The tiny part of the country in Ontario, where American companies employ Canadians to make vehicles primarily for sale in the USA it seems, should never have been allowed to lobby for protectionist tariffs, thus blocking access to cheaper EVs for the entire country. At the very least, they should’ve HAD A PRODUCT that we could all buy instead, that was fully Canadian from a Canadian owned company. The tariffs that were put in place were uncalled for, and largely about Ford bending over for big American businesses. It’d be like saying no one in eastern Canada is allowed to import lumber from outside the country, cause BC has softwood lumber disputes with the US – except even that isn’t quite the same, as BC could provide lumber to other provinces. Ontario got this giant tariff blockade in place, offering nothing. Government shouldn’t elevate the interests of a small minority, especially one with foreign corporate owners, over the interests of the broader country.
One of the themes in Doug Fords own Anti-Tariff ad that’s caused Trump to get all pissy, is that Government shouldn’t be artificially protecting industries with tariffs – innovation requires competition. We’ve seen countless stories where US Car CEOs admit China and Asia in general has ‘beaten’ them in innovating in this space. The auto tariffs are exactly the kind of tariff that Ford is trying to make a case are ‘bad’ with his ad.
If GM and them don’t want to build EVs in Canada, have a crown corp or some other investment group pick up the factory space and set about getting a fully Canadian made EV, that can be provided to Canadians for a price competitive with foreign EVs – or at least in the same general ball park. It’d seem sensible, though I don’t know the specific requirements, that if the USA is currently ditching EVs, that these corporations may aswell move that whole production line up to Canada and/or Mexico. And if they don’t want to, or if they want to just ‘shut down’ plants and fire people… well, that’s a lot of industrial space, and trained workers, needing work. So put em to work.
As someone who works in manufacturing, I can confidently tell you that the idea that the only reason to place tariffs on cheap foreign goods, is solely to appease the US, is garbage. Canada has been trying to get its own EV industry moving for years now, and has made a rather significant investment in domestic manufacturing capabilities. Allowing China to flood the market with cheap products, undermines that investment before its even had a chance to mature.
One of the primary reasons why Canada’s EV production has been so slow to grow, is largely because the companies that we’ve been investing in, are US based. US policy on EV’s tends to swing wildly back and forth, depending on whose in office. And the expectation has been that “if” Trump won the election, then all that investment would come to nothing…so they held back on development, until the 2024 election was over. Now, there is no real commitment to continue, due to tariffs and Trump’s general disdain for green technologies.
But that does not mean that Canada should follow that trend and turn to China to suplly that technology. Canadian companies are more than capable of filling that role, with or without US support. Lifting those tariffs on Chinese products, will simply be trading one superpower dominating our domestic production, to another. What we should be doing is shifting that investment to local manufacturers in order to build our own supply chains, that are not dependent on any foreign influence. It is not a quick fix, and it will cost taxpayers more in terms of investment…but it will ensure that Canada has the potential to become a leader in EV technology, not just another customer for someone else.
In addition, we must not forget that there is massive slave-like labour in Chinese supply chains - within China as well as abroad. As I posted in another thread, Brazil is just one recent example for that:
[In Brazil], in the same month that Chinese BYD’s car carrier arrived in the country, Brazilian prosecutors announced plans to sue BYD and two of its contractors for ‘slave like conditions’ at a factory site. A task force led by Brazilian prosecutors said it rescued 163 Chinese nationals working in “slavery-like” conditions at a construction site […] where Chinese electric vehicle company BYD is building a factory.
The [Brazilian] Labor Prosecutor’s Office released videos of the dorms where the [Chinese] construction workers were staying, which showed beds with no mattresses and rooms without any places for the workers to store their personal belongings.
Officials said [BYD contractor] Jinjiang […] had confiscated the workers’ passports and held 60% of their wages. Those who quit would be forced to pay the company for their airfare from China, and for their return ticket, the statement said.
Prosecutors said the sanitary situation at BYD’s site in Camaçari was especially critical, with only one toilet for every 31 workers, forcing them to wake up at 4 a.m. to line up and get ready to leave for work at 5:30 a.m.
I don’t think that Canadians want ChEaP cArS made by slave-labour.
I know we have a bunch of parts manufacturers. That Avro thing that Ford would trot out was fairly well publicized, even if many didn’t understand what it was.
That Avro thing was also not an actual Canadian EV. It was a vapour-ware marketing vehicle. Its purpose was to show that Canadian companies could make all the components that go in to an EV, so that Ontario could try and attract foreign companies to use those component makers. IE. it was a proof of concept marketing tool, meant to try and sell sub-contracting services to foreign companies/interests. There was never an actual plan to make a Canadian EV on Fords roadmap. In a world where foreign companies/interests are increasingly xenophobic/antagonistic, that’s not something that I want my tax dollars going towards – and in a world where Canada has no home grown options for EVs, I want foreign options available at low costs.
We’re literally watching whole cities burn due to climate change out in western Canada. And we’re playing politics with sustainable options / clean energy projects.
Besides, like Ford’s own ad references, protectionist tariffs deployed to protect an inefficient/non-innovative industry are bad. They also lead to trade wars. I see no reason to prioritize the interests of a small sector in Ontario, over the interests of the Canola farmers in Sask/Man. And you’re not too clear on where that ‘investment’ is coming from in the second paragraph, but if it’s from gov as well, that industry just looks even worse in terms of being a leech of resources – and is almost a poster child for the sort of things the Reagan piece was condemning. IE. a non-innovative industry incapable of competing with international options, being propped up by gov investments, and protected by gov tariffs, with practically no deliverable we can point to as regular non-industry employed citizens.
It’s not just US auto plants, we have a sizable auto parts manufacturing sector that employs a lot of Canadians. Then there are all the indirect jobs and the raw materials (steel, aluminum etc).
Any Chinese manufacturer who wants to sell EVs here needs to be pitching a plan to manufacture here.
we have a sizable auto parts manufacturing sector that employs a lot of Canadians.
and sucks billions in subsidies and general graft. If the US wants to cut us off, there is no business plan to keep subsidizing the auto sector. Australia concluded this years ago.
The tiny part of the country in Ontario, where American companies employ Canadians to make vehicles primarily for sale in the USA it seems, should never have been allowed to lobby for protectionist tariffs, thus blocking access to cheaper EVs for the entire country. At the very least, they should’ve HAD A PRODUCT that we could all buy instead, that was fully Canadian from a Canadian owned company. The tariffs that were put in place were uncalled for, and largely about Ford bending over for big American businesses. It’d be like saying no one in eastern Canada is allowed to import lumber from outside the country, cause BC has softwood lumber disputes with the US – except even that isn’t quite the same, as BC could provide lumber to other provinces. Ontario got this giant tariff blockade in place, offering nothing. Government shouldn’t elevate the interests of a small minority, especially one with foreign corporate owners, over the interests of the broader country.
One of the themes in Doug Fords own Anti-Tariff ad that’s caused Trump to get all pissy, is that Government shouldn’t be artificially protecting industries with tariffs – innovation requires competition. We’ve seen countless stories where US Car CEOs admit China and Asia in general has ‘beaten’ them in innovating in this space. The auto tariffs are exactly the kind of tariff that Ford is trying to make a case are ‘bad’ with his ad.
If GM and them don’t want to build EVs in Canada, have a crown corp or some other investment group pick up the factory space and set about getting a fully Canadian made EV, that can be provided to Canadians for a price competitive with foreign EVs – or at least in the same general ball park. It’d seem sensible, though I don’t know the specific requirements, that if the USA is currently ditching EVs, that these corporations may aswell move that whole production line up to Canada and/or Mexico. And if they don’t want to, or if they want to just ‘shut down’ plants and fire people… well, that’s a lot of industrial space, and trained workers, needing work. So put em to work.
As someone who works in manufacturing, I can confidently tell you that the idea that the only reason to place tariffs on cheap foreign goods, is solely to appease the US, is garbage. Canada has been trying to get its own EV industry moving for years now, and has made a rather significant investment in domestic manufacturing capabilities. Allowing China to flood the market with cheap products, undermines that investment before its even had a chance to mature.
One of the primary reasons why Canada’s EV production has been so slow to grow, is largely because the companies that we’ve been investing in, are US based. US policy on EV’s tends to swing wildly back and forth, depending on whose in office. And the expectation has been that “if” Trump won the election, then all that investment would come to nothing…so they held back on development, until the 2024 election was over. Now, there is no real commitment to continue, due to tariffs and Trump’s general disdain for green technologies.
But that does not mean that Canada should follow that trend and turn to China to suplly that technology. Canadian companies are more than capable of filling that role, with or without US support. Lifting those tariffs on Chinese products, will simply be trading one superpower dominating our domestic production, to another. What we should be doing is shifting that investment to local manufacturers in order to build our own supply chains, that are not dependent on any foreign influence. It is not a quick fix, and it will cost taxpayers more in terms of investment…but it will ensure that Canada has the potential to become a leader in EV technology, not just another customer for someone else.
I fully agree.
In addition, we must not forget that there is massive slave-like labour in Chinese supply chains - within China as well as abroad. As I posted in another thread, Brazil is just one recent example for that:
I don’t think that Canadians want ChEaP cArS made by slave-labour.
No, we want big trucks that cost a fortune and rust out in 5 years.
I know we have a bunch of parts manufacturers. That Avro thing that Ford would trot out was fairly well publicized, even if many didn’t understand what it was.
That Avro thing was also not an actual Canadian EV. It was a vapour-ware marketing vehicle. Its purpose was to show that Canadian companies could make all the components that go in to an EV, so that Ontario could try and attract foreign companies to use those component makers. IE. it was a proof of concept marketing tool, meant to try and sell sub-contracting services to foreign companies/interests. There was never an actual plan to make a Canadian EV on Fords roadmap. In a world where foreign companies/interests are increasingly xenophobic/antagonistic, that’s not something that I want my tax dollars going towards – and in a world where Canada has no home grown options for EVs, I want foreign options available at low costs.
We’re literally watching whole cities burn due to climate change out in western Canada. And we’re playing politics with sustainable options / clean energy projects.
Besides, like Ford’s own ad references, protectionist tariffs deployed to protect an inefficient/non-innovative industry are bad. They also lead to trade wars. I see no reason to prioritize the interests of a small sector in Ontario, over the interests of the Canola farmers in Sask/Man. And you’re not too clear on where that ‘investment’ is coming from in the second paragraph, but if it’s from gov as well, that industry just looks even worse in terms of being a leech of resources – and is almost a poster child for the sort of things the Reagan piece was condemning. IE. a non-innovative industry incapable of competing with international options, being propped up by gov investments, and protected by gov tariffs, with practically no deliverable we can point to as regular non-industry employed citizens.
Be wary of anything involving Woodbridge Auto Group and Flavio Volpe.
Remember when they were suppposed to provide a million masks a month? No one saw them again after they got into Doug’s pickup
It’s not just US auto plants, we have a sizable auto parts manufacturing sector that employs a lot of Canadians. Then there are all the indirect jobs and the raw materials (steel, aluminum etc).
Any Chinese manufacturer who wants to sell EVs here needs to be pitching a plan to manufacture here.
and sucks billions in subsidies and general graft. If the US wants to cut us off, there is no business plan to keep subsidizing the auto sector. Australia concluded this years ago.