Nova Scotia is prompting advocates to push for the province to introduce electric school buses as other provinces have. TINA COMEAUA new diesel school bus runs around $250,000 to $280,000. An electric bus is about $500,000. Lefebvre said the Government of Canada recognized the doubling of the cost to be a problem so it set up the Zero Emission Transit Fund.“With this fund, you have to do a feasibility study. Then you can apply for the funding, which covers 50 per cent of your cost and 50 per cent of your charger installment,” she said. “So you’re getting roughly closer to what you pay for the diesel bus, excluding the charger.”Lefebvre also said Alberta released a study showing there was an ownership savings of 21 per cent with electric school buses, because charging is cheaper than fueling, and the buses don’t require as much maintenance.Article contentREADY OR NOT?“I often hear that the grid isn’t ready for this technology. It comes up a lot. People just don’t think that our grid can handle electrical buses,” said Lefebvre.But she points to a case study in PEI where they had 107 electric buses on their grid with no issues. PEI doesn’t have its own power utility. It is powered by electricity from New Brunswick.“So if they can operate 107 and they don’t even have their own power utility, we can definitely do that,” she said.“So why don’t we have any? That’s a great question I would love to answer for you, but I simply don’t actually know,” she said, noting Nova Scotia, with Newfoundland and New Brunswick, began a feasibility study last year that was supposed to take six to eight months to complete.“The feasibility study is the only thing that kind of restricts you from making your first purchase, because without that you can’t get the Zero Emission Transit Funds,” she said.Article contentPeople’s questions during the session included manufacture supply, charging stations, how buses are heated, their safety, and more. School buses lined up in southwestern Nova Scotia awaiting another school day to transport students. TINA COMEAULefebvre stressed no one is expecting electrification to occur overnight.“This is a slow-moving process. Every year Nova Scotia only renews anywhere from 50 to 100 buses so start with 25 of the 50, switch them over to electric,” she said.“Start a few at a time. See how it works. Get used to the science. You have to retrain bus drivers. Get used to the chargers. Get used to the technology. It will take time,” Lefebvre said. “But if we don’t start now we’re just going to continue to pump this (pollution) in the atmosphere.”For her part, Cervin offered this: “Just briefly imagine yourself as a child, standing beside a road. Instead of a noisy, jerky, polluting diesel bus, there’s a quiet electric bus that glides up, picks you up and you go to school with the only sound being children’s voices. The driver and children are less stressed because they’re in a quiet, clean, safe bus.”Article content
Advocates seek movement on electric school buses in Nova Scotia
