Prime Minister Mark Carney says he has reached a deal with China to allow tens of thousands of Chinese electric vehicles into the country in exchange for lower canola duties.
He billed his first such trade deal since taking office as a preliminary one that would boost the economy.
Carney says Ottawa expects Beijing to drop canola seed duties to 15 per cent by March.
Canadian canola meal, lobsters, crabs and peas will no longer be subject to Chinese tariffs from March to at least the end of the year.
In return, Canada will allow up to 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles into the Canadian market at a 6.1 per cent tariff rate.
The pact comes just hours after Carney met with President Xi Jinping on a trip to Beijing, ending a multi-year trade dispute that began when the last Liberal government levied EV tariffs to protect Canada’s auto sector.
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.
If they start at 33K, that is the end for the sale of most other cars in Canada. The majority of people that buy a new car, simply pick the cheapest one. 33K undercuts all else on the market.
Googling around, there are a bunch options under 30k. None of them are EVs, but I doubt most buyers really want an EV.
That list from autotrader.ca seems off. Going to individual dealer pages and the prices hover around the $31,000 range for many of those.
I see a Sentra starting at 26k, which is roughly what Autotrader is quoting:
Versas are cheaper, at 23k. Elantra’s are listed around 25k.
I guess what I’m saying is that Chinese EVs aren’t going to be the cheapest new vehicles in the market. There are a bunch of other, cheaper vehicles.
You realize Sentras are so bad they are a meme in auto shops?
No point in a cheap car that barely makes it to the warranty.
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.
Name one industry in Ontario Doug has not fumbled.
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):
They won’t build any assembly here before there is any demand.
There’s been a lot of noise the last few years about there being big demand for these EV’s so we’ll see how true this is. I do have a inclination they’ll do rather well even with the economy and low gas prices.
An EV for $25-30k? Sign me up.
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.
According to a CBC commentator, Carney hinted that a Chinese EV factory may be in the cards. Apparently that was only in a French interview.
Yeah, my bet was they’d likely go with quota/lower tariff at the first meeting, factory afterwards.
It makes sense. Now the question is what’ll it do to CUSMA negotiations with the US?
Hard to say. However the US should be clear now that the economic channel to China is open. The more the US uses the stick on us, the more and faster we’d widen the Chinese channel. Unlike many of the other individual trade partners we have, we already have very large channel with them, and China has the manufacturing capacity to fullfil a potentially rapidly rising demand for goods from Canada as well as capacity to absorb a rise in Canadian exports. So barring an invasion, I think the US might be more careful in the medium term even if they try stick in the short run.
This is the only Canadian act that resulted in Trump saying something positive about Canada. “Good for them. Canada should have made a trade deal with China.”. This is also the only non submissive action Canada has made since the election.
That was his comment? Wow.
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!
Agreed, Canada can even look into battery manufacturing and clean every production. This would include wind, solar, hydro electric, and (with some reluctance on my part) modular nuclear reactors, which Canada has plenty of knowledge in manufacturing.
If we shifted to battery manufacturing we can supply replacement batteries for imported cars, or even producing the batteries for said cars being imported directly.
