Ontario Premier Doug Ford speaks to media in Hamilton, on Monday.Nick Iwanyshyn/The Canadian Press
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Ottawa needs to do more to help his province’s tariff-hit steel and auto sectors weather the trade war with the United States, and should exempt them from federally required carbon taxes, while also ending tailpipe emissions standards.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday in Vaughan, Ont., north of Toronto, Mr. Ford also denied that his opposition to a tentative deal last week – and his refusal to agree to a U.S. precondition to end his ban on U.S. liquor and wine sales – amounted to a veto that scuppered negotiations.
And despite publicly trading personal insults with the U.S. President this week, Mr. Ford urged Ottawa to get back to the bargaining table, saying Prime Minister Mark Carney and Donald Trump need to speak by phone to restart talks.
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The Premier said he largely supported the federal government’s plans, unveiled on Tuesday, for retaliatory tariffs and support for sectors affected by the new U.S. levies, which the U.S imposed after Canadian negotiators walked away from trade talks last Friday.
Mr. Ford called for any revenues generated by Canada’s retaliatory tariffs to go back to the affected sectors. And he said Ottawa should enact measures to restrict steel imports, in order to stop cut-rate Chinese steel from entering Canada’s supply chain through third countries.
He repeated his call, first made in a letter to Mr. Carney last week, for an end to federal tailpipe emissions standards for Canadian-made cars in order to save costs as tariff damage mounts. He also called for exemptions from the federally required industrial carbon tax, for tariff-hit industries. He said the levy is set to cost steel companies hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
Mr. Ford said he had discussed his demands with Mr. Carney, and was “very confident” the Prime Minister would “correct the issue,” noting U.S. competitors do not face similar carbon taxes.
“We can’t put an additional burden on these companies, or they just won’t exist,” he said.
The Prime Minister’s Office did not provide a comment on Mr. Ford’s remarks.
Prime Minister Mark Carney, left, speaks with Ontario Premier Doug Ford during the closing press conference at the First Ministers Meetings in Charlottetown on Thursday, July 23, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren CalabreseDarren Calabrese/The Canadian Press
The industrial carbon tax is required by Ottawa but actually imposed by legislative schemes in each province. Etienne Rainville, vice-president for central Canada for Clean Prosperity, a climate-change policy think tank, said Mr. Ford could alter his own province’s industrial carbon-tax rules to mimic Alberta’s, which allow businesses facing sinking profits or sales to apply for relief.
Ontario could seek to do so, he said, as its current regime goes through a review process in the coming months with Ottawa. There was no immediate response to the idea from the Premier’s Office.
Also on Wednesday, Mr. Ford was asked if his refusal to support the tentative deal floated last week amounted to a veto, and meant any deal was dead on arrival. Mr. Ford said it was the Prime Minister who made the decision to walk away, not him.
“At the end of the day, the Prime Minister is the person in charge,” Mr. Ford said. “ … He’s a fighter. He’s standing up to President Trump, and again, at the end of the day, it’s his choice and he made the right choice.”
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The Premier said both he and Mr. Carney had heard from industry leaders that the deal did not go far enough. And he suggested that the involvement of U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick complicated the talks. “Try to make a deal with Howard Lutnick and President Trump. You know they kept moving the goalposts on the Prime Minister. And he did the right thing.”
Ontario’s Premier also insisted that “everything is on the table” as far as cutting off or surcharging electricity or critical minerals exports to the U.S. But he said all provinces, such as Quebec, that send electricity south would have to agree, and that he would follow a “Team Canada” approach. Last year, he briefly imposed a surcharge on Ontario electricity bound for the U.S. but withdrew it after the move attracted the ire of Mr. Trump.
Mr. Ford has also in the past listed Alberta oil and Saskatchewan potash and uranium as potential bargaining chips – despite opposition to the idea from Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe.
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Asked about his Monday call with Ms. Smith, Mr. Ford evaded the question of an oil embargo or surcharge and said they discussed the need for a new pipeline from Alberta to Ontario to ensure natural gas bound for his province is no longer routed through the U.S.
Mr. Ford was also asked about his back-and-forth with the President this week, which saw the Premier call Mr. Trump a “loser” and tell him to “kiss my ass,” while Mr. Trump called Mr. Ford a “Flunky” of “Governor Carney” in a social media post. In a series of U.S. TV media interviews on Tuesday, Mr. Ford was more conciliatory.
On Wednesday, the Premier said Mr. Carney had not asked him to change his tone, but that he had decided on his own to “simmer down” after a “heated day.”
Ontario’s interim Liberal leader, John Fraser, said while the Premier may have retreated from what he called a “WWE SmackDown” approach, Mr. Ford still had no new plans to help tariff-stricken industries and insists on making “undisciplined” public comments.
“What I don’t hear from Doug Ford is a plan,” Mr. Fraser said. “I hear him asking other people to do things. I hear him writing letters. I hear him criticizing other people.”