Industry & Sector Archives - Centre for Future Work

B.C. Missed an Economic Opportunity by Importing New Ferries From China, Rather than Building them Here

Jim Stanford — Sat, 19 Sep 2026 01:19:14 +0000

BC Ferries recently announced a purchase of four major new vessels from a shipyard in China. This decision has sparked criticism from trade unions and others, who argue the ferries should have been commissioned from domestic shipyards.

New research from the Centre for Future Work confirms that the decision to import the ferries, rather than domestic procurement, imposed a significant foregone economic cost on the province.

Sourcing an equivalent value of shipbuilding from domestic yards would generate $1.5 billion in additional GDP in Canada (85% of that in B.C.), over 10,000 person-years of employment, and would return over $400 million in additional revenue to government coffers (providing a financial basis for public support for future procurement).

The report reviewed the current scale of shipbuilding in B.C. and Canada, highlighting the strong employment growth in the sector over the past 15 years (largely due to a pro-active procurement strategy for Navy and Coast Guard ships from the federal government). It reviewed the role of active industrial policy in supporting shipbuilding in other major producers – including the U.S., China, and Europe.

It also surveyed the current capabilities of B.C.’s shipbuilding sector, identifying gaps that should be addressed in order to ensure the industry can source future ferry procurement from the provincial ferry operator.

The report concluded with several recommendations, including:

Establish a Ministerial-level task force to coordinate the development and implementation of a robust provincial shipbuilding strategy.
Amend contractual and fiscal arrangements with BC Ferries to require the firm to maximize economic benefits from domestic procurement of future vessels.
Commitment to accelerate the electrification of ferries, and development of B.C. technological and industrial expertise in electric vessels.
Formation of a consortium of firms to organize and plan the expansion of future shipbuilding capacity in B.C.
The provincial government should be prepared to take equity stakes in future ventures.

A strong marine sector workforce development strategy to ensure a steady and adequate supply of skilled workers for the shipbuilding and marine sectors.

Please see the full report, The Economic Benefits of Ferry Construction in B.C., by Jim Stanford, Blair Redlin, and David Fairey.

A video reviewing the main findings of the report, recorded during a public launch event, is available on the Centre for Future Work’s YouTube channel.

The report generated numerous media articles, including:

Newspaper articles in the Vancouver Sun, the Toronto Star, and numerous other outlets.
Television coverage on CHEK TV and other stations.
A feature interview on the Jas Johal Show on CKNW Radio.

The post B.C. Missed an Economic Opportunity by Importing New Ferries From China, Rather than Building them Here appeared first on Centre for Future Work.

Extending Gas Tax Holiday Won’t Fix Fossil Fuel Inflation

Jim Stanford — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 19:56:47 +0000

The federal government has announced it will extend the current holiday on the federal excise tax on gasoline and diesel fuel for another 4 months, until January 31, 2027. New research from the Centre for Future Work confirms that extension will not solve the underlying problem of oil-fueled inflation that is hurting all Canadians, not just drivers.

The tax holiday first came into effect on April 20, and was originally set to end on Labour Day. It was intended to offset some of the impact of rising oil prices (resulting from the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz) on Canadian consumers.

While the tax holiday may be appreciated by drivers, it has not addressed the underlying inflationary shock arising from this latest global oil price shock. In fact, Canadian gasoline and diesel prices are higher now than they were before the tax holiday came into effect (and have been higher through most of the 18 weeks since it began). The full value of the tax holiday (to fuel consumers) has thus been more than offset by continued increases in the cost of petroleum products.

New national income data released last week by Statistics Canada confirms Canadian consumers are paying billions of dollars extra for petroleum products despite the cushion from the excise tax holiday. There are also signs that the price shock is spreading into other products beyond petroleum, including air travel, other transportation, and food. This raises the spectre of another spike in broader inflation, sparked by petroleum prices. Statistics Canada data also confirms the petroleum industry in Canada has received record profits as a result of the current oil price shock.

The Centre for Future Work has published a new briefing paper analyzing the latest Statistics Canada data on consumer costs, average prices, and petroleum profits. Highlights include:

There was a large increase in consumer expenses for petroleum products, despite the tax holiday. This includes $3 billion in extra consumer costs for motor vehicle fuels in just three months April through June).
There is a growing gap (called the ‘crack spread’) between prices of gasoline and diesel, and underlying prices for crude oil. This has exacerbated the impact of the oil price shock on Canadian consumers.
There are some early signs of spillover from higher petroleum prices into other prices, and hence into broader inflation – enhancing the risk of future interest rate increases.
The price shock has produced a dramatic increase in profitability for the Canadian petroleum industry, a direct result of the extra costs paid by consumers. Combined after-tax profit in the upstream and downstream sectors reached $23 billion in the second-quarter, more than double their profits in the first quarter.
But just 5% of additional profits, and 2% of additional revenues, have been reinvested by the industry in new capital spending.

The paper concludes with several policy recommendations regarding how Canada can better protect itself against repeated cycles of oil-fired inflation, affordability crises, and higher interest rates.

Please see the full briefing paper, Another Band-aid: Extending Gas Tax Holiday Won’t Fix Fossil Fuel Inflation, by Jim Stanford.

The post Extending Gas Tax Holiday Won’t Fix Fossil Fuel Inflation appeared first on Centre for Future Work.

Workforce Alliances an Opportunity for Canadian Unions to Shape Future Industrial Strategies

Jim Stanford — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 06:50:25 +0000

A new report co-published by the Centre for Future Work and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives reviews six new ‘Workforce Alliances’ being established by the federal government as part of its economic strategy responding to Donald Trump’s trade war. The report concludes that the Alliances have potential to improve training, labour supply, and labour standards – but Canadian unions must be ambitious and assertive to ensure that they fulfil this potential.

The report, Hinge Moment for Canada’s Workforce and Industrial Policy, is based on research presented at the recent Canadian Industrial Relations Association conference at Université Laval in Québec.

The federal government is advancing these new Alliances to strengthen the labour side of major new investment and industrial policies. Somewhat reminiscent of the previous tripartite era of sector councils from the 1990s, unions are once again being invited to participate.

Ottawa has announced six Workforce Alliances, which largely mirror the government’s industry, energy and transportation infrastructure initiatives. On a parallel track, a historic $6 billion funding stream to support Red Seal skilled trades training has also been launched.

Unions have ample experience with supply-side training programs. Too many have focused solely on meeting the labour supply needs of employers, with limited benefits for workers and no opportunity to build union power. Could this iteration of workforce policy be an opportunity for the labour movement to do better? Does it create an opening to influence industrial policy, labour standards and worker rights?

At a special panel during the 2026 conference of the Canadian Industrial Relations Association (CIRA) at Université Laval in June, union experts and labour studies academics came together to review the Workforce Alliances and their associated training initiatives, and examine the opportunities for genuine trade union engagement.

The presentations to the CIRA conference are collected in this compendium. The goal is to start a bigger discussion among trade unionists and progressive researchers about a labour strategy that links workforce policy with labour standards and conditionalities across the industries and sectors receiving federal funding, including a larger role for unions in shaping industrial policy.

Several common themes emerge from the contributions collected here. First, workforce policy cannot be reduced to labour supply measures aimed solely at meeting employers’ skills needs. Second, sectoral institutions and public investments must be linked to stronger labour standards, worker retention and equitable employment outcomes. Finally, the Workforce Alliances raise broader questions about industrial governance and whether unions can use these new institutions to exercise meaningful influence over economic strategy and democratic decision-making.

Fred Wilson’s introduction traces the evolution of workforce policies from the old sector councils, to industry-led labour market information programs and now back to partial joint governance in the Workforce Alliances. In each case, the primary purpose has been to provide “labour market information,” or LMI, and training programs to meet employer needs. Yet, in this latest version of workforce policy, to meet the government’s promise of “not just jobs, but careers” will require going well beyond the LMI model. Labour’s goals in the new workforce policies must address sector and industry-based standards and industrial policies that create and sustain high-quality, value-added jobs.

Ken Delaney, the managing director of the Canadian Skilled Trades Employment Coalition (CSTEC), Canada’s longest-standing “sector council” model, speaks to the limits of the former sector councils that were confined by government agendas. CSTEC’s work highlights the promise of workforce programs to address worker transition, equity and inclusion, especially if workers are allowed to maintain EI benefits in training. The organization’s programs also demonstrate how the career-building potential of Red Seal training can be adapted to meet the needs of skilled workers in manufacturing and other sectors. Delaney encourages unions to seize the opportunity in the Workforce Alliances to integrate industrial policy with labour market policy.

Professor Evelyn Dionne’s study of the construction sector in Quebec warns that sector programs to increase labour force supply and speed up construction can lead to “a downward spiral marked by declining skill levels, lower-quality housing, inefficient green buildings and high turnover.” Dionne calls for project labour agreements (PLAs) to be incorporated into housing and construction projects in order to establish common and high-quality terms and conditions governing all workers and contractors. “By embedding training, equity and labour standards into procurement processes,” she writes, “PLAs can help ensure that accelerated construction does not come at the expense of quality or working conditions.”

After pressure from within the Liberal caucus, reinforced by advocacy from social policy and feminist advocates, the federal government agreed to establish a Workforce Alliance for the care economy. Laurell Ritchie, a member of the Care Economy Initiative, emphasizes that in the care economy, worker retention is as important as recruitment. Like industrial sectors, meeting workforce goals in the care economy will require sector-based programs and standards, and strong government leadership. The inclusion of the care economy among the Workforce Alliances is itself recognition that industry and workforce policy can be influenced by advocacy from unions and women’s organizations.

Unifor Research Director Angelo DiCaro’s contribution on the interrelationship between industrial policy and workforce policy underscores the need for the state to act as a “conductor” of a complex orchestra involving multiple public and private players. A weak state role leaves the government as a passive enabler of the private sector, resulting in “industrial improvisation” rather than industrial strategy. For the Workforce Alliances to make a real difference, they must go beyond workforce development—filling vacancies, and sponsoring training—to become well-rounded tables for “peak-level social dialogue” with “a whole-of-supply-chain approach” to labour standards and industrial growth.

As DiCaro aptly puts it, the Workforce Alliances could be “a vital cog in the wheel of industrial growth and rising workplace standards.” Alternatively, they could become an “unambitious and burdensome exercise, simply facilitating training fund transfers, and entirely delinked from future-facing industrial strategy.”

Prime Minister Carney has described this as a “hinge moment” for Canada, as Canadians collectively face up to the unprecedented threat posed by Donald Trump and aggression from Washington. It is also a hinge moment for labour. The potential reorientation of Canada’s economy away from deep dependence on U.S. export markets, with a greater role for active industrial policy and public investment, carries both opportunities and risks for unions and the workers they represent.

The Workforce Alliances are an opportunity for unions to shape this historic economic moment, leveraging workers’ position at the point of production to demand both material progress and democratic power as this pivot unfolds. Canada’s unions must demonstrate that they have the organizational capacity and political leverage to bring a working-class agenda to the Workforce Alliances, and help to shape this new era of industrial policy in favour of workers.

Please see the full paper here.

The post Workforce Alliances an Opportunity for Canadian Unions to Shape Future Industrial Strategies appeared first on Centre for Future Work.

Health Care is an Economic Engine, not Just a Cost Item

Jim Stanford — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 18:56:42 +0000

Canada’s public health care system, which provides essential health services without regard to ability to pay, is one of our most cherished social achievements. Indeed, public opinion polls consistently show that medicare is the single feature Canadians most associate with our national identity. Support for universal public health care is thus an important element of Canadians’ response to the challenges to our economy and sovereignty posed by U.S. President Donald Trump.

However, the medicare system is under threat from inadequate funding, long wait times for some services, and ongoing pressure from investors to privatize services. In Alberta, new laws allow parallel private provision of key health care services (including diagnostic tests and some surgeries). Other provinces (such as Ontario) are also pushing privatization. Always underlying privatization efforts is the claim that Canada simply cannot ‘afford’ the big costs of the public health care system.

At the recent summit meeting of Canadian premiers held in Charlottetown, P.E.I. in July, premiers discussed the challenges of financing health care and called on the federal government to hold a national summit on future health funding. At the summit, Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford made a presentation to the premiers on the economic benefits of public health care. He stressed that health care ranks as one of the most important industries in Canada: it creates jobs, generates incomes, supports widespread economic spillovers, and is one of Canada’s leading sources of innovation and new technology. These benefits have to be considered alongside the costs of providing essential health services.

Here is the presentation which Stanford gave to the premiers. It drew on findings from a recent report Stanford prepared for the Canadian Federation of Nurses’ Unions, titled The Economic Benefits of Canada’s Public Health Care System. The report quantified the important ways in which public health care supports employment, incomes, economic growth, and government revenues. Seen this way, health care should be redefined as an investment—not just a cost item on provincial budgets.

Key findings from the report include:

Health care is one of Canada’s largest and most dynamic industries.
It employs 1.9 million waged or salaried employees, and hundreds of thousands more self-employed practitioners, specialists, and contractors.
Health care production accounts for about 8% of Canada’s total value-added (GDP), and over 10% of total employment.
Health care workers earn $120 billion per year in wages and salaries.
The health care system purchases $51 billion worth of supplies and inputs from a complex and far-reaching supply chain (composed mostly of private businesses).
Health care accounts for over $7 billion in annual research spending, the second highest of any Canadian industry.
Because health care is not highly integrated in international trade, it is relatively protected from global disruptions and shocks (like the effects of U.S. trade policies).
Universal access to quality health care unlocks many other economic benefits including: more flexible labour markets (workers are able to change jobs without fear of losing health coverage), enhanced longevity and well-being (supporting more labour force participation and higher productivity), and improved ‘social capital’ (safe and inclusive communities where interactions can occur more securely and efficiently).

In sum, health care cannot be understood solely as a ‘cost.’ It is also a powerful economic engine: a source of growth, jobs, incomes, tax revenues, and well-being. Understanding and appreciating the economic benefits of the universal public health care system can reinforce public and fiscal support for its maintenance and improvement.

Please see the full report here.

The post Health Care is an Economic Engine, not Just a Cost Item appeared first on Centre for Future Work.

Iran War, Soaring Prices Drive Record Oil Profits

Jim Stanford — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 20:20:42 +0000

U.S. President Donald Trump’s misguided war against Iran has caused another shock in global oil prices – the 14^th such shock in the last half-century. World oil prices rose 50% or more after the war started, and have stayed high despite Trump’s repeated promises to stop the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. These price increases are is driving massive increases in profits for petroleum companies around the world – including Canada.

Canada produces three times more oil than it consumes. And while Canada imports small amounts of oil to the eastern provinces, almost none of that is sourced from the Persian Gulf. Hence there is no significant impact of the war on our domestic supply volumes or costs.

Nevertheless, because of a policy choice to tie domestic oil and petroleum product prices to global benchmarks (allowing oil producers to charge Canadians world prices for their own oil, on pain of diverting supply to more lucrative foreign markets), Canadian petroleum prices have soared in tandem.

The combination of sky-high prices with stable production costs is producing a profit windfall for Canadian petroleum companies. This is confirmed by the recent release of financial reports by publicly-traded Canadian oil companies for the second quarter of 2026.

The table below summarizes after-tax earnings and other metrics for the four largest publicly-traded Canadian producers. Their combined revenues (net of royalty payments) grew almost 50% in the April-June period, compared to the year-earlier period, thanks to the effect of Trump’s war on world prices.

After-tax profits rose more dramatically, since production costs remained largely unchanged. After-tax profits at the big four more than doubled: rising 144% compared to the second quarter of 2025, reaching a combined total of $13.3 billion. That’s almost $150 million per day in after-tax profit over the three-month period.

These four companies represent only a portion of the Canadian petroleum sector. Financial results for many companies (including wholly-owned subsidiaries of foreign oil companies) are never publicly reported. However, Statistics Canada publishes helpful financial data on an industry-wide basis. That data for the second quarter of 2026 will be released later in August.

Extrapolated to apply to the broad Canadian petroleum sector (upstream and downstream), the big four’s results suggest that second-quarter industry-wide profits could reach $30 billion (up from $12.6 billion in the second quarter of 2025). Canadian oil profits for the full year could reach $100 billion. That would set a new all-time record, smashing the peak $68 billion after-tax profit the industry recorded in 2022 (when oil prices were similarly shocked following the Russian invasion of Ukraine).

What are the oil companies doing with this record profit flow? There is no robust pattern of reinvestment in new Canadian projects. In fact, excluding acquisitions of other companies and properties (which does not represent an increase in real investment), capital spending by the big four companies actually declined slightly in the second quarter (compared to the year earlier period).

Instead, their main priority is to pay out so-called “excess cash” to company owners, in the form of increased dividend payments and share buy-back programs. Companies buy back their shares as a way of boosting share prices (this benefits company executives, too, through share-based compensation systems). The four majors spent over $6 billion on share purchases and dividend payments in the second quarter, up by almost $2 billion from like period 2026.

Hopes that booming oil profits will lead to new investment and jobs in the petroleum sector are being dashed by the priority these firms are placing on cash payouts, rather than reinvestments.

But the combination of record profits and rapid share buybacks has been great for company owners. Share prices at the big four majors have increased by an average of 45% since the start of the year. Most of those gains are captured by the wealthiest minority of the population. Other Canadians experience only higher costs and declining real incomes.

Research on the distribution of global oil profits during the 2022 price spike confirms that each oil shock further redistributes income upward. Global oil profits almost doubled that year, to nearly $1 trillion (U.S.). In the U.S., 50% of those gains were received by the richest 1% of the population; the bottom 50% of the population got almost none. A less extreme, but similar, pattern prevails in Canada.

In the meantime, oil-fueled inflation remains a threat to living standards and economic performance for most Canadians – those who do not own significant equity holdings in oil companies. Inflation has increased again in Canada since the Iran war started (just as it did in 2022 after the oil shock accompanying the invasion of Ukraine).

Spillover price increases for other goods and services (whose costs of production also increase due to high petroleum prices) will amplify inflationary pressures. And if the Bank of Canada responds with higher interest rates (as it will if above-target inflation persists), Canadians will be punished further with higher interest costs, on top of sky-high gasoline prices and faster broader inflation.

The current oil price shock, just the latest in an ongoing pattern of global price volatility, confirms that fossil fuel prices are the greatest threat to affordability and living standards for Canadian workers and consumers. Please follow the Centre for Future Work’s False Profits project for more details on the impact of oil prices on prices, real wages, and inequality in Canada.

The post Iran War, Soaring Prices Drive Record Oil Profits appeared first on Centre for Future Work.

New Research Shows National Cild Care Plan Already Driving Economic Benefits In Ontario

Jim Stanford — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 04:33:57 +0000

The Centre for Future Work has co-published new research quantifying the economic and fiscal benefits being generated in Ontario from the new Canada Wide Early Learning and Child Care program.

The expansion of affordable child care services in Ontario resulting from that new program has delivered a substantial economic boost to the province. That boost would have been even stronger, if the provincial government had not lagged behind other provinces in implementing the new national program.

The report finds that Ontario’s GDP in 2024 was $13.6 Billion higher than it would have been without the expansion of child care since 2019.

That growth in GDP generated approximately $2.25 Billion in extra provincial revenue in 2024 alone. This amount slightly exceeded the provincial funding to child care that year, indicating the program effectively pays for itself through increased economic activity.

Job Creation: Over 17,000 new jobs have been created in Ontario’s child care sector since 2019, with total sector compensation expected to exceed $3 Billion in 2026.

Empowering Women in the Workforce: Core-age (25-54) female labour force participation in Ontario increased by two full percentage points between 2019 and 2026—outpacing the national trend. This shift, combined with more women moving from part-time to full-time work, added 81,500 full-time-equivalent workers to the provincial economy.

Improved Job Quality: Average weekly earnings for child care workers rose by 39% since 2019, while average weekly hours increased from 26 to 31.

“Affordable, quality child care services are a vital precondition for economic progress,” says Jim Stanford, author of the report and Director of the Centre for Future Work.

“The data confirm that even Ontario’s partial and inconsistent rollout of the national program has been an economic boon. However, the province is leaving billions of dollars in potential growth on the table by failing to meet its targets for new spaces and lower fees”.

The report comes as the Ford and Carney governments continue to negotiate a new child care agreement.

Despite economic gains, the report highlights significant concerns regarding the Ontario government’s commitment to the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care program. Ontario’s current child care agreement is set to expire in March 2027, and Ontario remains 25% behind its target for creating new spaces for children under six. Furthermore, while the national goal is $10aDay, daily CWELCC fees in Ontario currently average $19 with a cap of $22. The report also criticizes the province’s heavy reliance on for-profit providers—accounting for 44% of full-day spaces—which research associates with lower quality of care and higher staff turnover.

The report was co-published with the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care and the Association of Early Childhood Educators Ontario.

The report concludes with urgent recommendations for the Ontario government, including securing long-term funding through 2031, eliminating “child care deserts,” and fulfilling the $10aDay affordability promise.

“If Ontario fails to fully commit to a universal system, these historic economic gains will be squandered,” added Stanford.

Please see the full report here, and a one-page summary of its key findings.

The post New Research Shows National Cild Care Plan Already Driving Economic Benefits In Ontario appeared first on Centre for Future Work.

Auto Talks a Chance to Reinforce the Canadian Industry’s Lasting Potential

Jim Stanford — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 01:54:13 +0000

As Canada’s auto industry grapples with the fallout from Donald Trump’s erratic and mutually-damaging tariffs, the union representing auto workers has opened its triennial round of major bargaining with the major North American automakers. First up will be talks with Ford, which has invested $5 billion in its Canadian operations despite the tariffs. In this commentary, originally published in the Toronto Star, Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford discusses the importance of this bargaining in enhancing stability for both workers and the automakers, and showcasing the advantages of Canadian auto manufacturing – advantages which, he argues, will outlast Trump.

Despite Trump tariffs, Unifor talks with Ford the perfect moment to showcase Canada’s auto sector

By Jim Stanford

Canada’s auto industry is reeling from Donald Trump’s trade war. His 25% tariff on vehicles and some auto parts had immediate impact on Canadian vehicle production, employment, and exports, which all slumped badly after he imposed it last year.

But the longer-run threat facing auto is even worse. The tariff destroys the business case for making cars in Canada, given that 90 percent of our output goes to the U.S. – a geographic reality that has been true since the 1960s.

And that is exactly Donald Trump’s goal. He wants all North American production to relocate to the U.S. His Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick put it bluntly: “Car assembly is going to be in America and there is nothing Canada can do about it.” Last month U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer echoed that view, asking “Why do we make cars in Canada?”

Into this turbulent arena marched two negotiating teams last week: bargainers for Unifor, the auto union, and Ford Motor Company. The two sides kicked off triennial contract talks in Toronto, hoping to reach a new collective agreement for Ford’s 5000 Canadian workers by a July 10 deadline.

One might think this is a terrible time to negotiate a labour contract – with many workers on layoff, and uncertainty hanging thick. But given the unfortunate reality of Trump’s tariffs, stakeholders must deal with the world as it is, not how they wish it was.

In fact, these talks are an opportunity to remind businesses and governments on both sides of the border why Canada is a great place to build cars.

Both the union and the company emphasized these negotiations as an opportunity to impart some badly-needed stability to an industry beset by Trump-induced chaos. The union, of course, puts priority on job security for its members at Ford’s operations: the Oakville assembly plant, two major engine factories in Windsor, and three parts distribution centres.

But the company needs stability, too. The Oakville plant is launching a new generation of pickup trucks. This represents a massive investment by Ford, which has pumped $5 billion of capital into Canadian plants despite Trump’s actions.

Any vehicle launch is a complex, sensitive moment for an assembly plant. But the Oakville launch is particularly fine-tuned: the company will produce several specialized variants of large trucks on the same assembly line.

Ford is also launching a new high-feature engine at its Essex plant in Windsor. These two simultaneous product launches underscore the value to Ford of a smooth round of bargaining.

That the two sides have set an internal bargaining deadline two months before the current contract expires (when a strike or lockout would become legal) is a clear indication they aim to reach agreement without a work stoppage, if possible.

The intricate cross-border nature of Ford’s supply chain serves as a parable for the whole industry. Ford’s Canadian-built engines flow to 12 different U.S. and Mexican assembly plants (as well as Oakville). And its Oakville trucks encompass hundreds of different parts made across the U.S. and Mexico. A disruption in any of those cross-border flows (whether from a tariff or anything else) hurts everyone.

That’s why the automakers themselves are dead-set against Trump’s destructive strategy: it’s cost them billions in needless costs, lost efficiency, and supply-chain uncertainty.

Despite recent tribulations, auto is still Canada’s most important manufacturing sector. 120,000 Canadians are directly employed in auto and parts production – and that many again in the upstream supply chain that feeds auto plants with an incredible array of inputs, materials, machinery, and services.

These are high-productivity jobs, supporting good wages and benefits, and anchoring billions of dollars in GDP, downstream consumer spending, and government revenues. Canadian auto plants have higher productivity, better quality, and lower labour costs than in the U.S.

So to answer Greer’s insulting question, we make cars in Canada because we’re better at it than Americans. Not to mention because we spend $100 billion buying 2 million new cars every year, and hence deserve a fair share of the jobs that come with that demand.

A fair and productive round of bargaining, nailing down new investment and securing jobs, would be a powerful and tangible demonstration that this industry is here to stay – long after Trump is gone.

The post Auto Talks a Chance to Reinforce the Canadian Industry’s Lasting Potential appeared first on Centre for Future Work.

Stellantis Shows Canada’s Industrial Economy is On the Line

Jim Stanford — Tue, 21 Oct 2025 17:50:08 +0000

Automaker Stellantis recently announced it would shift production of a new vehicle from an assembly plant in Brampton, Ontario (which has been closed for re-tooling) to Indiana, in order to escape the effects of Donald Trump’s 25% tariff on Canadian-assembled vehicles. This decision seems to confirm the worst fears of Canadian economists regarding the long-run impact of Trump’s trade war: by weaponizing access to the U.S. market and pressuring global companies to relocate long-run investments to the U.S., Trump would shatter the viability of continued production in Canada and other countries.

In this commentary, originally published in the Toronto Star, Centre for Future Work Economist and Director Jim Stanford highlights the dangers of this decision – not just for the automotive sector, but for all other high-tech industries targeted by Trump’s Section 232 “national security” tariffs. But he also reminds us that Canada is not powerless in this confrontation: Canada’s large and lucrative new vehicle market gives the government great leverage to pressure Stellantis (and other companies) to maintain a proportional footprint in this country.

Here’s how we fight back against the sheer gall of Stellantis’ caving to Trump

By Jim Stanford

As the saying goes, when someone tells you who they are, you should believe them. And where cars are concerned, Donald Trump has been telling us exactly who he is.

He warned in April, “We don’t really want Canada to make cars for us.” Commerce Secretary Howard Luttnick recently confirmed this goal, telling a Canadian audience “car assembly is going to be in America, and there is nothing Canada can do about it.”

So we shouldn’t be surprised that automaker Stellantis is shifting planned production of a new Jeep from its plant in Brampton, to Illinois. This is Trump’s precise goal: weaponize access to the U.S. market, to leverage incoming investment from global companies in strategic, high-tech industries.

Nevertheless, the sheer gall of Stellantis’ action is shocking. It is breaking explicit commitments made to all its key partners: its own workers (in a binding labour contract), the federal and provincial governments (in binding covenants attached to various subsidies), and auto parts companies (which invested hundreds of millions in new tooling and capital for Brampton).

Trump’s 25% tariffs on cars are already exacting a painful toll. Vehicle exports to the U.S. are down 15% year-over-year since they came into effect; that will translate (if sustained) into a $7 billion annual loss. Trump is now implementing a 25% tariff on heavy trucks that will add to the pain.

But the biggest danger to Canada’s auto industry still lies ahead. If corporations respond to Trump’s extortion by shifting long-run investment to the U.S., Canada’s industrial capacity will be destroyed.

That’s why the Stellantis decision cannot stand. It would set a precedent that quickly spreads into all other high-tech industries.

Remember, while the auto industry has high symbolic value, Trump has his trade guns trained on the whole portfolio of Canadian high-tech industries. His tariffs fall into two broad categories.

First, there is a broad across-the-board tariff. But for now, most industries are exempt if they meet existing rules under the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA). Most of those exempted products are resource-based commodities (energy, minerals, other raw materials) that Trump knows are essential to U.S. supply chains.

For a second category of industries, Trump is attacking full force. He is mis-using Section 232 powers under the U.S. Trade Expansion Act that allow him to unilaterally impose tariffs on grounds of “national security.” His claim these imports jeopardize U.S. security is bogus. His true goal is to force global companies in strategic industries to relocate to America.

It’s no coincidence these 232 tariffs are aimed at every one of Canada’s high-tech success stories: auto, trucks, steel and other basic metals, soon to be joined by aerospace, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, industrial machinery, and more.

Stellantis’s decision is thus a dramatic opening battle in what will be a long, hard war to defend Canada’s status as a modern, industrial country. Yes, we will work to build new export markets, strengthen Canadian content in procurement, and expand trade within Canada. That is vital, and will take time.

In the meantime, we must at all costs defend the successful high-tech industries we have – every one of which is now in Trump’s crosshairs.

Ironically, Trump’s tariffs are clearly hurting U.S. manufacturing, not helping it. They increase input costs for U.S. factories, and create major uncertainty that holds back capital spending (notwithstanding photo-op announcements by obsequious CEOs).

U.S. manufacturing has contracted for seven consecutive months. As of August, the U.S. had lost almost 100,000 manufacturing jobs over the previous year. In contrast, Canada lost just 3,000 manufacturing jobs in the last year.

The major pain being experienced south of the border disproves the passive assumption that Canada has no leverage because of our smaller size. In reality, Canada is not small: we have the tenth largest economy in the world, with 42 million people, well-educated workers, natural riches, and a more stable democracy. The U.S. benefits from bilateral trade as much as we do.

In automotives, Canada has one of the largest and most lucrative vehicle markets in the world. We buy almost 2 million new vehicles per year, worth over $100 billion. Stellantis, and all other automakers, want a piece of it.

Last year Stellantis sold 130,000 new vehicles here – most imported, most of those from the U.S. At present Stellantis mostly avoids Canada’s 25% counter-tariff on vehicle imports from the U.S., thanks to a clever Canadian duty remission program.

And Stellantis benefits from other public supports, including subsidies for retooling that Brampton plant, and ongoing production credits for EV batteries from a new joint venture in Windsor.

All that support is contingent on Stellantis maintaining its production footprint here. It cannot be allowed to walk away from that commitment. The government must confront Stellantis with the full force of a sovereign, wealthy country.

Industry Minister Mélanie Joly has threatened legal action. That should just be the start. Ottawa should threaten full 25% tariffs on all Stellantis imports (costing $1.5 billion per year), until it recommits to completing the tooling at Brampton, paying interim income support to its workforce, and then fully utilizing the plant when it’s finished.

Pushing back against Stellantis will send a signal to companies in every other high-tech industry. If you want access to Canada’s market, Canada’s resources, and Canada’s supply chains, you must maintain a full-fledged production footprint here.

The Stellantis decision also highlights the failure of Ottawa’s strategy to appease Trump – with multiple concessions and personal flattery. While we talk nice, he races full-speed to steal as many high-tech high-wage jobs as he can.

Even worse would be a partial tariff deal that cements U.S. access to energy and other strategic inputs, while hanging our high-tech industries out to dry. By giving away our leverage without protecting our industrial jewels, that would be worse than no deal.

The Stellantis decision is a litmus test of our national courage. We have power to push back against this company, and against the autocrat it is catering to. If we don’t use it, we can expect many more companies to follow in Stellantis’ footsteps.

The post Stellantis Shows Canada’s Industrial Economy is On the Line appeared first on Centre for Future Work.

Enormous Jobs Potential from Energy Transition Investments

Jim Stanford — Sat, 27 Sep 2025 20:22:51 +0000

Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford recently collaborated with the Centre for Civic Governance and the Canadian Building Trades Unions (CBTU) on a new report cataloguing the future job-creation for building trades workers that will result from upcoming investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency measures, in order to meet Canada’s commitment to achieve a net-zero economy by 2050.

The numbers are huge: the report estimates that 6.3 to 9.5 million job years of new construction work will be from now to 2050. This is equivalent to an average of 235,000 to 350,000 ongoing new construction jobs over then next quarter-century – a 20-30% step increase in overall construction employment in Canada.

The report estimated the construction job-creation spurred by three big categories of investment:

- Non-emitting energy production and transmission (including hydro, wind, solar, nuclear, and geothermal).
- Energy-efficient industrial and commercial building construction and retrofits, and construction of district energy systems.
- Sustainable transportation infrastructure (including urban transit, inter-urban high=speed rail, and electric vehicle charging infrastructure).

About half of the new jobs would arise in commercial and industrial building activity, including new construction, deep-energy-saving retrofits, and construction of high-tech district energy systems (which integrate heating and cooling systems with new geothermal, battery, and other technologies to achieve huge gains in energy efficiency).

The job-creation estimates do not include indirect jobs created in the supply chains that feed these investment projects, nor the downstream or induced jobs that would result from additional employment and consumer spending by hundreds of thousands of construction workers. In short, these huge investments will stimulate an unprecedented boom in demand for construction labour.

Sean Strickland, President of the CBTU, concluded these investments are an enormous opportunity for building trades workers:

“This report makes it clear: Canada’s transition to a cleaner economy represents one of the most significant job creation opportunities in our country’s history. Skilled trades workers will be indispensable to delivering the energy infrastructure, retrofits, and clean technology projects that this transition demands. Our members are ready to lead the way by building a more sustainable, resilient, and prosperous Canada for generations to come.”

Please see the full report, Jobs for Today: Canada’s Building Trades and the Net-Zero Transition, by Tyee Bridge and Jim Stanford.

The post Enormous Jobs Potential from Energy Transition Investments appeared first on Centre for Future Work.

The Role of Industrial Policy in Defending Canada Against Trump’s Attacks

Jim Stanford — Sat, 27 Sep 2025 20:03:33 +0000

There is growing awareness of the importance of targeted supports for key high-value industries, as part of the effort to protect Canada’s economy in the wake of Donald Trump’s trade war. His tariffs have deliberately targeted Canada’s most important value-adding, high-tech manufacturing industries – including auto, aerospace, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, machinery, trucks, and manufactured wood products. The goal is clearly to undermine the viability of those industries, to the advantage of U.S.-based locations. That would reinforce Canada’s growing (and precarious) reliance on unprocessed natural resource products to pay our way in world trade.

The Institute for Research on Public Policy recently concluded a two-year project investigating best practices in industrial policy. Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford was one of six members on an advisory committee guiding that project. The IRPP project culminated with a 75-page report on challenges and opportunities for industrial policy under Trump, and a one-day conference in Ottawa. The overarching conclusion of this work is that active, targeted industrial policy will play an increasingly important and legitimate role in economic development, in the interests of sovereignty, sustainability, and economic diversity.

As part of the wrap-up to the project, Jim Stanford wrote the following commentary, originally published in the IRPP’s journal, Policy Options:

Comprehensive Industrial Strategy Needed to Fulfil Canada’s Potential to Add Value to Our Resources

By Jim Stanford

Canada has long striven to be more than a mere supplier of raw resources to more developed trading partners.

From the national policy of the 1870s, to the industrial planning of C.D. Howe after the Second World War, to the Canada-U.S. auto pact of 1965, our economic development strategy tried to nurture secondary and tertiary sectors that add value to primary resources instead of just exporting them raw.

Through the latter half of the 20th century, this strategy largely succeeded. Value-added industries were built in auto, aerospace, pharmaceuticals and technology – in some cases by Canadian-owned businesses, in others relying heavily on foreign investment.

By 2000, less than one-fifth of Canada’s merchandise exports were unprocessed or barely process primary products. We were no longer just “hewers of wood, drawers of water.”

Unfortunately, much of that progress has been undone in this century – for a variety of reasons, heightened recently by U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and other economic threats. Today, primary exports make up almost half our merchandise exports.

The federal government should use every tool at its disposal to craft a targeted industrial policy to reverse the current trend toward precarious over-dependence on resource extraction and export.

More than “diggers of critical minerals”

After entering a free-trade agreement with the U.S. in 1989, Canadian governments retreated from proactive industrial strategies, instead relying on our supposedly privileged access to U.S. markets.

The commodities boom of the 2000s reinforced the focus on resource extraction – first and foremost, the massive expansion of bitumen production and export. Evolving global competition, including the rise of China and Mexico as manufacturing powerhouses, further challenged our value-added export industries.

Now, Trump is hammering more nails into the coffins of Canada’s value-adding industries with his targeted Section 232 tariffs.

It’s no coincidence these tariffs are aimed squarely at Canada’s most important high-value manufacturing. To date, his sectoral tariffs have targeted auto, aluminum, steel, copper and lumber, while aerospace, heavy trucks, pharmaceuticals and semiconductors are next in his crosshairs.

Trump’s various tariffs, including the so-called “emergency tariffs” levied under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, are being challenged in various U.S. courts. However, the worrying erosion of the rule of law in the U.S. leaves Canadians with little confidence that his unilateral measures will be significantly constrained.

Trump is happy, it seems, to keep importing Canadian raw materials, which he treats more leniently, with lower tariffs on energy and potash, as well as CUSMA exemptions (for now, anyway) for most other primary products.

His goal is clearly to increase U.S. industrial dominance in the sectors that transform raw resources into more expensive value-added products – the very sectors Canada must defend and grow.

Otherwise, Trump’s trade war will pigeon-hole Canada as a continental resource pit – and a lucrative market for America’s more innovative (and expensive) exports.

To “hewers of wood and drawers of water” we would then add “steamers of bitumen and diggers of critical minerals.” The economic, geopolitical and environmental risks of this structural retreat from value-added industry are worrisome.

Therefore, this is the moment for Canadian policymakers to rediscover the importance of targeted industrial policy, which is essential to help our value-added industries survive Trump’s attacks and to reverse Canada’s over-dependence on resource extraction and export.

Believers in the traditional “comparative advantage” theory see little wrong with a country being so reliant on production and export of a specialized portfolio of unprocessed resources. If that’s what global markets want from a country, it should simply go with the flow, they believe. Accepted fully, this approach leads to ahistorical and fatalistic passivity in trade policy.

As Nobel economist Paul Samuelson famously quipped, the fact that “the tropics grow tropical fruits because of the relative abundance of tropical conditions” is hardly useful for a country that wants to do more than export bananas. The same warning applies to other countries that can’t see beyond the limited horizon of their immediate resource endowments.

The industrial success of Asia

Contrary to comparative advantage theory, the most successful global examples of industrialization in the last century have been countries such as Japan, Korea, the other Asian “tigers” and China. They – more often by necessity than choice – did not focus on building industries based on what was buried beneath their feet.

Instead, they mobilized capital, skills and technology to carve out competitive (not comparative) advantages in strategically important and growing high-value industries.

Those efforts relied on powerful state-directed strategies to twist markets and alter incentives. Many tools were invoked – all with the overarching goal of expanding domestic capacities to manufacture, innovate and export higher-value products and services.

Comparative-advantage thinking says “export what you were endowed with.” Good industrial policy acknowledges it’s better to specialize in some industries than others, especially industries that are technology-intensive, export-oriented, anchor valuable supply chains and demonstrate high and rising productivity.

Instead of relying on resource endowments and private markets alone to guide a country’s specialization in global trade, these countries take deliberate action to build a presence in targeted, desirable sectors.

They have all used a wide range of industrial policy levers to become global manufacturing giants. These include channeling capital (including public or sovereign wealth) to targeted industries on favourable terms; powerful public-private missions to develop and commercialize strategic technologies; and complementary investments in skills and infrastructure to lubricate the high-value export machine.

Many European countries have followed broadly similar strategies, using public capital, planning, regulation and knowledge to nurture successful global firms and high-value domestic production.

Even the U.S., while mouthing free-market jargon, relies regularly on powerful, targeted interventions, including massive defence and energy subsidies, to buttress its presence in strategic industries.

These lessons of successful industrialization have renewed relevance for Canada as we confront Trump’s economic aggression.

Some have concluded Canada should double down on extraction and export of natural resources – facilitated by new pipelines and other export infrastructure to sell our resources to countries other than the U.S. But the urgent task of export diversification needs to take account of what we produce, not just where we sell it.

Enter industrial policy, which holds new relevance for Canada as we try to protect our economy and our sovereignty against Trump’s erratic actions. Good industrial policy draws on a full suite of policy measures applied to shift incentives, motivate investment and innovation, reinforce the vitality of domestic industry and penetrate high-value export markets.

Call it “sector-development policy”

The tools of industrial policy are many and varied, including fiscal rules and incentives, technology supports, preferential access to capital, public investment (including public equity or co-investments), infrastructure construction, skills and training support, trade policy, government procurement and more.

These tools need to be applied creatively and flexibly, reflecting the specific challenges and opportunities of each sector. Governments need strong internal capacity to understand and manage industrial policy (to avoid being captured by rent-seeking businesses). As well, the goals and performance requirements need to be explicit and enforced.

Industrial policy doesn’t apply only to conventionally understood industry, which is often stereotyped as large-scale goods-producing facilities, such as resources and manufacturing.

Any technology-intensive, high-productivity, tradeable sector – including technology, business, digital, entertainment or education services – is a candidate for targeted attention. A better moniker for this theme might be “sector development policy,” moving past the outdated assumption that industrial policy is only about smokestack industries.

A fully capable industrial nation must do more than harvest resources. This has always been true.

The global energy transition – which will continue despite Trump’s best efforts to roll back history – gives further impetus for Canada to diversify beyond fossil fuels.

The current concern with Canada’s lagging productivity growth provides another important motive. Indeed, it’s no coincidence that the countries leading productivity growth globally (such as Korea, the U.S. and Ireland) are those with the biggest domestic presence of high-tech production.

Those industries didn’t end up there by accident or thanks to the autonomous logic of market forces. They ended up there because those countries undertook targeted efforts to attract and build them.

Trump’s trade war is forcing our governments, businesses and workers to collectively renew Canada’s historic crusade to build an economy that is more than a northern appendage to a larger, more developed neighbour.

A comprehensive industrial strategy – using every tool to add value to our resources instead of exporting them raw, and sustaining and growing a strong Canadian footprint in innovative value-adding industries – needs to play a central role in that nation-building mission.

The post The Role of Industrial Policy in Defending Canada Against Trump’s Attacks appeared first on Centre for Future Work.