“Whether or not they ever be put into place, the damage is done,” said Greig Mordue, a former auto industry executive and associate professor at the W. Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology at McMaster University.
He says Trump’s threats have already changed the landscape. Whether he goes ahead with the tariffs or not, or whether he carves out specific exemptions, the threat alone will drive investment out of Canada and into the U.S.
“For at least the next four years, there will be no serious investment in the Canadian automotive industry,” said Mordue.
No doubt we have a lot of production capabilities, and you are right, I’m sure you could piece most of the rest together. The marketplace is the biggest conundrum, I would propose. All those manufacturing facilities are in SW Ontario, so the only way to get them to other markets (which is going to be necessary here, because the Canadian marketplace isn’t big enough), it is going to involve ocean liners. Which is feasible, but your margins are going to get cooked here. There’s too much risk.
This ain’t the industry Canada needs to double down on, in a suddenly protectionist world. It’s natural resources, and maybe service related. And hopefully all sorts of other industries that we aren’t even thinking about.
Yes, in the long term it might make more sense to just let Europe, South Korea and Japan take the lead. Or a poor country - hopefully a democratic one; I trust China only slightly more than the US right now.
The reason intervention would make sense is just to make the transition tolerably gradual. Right now we’re talking about production lines and parts companies just sitting and rotting for (sudden, artificial) lack of customers, while Canadian consumers have trouble buying new cars at the same time.