I can't say I'm too surprised. I'm not involved in the auto sector in anyway, but the media I've seen about it with respect to Canadian manufacturing has been all negative - US companies or US owned companies pulling their manufacturing out of Canada despite deals made (looking at you Stellantis). If our auto sector is diminishing/pulling out, what do we have to protect?

That being said, I'd like to see more manufacturing jobs here as part of that deal, but I'm entirely uninformed on how that would work or what it would look like.

I’m in one of the big cities affected by this in Ontario. I’ve got mixed feelings, but I think this may end up being for the better. With all the American manufacturers backsliding on their EV transitions and keeping their prices sky-high for whatever they do have—all while refusing to stand up to Trump in any meaningful way—now, they’ll have to compete or risk losing the market entirely. I still think we should do more and accept vehicle standards from other countries in our market, not just the American ones. This should lower vehicle costs and, in turn, insurance rates for affordable vehicles. It should also make it more economical to export products directly to China, rather than the current convoluted process of selling to intermediary countries that add minimal processing before re-exporting to China at a higher cost.

Canada will allow up to 49,000 Chinese

In case people want to know want to know what the numbers means. There was 202k battery EV's registered in 2024 and 82k through 3 reported quarters in 2025.

Imagine this just gets the ball rolling and there will be a more substantial deal before we hit that number. As of now I don't like the lack of progress security(this extends outside of EV's or ones from China) and how we didn't leverage this into any manufacturing deals.

StatCan Source (first time I've seen them use PoweBI):

https://tdih-cdit.tc.canada.ca/en/search/20100024

Overall this is a good move. However, it will affect manufacturing in Canada. This means North American car manufacturers will simply have to adapt and innovate. Competition is always better than the alternative. For me personally, Honda & Toyota will be my first choice to support our manufacturing base. 🇨🇦💪

Trump can keep his US cars. We don’t need them!

This is a promising start to a reset in the relationship. Let's see where it goes from here and how it develops. This comes just a couple of months after the US's NSS that claimed dominance over trade in the Americas, so it's an important move by Carney. The guard rails Carney discussed seem to be around critical areas that the US would take issue with, like minerals, energy, and AI, but better diplomatic relations between Canada and China along with Canadians getting more exposure to high-quality Chinese vehicles should open more space for the relationship to evolve positively.

It'll be interesting to see how the EV thing shakes out. Apparently the new vehicles will be priced starting at 33k, which is way less than less subsidized EVs (at least the ones I've looked at). AFAICT, there were around 250k EVs sold, so 49k would make a pretty big crater in sales from incumbents.

I'd really like it if we built more here, ideally from a Canadian manufacturer, but that's looking less likely all the time.

But it's good news for our other sectors.

I saw this in my feed this morning.

Who the fuck cares whether the orange Nobel participation medal claiming pedofascist approves or not? The US wasn't involved in this. The US doesn't get a say in this.

North American auto makers capitulated to the oil oligarchs and MAGA ideologues and stopped producing EVs so Canada might as well have access to cheaper Chinese EVs instead.

And, our canola farmers get to sell their products in to China.

Ontario premier went on to say the deal risks "closing the door on Canadian automakers to the American market"

Doing nothing risks closing US market. This is leverage to get balanced auto trade between US and Canada, and charge individual manufacturers fees/tariffs based on imbalance. Demand that manufacturers pay more for Canadian access, with payment in local production. Can be part of new CUSMA/USMCA to permit US to get same balanced trade payments, if Canada were to export more than we import.

EV tariff could have been 25% and they'd sell all 49k quota with more revenue for Canada. There will need to be an investment in service centers and charging. Low tariff may end up with the most expensive Chinese models (ferrari type competition) imported.

Doug Ford has been asleep at the wheel, drunk at the cottage, and completely fumbled the car industry in S. Ontario. The Ontario government should really limit the power, speed, and acceleration of cars. In S. Ontario we've reached the limits of congestion, it's just sprawl and traffic.

By severally limiting the speed etc. of cars, though taxes, the government would have saved the Ontario auto industry. Focus would have then shifted to making everything lower price, and that is all that matters globally in the car market.

Instead we get stupid cars like the Dodge Charge, that only a small minority of people want. Power you can't use, and a high price tag.

If the provincial government told people, no more stupidity, we are actively capping engine size through taxes we'd have a better and stronger car manufacturing sector in Ontario.