Ontario Premier Doug Ford isn’t mincing words about Canada’s new electric vehicle deal with China, saying Friday that Chinese manufacturers are gaining a foothold in the country’s auto market at the expense of workers in this country.
“The federal government is inviting a flood of cheap made-in-China electric vehicles without any real guarantee of equal or immediate investments in Canada’s economy, auto sector or supply chain,” Ford said in a statement issued shortly after news of the deal broke.
“Worse, by lowering tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles this lopsided deal risks closing the door on Canadian automakers to the American market, our largest export destination, which would hurt our economy and lead to job losses.”
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney reached an agreement with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week, in a move that marks a major shift in the relationship between the two countries.
China EV capped at 3% of the total market in return Canola tariff drops from 100% to 15%…
Doug, shut the fuck up.
Basically all our car companies are American and abandoning EVs to make Trump happy. They’re also leaving and fucking is over.
What’s there to protect?
ford is looking to protect his own pocket, he doesn’t give a fuck about anything or anyone else.
The infrastructure and contractors in Canada aren’t going anywhere, and the know-how might not think going south looks too hot.
Ontario’s economy is heavily reliant on their auto industry that’s pretty tightly coupled to the US. I get why Ford needs to make statements like this. There’s a huge risk of disruption letting Chinese EVs into Canada.
On the flip side, coupling our industry to a burgeoning fascist state that has shown little interest in respecting treaties, trade agreements, and Canada is a stupider and stupider arrangement as every day passes.
So, great, Doug, you’re speaking up for your constituents. It’s just that decades of ghoulish decisions have put Ontario in that position, and something has to give. Being at the whim of Detroit corporations is no way forward.
Ontario’s economy is heavily reliant on their auto industry that’s pretty tightly coupled to the US.
Looking over statistics in Wikipedia, it’s about 10% of the provincial economy, and not all automobile manufacturing in Canada is twinned to US companies (Honda and Toyota both operate plants as well, and probably have a better chance of competing with the Chinese companies). It’s nearly all concentrated in a handful of cities in Southern Ontario. Their local economies would be in trouble if the US automakers pulled out, but I think the province as a whole would weather it, although some of Ford’s more ambitious and useless projects would have to be put on hold due to the drop in tax revenue. Some of the factories and resource streams could probably be offered to non-US automakers or moved to manufacturing armoured vehicles, which (unfortunately) it looks like we may need more of anyway.
So, Ford is kind of speaking up for the short-term interests of a small, vocal subset of his constituents. The rest of us, not so much.
Imagine what could have been had Doug and the gang not canceled all the green projects and diversified our economy. But yay! we’re gonna get tunnels under cars to drive more cars so,we can make more cars to get to work to make more cars.
coupling our industry to a burgeoning fascist state
So instead, we choose to buy from an established dictatorship?
An established dictatorship that you can actually make a deal with and expect it to be respected, and that isn’t currently threatening to annex us with military force.
instead, we choose to buy from an established dictatorship?
One which isn’t threatening to destroy us overtly.
Covertly, sure. #oneBelt
Better two assholes we can play off of each other than just one. Mongolia has made it work, somehow.
And of course as much trade and ties with Europe as possible.
Last name Ford.
Hates electric vehicles
Coincidence?
We better watch out for Jim Toyota, then.
Does this mean that John Tesla is a good guy? I’m confused.
No worse than Petey Pipeline, I’m sure.
We have Canadian automakers now?
We should absolutely be divesting from any industry that requires US cooperation to be profitable. Not only that, but US automakers have stagnated, resting on their laurels and refusing to innovate thanks to deep protectionist schemes. Time to retool our steel and aluminum refining and manufacturing industries to make something that’s not poorly designed and built cars.
Basically Carney had to choose between Moe and Ford in this issue, there was no pleasing everybody here.
Carney needs the votes in Saskatchewan more than the votes in Ontario. Plus it just happens to be the best thing for the country.
This is why PMs get annoyed with provinces.
Some of it is due to premiers safeguarding their own little fiefdoms. Heaven forbid they should work together for all of Canada. 🙄
It’s what representative democracy is about. It would be nice if they’d recognize a little more that their personal fiefdoms would be forfeit if the US annexed us, though.
He could put more resources into making it attractive for manufacturers already in Ontario to transition to making affordable EVs (rather than the very few existing expensive and heavily optioned ones that are currently available)
To his point, my friend excitedly messaged me about this wondering how hard it would be to import a cheap BYD electric car from Canada to the USA…
But also yes PLEASE flood the market with cheap electric cars
It’s either Marlaina or Druggie screaming into the void these days.
