TORONTO – Ontario politicians, business leaders and union executives are set to descend on Washington, D.C., for president-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration as part of a provincial pushback to the incoming administration’s looming trade war.
Premier Doug Ford has taken a highly visible role both in urging Trump to reconsider his approach and in pressing the federal government on its response. The province’s large presence is expected to complement that.
Heavy hitters from the auto sector, mining companies, the energy industry, big banks and Ontario politics will gather at the Canadian Embassy to take in the festivities amid Trump’s threat to lay a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods on his first day in office.
While it’s unclear how the tariffs would be implemented and if they will be sweeping or more targeted, they will certainly bring economic pain, said David Paterson, the Ontario government’s representative in Washington.
Ford has said Ontario could lose up to 500,000 jobs should the tariffs go through.
But Paterson has been making friends with Republicans since taking on the post a year ago. He focused on incumbents from both sides of the aisle before the election, figuring it was a good bet many would win their seats again. He believes that behind-the-scenes work will pay off.
“I sleep beautifully at night, and know that we will be able to work our way through,” Paterson said.
“Relationships will be important in doing that and I’m so glad we’ve got a year of focusing on building those relationships with key Republicans under our belt already.”
Paterson, a former Liberal and long-time auto executive with General Motors who participated in the last round of free trade negotiations with the U.S. and Mexico, said there are a number of senators, governors and congresspeople in Canada’s corner.
“I wouldn’t trade places with any country on the planet in terms of our ability to work our way through this, just because it’s in the self-interest of the American economy and American businesses and the American government to do so,” he said.
Joining Paterson at the Canadian Embassy will be a slew of industry leaders, bankers and Ontario politicians.
The time for being nice is over, said Lana Payne, president of Unifor, the country’s largest private sector union. About a third of its 300,000 workers are in industries likely exposed to the tariffs, including Ontario’s massive automotive and mining sectors as well as the energy and forestry sectors.
“As a country we’re going to have to come together and push back hard,” she said.
“The premiers, honestly, they’ve all got to get on the same page with the prime minister and get this job done for Canadian workers.”
Earlier this week, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith refused to support the federal government’s plan if energy export tariffs are part of it. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the rest of the country’s premiers agreed that any and all retaliatory measures remain on the table.
Payne said the massive gathering at the embassy will allow leaders to absorb Trump’s executive orders as they are signed. She and others believe there could be upwards of 100 orders signed that day, including tariffs on Canadian goods.
She believes having so many people together will galvanize and unify Ontario’s varying interests.
“This will get people ready for the fight ahead because it’s going to be a very difficult year, very difficult,” Payne said.
Ontario Economic Development Minister Vic Fedeli will be on hand and said many of Ontario’s large business groups from the telecom, transportation, financial services and critical minerals sectors will be there, too.
It will be a great opportunity for everyone to meet with each other, as well as with the U.S. federal representatives they expect to come through the embassy during the day, he said.
“We want to make sure that we’re talking to the right people, (discussing) who’s got contacts with who,” Fedeli said.
“We want to make sure that we’re talking to the people on the House Ways and Means Committee … the Senate Finance Committee, who are the right people who have incoming president Trump’s ear?”
Fedeli has already visited several U.S. states in the past few weeks, and in the 60 meetings he had, not one organization was in favour of tariffs, he said.
At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the Consumer Technology Association handed out anti-tariff stickers, he added.
Ontario has also been pushing its own anti-tariff message through a multimillion-dollar ad buy in the U.S. The premier said recently that there have been 450 million unique views, though he suggested the ad has an intended audience of one.
“Especially in Florida, right by Mar-a-Lago, you cannot turn your TV on (without seeing the ad),” Ford said. “We ramped it up and we put it on Fox, because we figured he watches Fox.”
Both Trudeau and Ford said earlier this week that Trump is targeting one industry: Ontario’s auto sector.
“The incoming American president specifically and has explicitly targeted one industry in Canada, one sector of the economy, and it’s not the Alberta oil industry,” Trudeau said after meeting with the premiers over the country’s retaliatory plan.
“It’s the Ontario auto sector. It’s an auto pact that has been incredibly successful for 50 years in building cars on both sides of the border that benefits both Canadians and Americans. That’s the target.”
Ontario’s automakers, including provincial representatives of the “Detroit Three” — GM, Ford and Stellantis — will be out in force on inauguration day at the embassy. Materials, parts and vehicles cross the border numerous times in a pact that was recently updated and initiated by Trump himself in his first term, as part of a renegotiated free trade agreement between the two countries and Mexico.
“A critical component of that negotiation was increasing the amount of North American parts and components in vehicles,” said Brian Kingston, president of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association that represents Ford, GM and Stellantis in Canada.
American tariffs would lead to significant increases in the price of cars south of the border and in Canada, he said.
“There actually is no such thing as a U.S.-built car, there’s no such thing as a Canadian-built car, they are North American-built vehicles,” Kingston said.
“It’s a good agreement and it’s working as intended, so the rational outcome here should be that any vehicle that meets those very stringent requirements under that trade agreement, whether or not it’s manufactured in Mexico, Canada or the United States, should continue to be able to be exported duty free.”
The congregation in Washington will be extremely helpful for both Ontario and Canada, Kingston said.
“There’s no better way to try and understand what Trump intends to do than by being at the epicentre of all this, but secondly, it’s a great opportunity to connect with all of the leaders from across Ontario, and Canada, to get on the same page in this fight.”
Energy has been another focal point in Ontario’s pre-tariff messaging, and Ontario Energy Minister Stephen Lecce will also be in Washington, D.C., for inauguration day. He said the provincial presence there and meetings officials hope to take there are designed to maximized pressure on the U.S. decision makers, with a message of energy collaboration.
“If not Canadian resources, then the Americans will be faced with a very stark choice between having to purchase commodities, resources and technology from authoritarian regimes,” he said.
“So this is at its core a matter of national security and economic security.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 19, 2025.
