{"id":873042,"date":"2026-08-27T07:02:31","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T07:02:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/873042\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T07:02:31","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T07:02:31","slug":"ford-calls-on-ottawa-to-do-more-to-help-tariff-hit-steel-and-auto-sectors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/873042\/","title":{"rendered":"Ford calls on Ottawa to do more to help tariff-hit steel and auto sectors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Ontario Premier Doug Ford speaks to media in Hamilton, on Monday.Nick Iwanyshyn\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Ontario Premier Doug Ford<\/a> said Ottawa needs to do more to help his province\u2019s tariff-hit steel and auto sectors weather the trade war<\/a> with the United States, and should exempt them from federally required carbon taxes, while also ending tailpipe emissions standards. <\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday in Vaughan, Ont., north of Toronto, Mr. Ford also denied that his opposition to a tentative deal last week \u2013 and his refusal to agree to a U.S. precondition to end his ban on U.S. liquor and wine sales \u2013 amounted to a veto that scuppered negotiations.<\/p>\n

And despite publicly trading personal insults<\/a> with the U.S. President this week, Mr. Ford urged Ottawa to get back to the bargaining table, saying Prime Minister Mark Carney<\/a> and Donald Trump<\/a> need to speak by phone to restart talks.<\/p>\n

Four takeaways from Canada\u2019s tariff counterpunch<\/a><\/p>\n

The Premier said he largely supported the federal government\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Mr. Ford called for any revenues generated by Canada\u2019s 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\u2019s supply chain through third countries. <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Mr. Ford said he had discussed his demands with Mr. Carney, and was \u201cvery confident\u201d the Prime Minister would \u201ccorrect the issue,\u201d noting U.S. competitors do not face similar carbon taxes. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t put an additional burden on these companies, or they just won\u2019t exist,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The Prime Minister\u2019s Office did not provide a comment on Mr. Ford\u2019s remarks.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

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\u2019s industrial carbon-tax rules to mimic Alberta\u2019s, which allow businesses facing sinking profits or sales to apply for relief. <\/p>\n

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\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, the Prime Minister is the person in charge,\u201d Mr. Ford said. \u201c … He\u2019s a fighter. He\u2019s standing up to President Trump, and again, at the end of the day, it\u2019s his choice and he made the right choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carney to address EU Parliament in push to grow non-U.S. ties<\/a><\/p>\n

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. \u201cTry 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ontario\u2019s Premier also insisted that \u201ceverything is on the table\u201d 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 \u201cTeam Canada\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

Mr. Ford has also in the past listed Alberta oil and Saskatchewan potash and uranium as potential bargaining chips \u2013 despite opposition to the idea from Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe. <\/p>\n

Andrew Coyne: The whole world is watching as Canada stands up to Trump<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Mr. Ford was also asked about his back-and-forth with the President this week<\/a>, which saw the Premier call Mr. Trump a \u201closer\u201d and tell him to \u201ckiss my ass,\u201d while Mr. Trump called Mr. Ford a \u201cFlunky\u201d of \u201cGovernor Carney\u201d in a social media post. In a series of U.S. TV media interviews on Tuesday, Mr. Ford was more conciliatory<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, the Premier said Mr. Carney had not asked him to change his tone, but that he had decided on his own to \u201csimmer down\u201d after a \u201cheated day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ontario\u2019s interim Liberal leader, John Fraser, said while the Premier may have retreated from what he called a \u201cWWE SmackDown\u201d approach, Mr. Ford still had no new plans to help tariff-stricken industries and insists on making \u201cundisciplined\u201d public comments.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I don\u2019t hear from Doug Ford is a plan,\u201d Mr. Fraser said. \u201cI hear him asking other people to do things. I hear him writing letters. I hear him criticizing other people.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Ontario Premier Doug Ford speaks to media in Hamilton, on Monday.Nick Iwanyshyn\/The Canadian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":873043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[49,48,20739,1008],"class_list":["post-873042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-ottawa","tag-pleasemod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=873042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/873043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}