With a confidence vote looming, the provincial government has announced plans to formally unveil electric vehicle funding in Thursday's speech from the throne.

The B.C. Liberals are committing $50 million to build 4,321 new charging stations over the next five years.

The bulk of the money, $38 million, will go to level 2 chargers that replenish a car's electric battery in five hours. The remaining $12 million will be invested in 110 fast chargers, which can have a car topped up in 30 minutes.

"We really want to encourage the electrification of our transit fleet, which is about 40 per cent of our emission profile in the province," said B.C. Environment Minister Jordan Sturdy.

"This is something that has been in mind for a long time."

New Environment Minister Jordan Sturdy (second from right) says electrical vehicle chargers are part of government strategy to reduce carbon emissions. (Richard Zussman/CBC News)

The B.C. Liberals did not include plans to spend this money during the last provincial budget or as part of their election platform.

But Sturdy says despite that, and despite the fact there is no public business plan of where the chargers will go, it's something the province had discussed as part of its goal of reducing carbon emissions.

"This is in our climate leadership plan and it has always been identified as a phased approach," said Sturdy.

Throne speech looming

This is not the first shift in policy the government has announced this week. The Liberal throne speech will also include a commitment to ban union and corporate political donations and increase both social and disability assistance.

The B.C. NDP and the B.C. Greens are expected to defeat the governing Liberals in a confidence vote next week.

The Greens did commit during the election to increase the electric vehicle charging network in the province.

Adam Olsen, one of their three MLAs, says the public needs to be wary of the policy changes.

"It's critical to highlight the fact our approach is a principle based approach. This scrambling is a desperate attempt to gain power, maintain power," he said.