By Staff Reporter
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney and Ontario Premier Doug Ford on Wednesday announced an $8.7 billion plan to shore up Ontario’s steel mills, auto plants and northern mines against U.S. tariffs. Within hours, the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa published a fact sheet accusing Canadian politicians, Mr. Ford among them, of trying to influence the American midterms.
The two events, on the same day and on either side of the same border, capture where the relationship between Ontario and the United States stands 12 days before Americans vote.
What’s in the plan
According to the Prime Minister’s Office, the package, in Canadian dollars, includes:
- A Joint Steel Action Fund of $3.55 billion from Ottawa and $1.67 billion from Ontario over five years, to diversify production and open overseas markets for Canadian steel, along with tougher anti-dumping enforcement and “Buy Canadian” and “Buy Ontario” procurement preferences.
- $2.5 billion over two years, $1.5 billion of it federal, for automakers to retool for connected and electric vehicles.
- A freeze on Canada’s greenhouse gas standards for new light-duty vehicles at 2026 levels through the 2029 model year.
- Up to $1 billion over three years from Ottawa, matching Ontario, for roads into the Ring of Fire critical minerals region, plus a joint permitting process and a working group with First Nations.
The $8.7 billion is about US$6.2 billion, The Associated Press reported.
“An integrated North American auto sector will be stronger, more competitive and provide better jobs for our workers,” Mr. Carney said, according to CBC News. “But we recognize these are not the objectives of the current U.S. administration. Their approach has changed, and so must ours.”
Mr. Carney said Canadian auto exports to the United States have fallen more than 10 percent, while U.S. exports to Canada have dropped more than 20 percent. “Tariffs make both our industries weaker and reduce choice for our families,” he said.
Mr. Ford went further. “It’s clear that Canada’s relationship with the United States has changed permanently,” he said, according to the AP. “No matter what happens in the midterms, no matter who sits in the White House, we’re not going back to the way things were.”
The plan landed the same day U.S.-owned steelmaker Cleveland-Cliffs announced layoffs at its plant in Hamilton, Ont., the AP reported. Trade talks collapsed in August, after which President Donald Trump imposed 50 percent tariffs on about $20 billion in Canadian goods and threatened to raise tariffs on all cars, trucks, parts and steel to 50 percent on Jan. 1.
The emissions freeze
The auto-emissions pause follows Washington’s lead. The Trump administration finalized a rollback of U.S. fuel economy standards on Monday, CBC reported, and Canada’s industry says it can’t drift far from its biggest market.
“We cannot diverge significantly from the United States if we intend to have an industry of the size and scale we have right now in Canada,” said Brian Kingston, president of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association.
Clean Energy Canada’s Evan Pivnick called it a setback for Ottawa’s target of 75 percent electric vehicle sales by 2035, telling CBC that the policies meant to get there are “just delayed.”
The embassy’s list
The U.S. Embassy’s fact sheet, titled “Monitoring Canadian Activities in U.S. Politics,” says the Canadian government “brushes off concerns about potential interference in U.S. elections, even as its ministers and premiers openly describe plans to influence American politics.”
It cites Industry Minister Mélanie Joly’s remarks about aiming counter-tariffs at Republican states, an August letter in which Mr. Ford urged Ottawa to consider tariffs on imports from “politically significant states,” and Ontario’s $75 million anti-tariff ad campaign featuring former President Ronald Reagan, which led Mr. Trump to cancel trade talks a year ago. It also lists a Canadian consul general appearing at a trade roundtable with two Democratic members of Congress, a Liberal MP campaigning for a Florida Democrat, and 11 Canadians charged or sentenced this year for illegally voting in U.S. elections between 2012 and 2024. The embassy did not tie those voting cases to Canada’s government.
“All Canadians should refrain from attempting to participate in or influence U.S. elections in any way. Americans decide America’s elections,” the fact sheet concludes.
Both leaders rejected the charge. “The United States initiated a series of trade actions. We’ve responded to those to protect Canadian jobs, to protect Canadian companies and develop our economy,” Mr. Carney said. Mr. Ford said he has “no interest at all interfering in American elections.”
Daniel Béland, a political scientist at McGill University, told the AP the embassy’s examples are “not genuine examples of foreign interference.”
“Accusing Canada of foreign interference ahead of the midterms could pave the way to ‘Blame Canada’ rhetoric after the electoral results are in,” he said.
What it means on this side of the river
Western New York sits on the seam of that integrated auto and steel economy, and much of what Ottawa is doing now is aimed at needing American suppliers and buyers less. The “Buy Canadian” steel preferences and the new task forces are built to keep more of Ontario’s supply chain at home. Ottawa’s near-balanced budget target leans on counter-tariff revenue collected on American goods, including New York cheese and steel, as the Chronicle reported Wednesday.
Ottawa presents its federal budget Nov. 5, two days after the midterms. The questions for this region are whether Washington and Ottawa return to the table once the votes are counted, whether the Jan. 1 tariff threat on autos and steel is carried out, and how much of the cross-border business Western New York depends on is rebuilt in Ontario in the meantime.
Leave a Reply