Prime Minister Mark Carney was in China last week. The trip resulted in a trade deal reopening a vital market for Canadian canola exports, and will allow the limited import of Chinese-made electric vehicles. Reaction at home to the deal has been mixed. The agriculture industry is supportive, while Ontario Premier Doug Ford cried foul over the potential hit to domestic auto production. Carney made a deal that was the least bad option for now. That decision shouldn’t have been difficult to make.
According to the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association, the auto industry supports about 125,000 direct jobs — either in assembly plants or parts manufacturers. The total supported jobs are around 500,000. In comparison, the Canola Council of Canada says about 43,000 farmers are directly involved with growing canola, and the total supported jobs are about 205,000. Canada’s domestic automotive industry is worth about $55.5 billion to the economy, and the canola industry is worth about $43.5 billion. All those factors show that the auto industry has more value, a larger share of Canada’s GDP, and greater impact. Yet canola is the winner for two key reasons.
Canada’s canola output is part of the larger agriculture industry. In Carney’s deal with China, seafood producers also find tariff relief, and other agriculture industries are not being targeted. The agriculture industry in Canada has about the same overall value as that of the automotive industry, about $100 billion per year. Direct jobs in agriculture are about 280,000 and indirect jobs are about 2.3 million. While valued at about the same in relation to the economy, more jobs are on the line when the agriculture industry is threatened than the automotive industry.
While Canada’s agriculture industry is changing, it is largely stable and domestically owned; the auto industry is neither. There are no “Canadian” auto manufacturers anymore. Ford and General Motors are American, Stellantis is Dutch/American/Italian, and Honda and Toyota are Japanese-owned. Given trade instability and the “America First” influence of U.S. President Donald Trump, the American companies are not reliable partners in Canada. Case in point, GM shuttered the CAMI plant in Ingersoll, and Stellantis moved Jeep production from Brampton to the U.S. – the latter causing the Canadian government to place Stellantis in default on subsidy contracts.
The introduction of 49,000 imports per year of Chinese-made EVs is a drop in the bucket compared to the production and purchasing in Canada. This doesn’t mean that companies like BYD or SAIC are opening dealerships tomorrow. It does mean that companies operating in Canada such as Tesla and Nissan, which have some production in China, can now import those Chinese-made vehicles here. Canadian auto plants build 1.3 million vehicles, and Canadians bought 1.9 million new vehicles last year. Chinese EVs will make up about 2.6 per cent of those new vehicles purchased.
By choosing canola over protecting the automotive sector, Carney has chosen the least bad option for the Canadian economy — China. Diversifying Canada’s export economy and decreasing the reliance on the U.S. market means we will see more deals that Canadians will have to hold their noses and accept.
It is a strange world we live in when China, with its human rights abuses, extensive state-subsidized corporate structure, and alleged election interference in Canada, is now the more stable trading partner than the United States. Up is really down, and the least bad option is the best we have right now.
This column was originally published in the January 21, 2026 print edition of the Morrisburg Leader.
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