As Prime Minister Mark Carney is set to travel to China next week, Ontario Premier Doug Ford reiterated on Thursday that Canada’s tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) should remain in place.
“We can’t back down. It’s as simple as that,” Ford told reporters on Thursday during an unrelated news conference.
“They want to come and open a big manufacturing facility and employ Unifor employees, well, let’s talk. But don’t be shipping cars not manufactured by Ontarians.”
Ford has been adamant that the federal government maintain its 100 per cent tariffs on Chinese-made EVs, which were imposed in October of last year in concert with the United States, and framed as a way to protect domestic manufacturing.
The premier even wrote a letter to Carney in September calling on the prime minister not to lift the tariff, as doing so would put more than 157,000 jobs in Ontario at risk.
“You’ve got to start building here,” Ford said on Thursday.
Canada has been reviewing its decision to impose the tariffs on EVs imported from China.
Carney will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visit from Jan. 13 to 17. It will be the first visit to China by a Canadian prime minister since 2017.
China’s ambassador to Canada, Wang Di, told CTV’s Question Period in October that his country’s tariffs on Canadian canola would be removed if the EV levies are dropped.
Both the premiers of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, where some of Canada’s canola farms are located, have voiced their support for dropping the EV tariffs.
With files from CTV News’ Spencer Van Dyk
