While the manufacturers and dealers may share some of the blame for this fiasco, most of the liability falls with the MTO in my opinion - in particular for anyone who purchased a vehicle/filed an application between July 12 - August 31.
Between those dates, the ONLY eligibility criteria that was known to the general public (without doing some additional investigation, which really isn't reasonable to expect of the average consumer, as there was no reason to suspect an issue at the time), was that the vehicle had to be on order by the dealer, or on the dealer's lot prior to July 11.
I have seen a copy of the letter by the MTO to the dealers. While it does mention that dealers should provide a list of vehicles to the MTO prior to July 16, it doesn't specify that failure to do so would make an otherwise eligible vehicle ineligible. If the MTO wants proof that the vehicle was ordered on time, what difference does it make if they find that out on July 16, or even February 28, 2019 (the day most of us received our notices of denial).
Also, I don't know for certain when the manufacturers received this letter from the MTO. It's dated July 11, 2018 - so let's assume that they all received it that day. That was a wednesday. The deadline for the dealers to fill out the MTO's "template" was July 16 (the following monday). That's less than 4 business days for the dealers to review the letter, distribute it to its dealers, and the dealers find this mysterious template and submit the information to the MTO. Is it possible to get this all done in time? Sure, but seems like a very tight deadline to me.
Also, am I the only one who finds it suspicious that there was no mention of the inventory list in any of the MTO's materials available to the public between July 11 and August 31? Or how about the fact that the Tesla ruling came out on August 27, 2018, and they changed the public "ruies" 4 days later?
I think the government is being irresponsible, and downright dishonest. If they wanted to cancel the program completely on July 11 and say if you hadn't yet purchased a vehicle you were no longer eligible, they certainly could have done so, and if anyone chose to purchase an electric vehicle after that time would have known what they were getting into. As it stands, they were dishonest and led hundreds of people to believe they would be paying up to $14,000 less for their vehicles.
Their current approach seems to be to deny most applications, and see who fights it. I spoke to the ombudsman and was told that about half the people he spoke with were somehow mysteriously found to be on the list after they "appealed". WTF? Why was this "list" of eligible vehicles not made public? Not hard to have a database of vin numbers that a consumer could reference before purchasing a car.
In this situation, I don't see how a class action suit would be in the interest of the consumers. A single lawsuit would be much easier for the defendants to deal with, but dozens of small claims actions against the MTO, the car dealers, and the car manufacturers, would make it much more likely that they would want to settle than spend all that time and money in court. If you are going to file in small claims court, or in any court, please consult with a lawyer. I was advised by a lawyer that in order to file a claim against a government body, you must first give them 60 days notice. You wouldn't want your claim thrown out for missing this technicality.
