Premier Doug Ford says Prime Minister Mark Carney’s deal with China on electric vehicles has hurt Ontarians and the two have not spoken since.
Ford says he was disappointed Carney did not give him a heads-up about a potential deal before the prime minister’s trip to China last week.
Carney struck a deal with China last week to allow up to 49,000 electric vehicles to receive a vastly reduced tariff rate of 6.1 per cent as they come into Canada in exchange for dropping tariffs on Canadian canola and some seafood.
Ford and Carney became fast friends after the latter’s win to become prime minister in the spring.
AFAICT, the BYD factory in Zhengzhou is mostly automated. I mean, the Chinese government is awful, and I can’t afford to buy a vehicle anyway, but simply having another option other than expensive luxury electric car or support the american fascist oligarch is a good thing for Canadians. It’s still a choice between a turd sandwich and a piece of shit tho, at least BYD should be cheaper and has less risk than supporting a guy that’s actively undermining American democracy.
I know there are cheap electric cars from renault and dacia (also renault), and idk why they’re not sold in Canada. Maybe they don’t have the capacity to serve the Canadian market. I’m sure they’d blow BYD out of the water if they did, considering how car centered our infrastructure is and what I perceive as a thirst for cheap electric cars *and general support for increasing relations with Europe.
Anyway, their cars are made in Morocco, so I’m not sure if the workers there are treated any better than ones in China, or the states for that matter.