Canada’s auto manufacturing future is on the line and Honda Canada’s top executive wants the government to hear the alarm before it’s too late.
Dave Jamieson, President and CEO of Honda Canada, delivered a pointed warning to industry and government stakeholders at the 2026 Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association Summit on June 9, saying Canada has reached a “crossroads” where decisions made in the next few months or years will either secure its place as a global auto manufacturing leader or reduce it to little more than a showroom for foreign-built vehicles.
“What we’re facing is more than change. It is a direct test of both Honda’s footprint in Canada and the long-term future of Canadian auto manufacturing,” Jamieson told the summit.
Auto manufacturing, Jamieson noted, remains one of Canada’s most significant economic engines but the past year has been rough. The industry has been caught between the accelerating push toward electrification, mounting trade pressures, and a growing wave of foreign automakers eyeing the Canadian market.
Those tensions came into sharp relief in May, when Honda Canada announced it was indefinitely suspending its plans to build a $15 billion electric vehicle assembly plant in Ontario. While the company stressed that current jobs and production levels at its Alliston facility would not be affected, the pause sent shockwaves through the industry.
Jamieson was careful not to call it a cancellation but he was candid about why the brakes were hit.
“When trade uncertainty is looming, regulations are evolving, and government policies are misaligned to consumer demand, it becomes increasingly difficult to move forward with capital-intensive, long-term investments of this scale,” he said.
Perhaps the most urgent concern Jamieson raised was Canada’s access to the U.S. market. Three-quarters of vehicles assembled at Honda’s Alliston plant 76 percent, to be precise are shipped south of the border, making cross-border trade dynamics nothing short of existential for the operation.
“The United States has always been Canada’s best ally,” Jamieson said, calling on Ottawa to protect and renew the Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement on free trade. Without stable, predictable access to American consumers, he argued, the economic logic of running large-scale manufacturing in Canada simply breaks down.
That view was echoed by Brian Kingston, president and CEO of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association, who told a parliamentary committee the same week that U.S. market access is “the foundation” of Canada’s auto industry not a preference, but a structural necessity.
“Diversification is not an option for automotive, as markets in Europe and Asia are better served by assembly plants in those regions,” Kingston said. “Canada’s market alone is too small to justify large-scale manufacturing.”
Jamieson also turned his attention to what he described as “low-cost, state-subsidized, non-market-oriented producers” entering Canada a pointed reference to Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers whose products have become a growing source of controversy.
The stakes sharpened in January, when Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal government signed a deal allowing 49,000 Chinese EVs into Canada at a dramatically reduced tariff rate of 6.1 percent, slashed from the previous 100 percent. The move drew fierce criticism from both industry figures and opposition politicians.
Jamieson warned that large-scale imports, particularly those supported by minimal assembly or so-called “knock-down” operations, risk distorting the market and hollowing out Canada’s industrial base. These business models, he said, offer limited local investment, few jobs, and shallow supply chain development.
“State-subsidized producers, in many cases, have no intention to build long-term value for Canada,” he said, calling for stronger policy guardrails to prevent the “long-term erosion” of Canada’s manufacturing footprint.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has been among the loudest critics of allowing Chinese automakers to set up even partial assembly in Canada, warning that what looks like domestic manufacturing can amount to little more than snapping together kits built elsewhere undercutting Canadian autoworkers in the process.
Kingston added his voice to the chorus, posting to social media on June 12 that “doubling down on China is not the answer,” and calling on Ottawa to scrap the EV deal with China outright.
On emissions policy, Jamieson argued that the current federal and provincial regulatory framework is working against the very industry it’s supposed to support particularly when it comes to hybrid vehicles.
He pointed to a telling statistic: roughly 60 percent of Honda Civic and CR-V models sold in Canada are now hybrids, built right at the Alliston plant. Yet under the current emissions rules, Honda could face hundreds of millions of dollars annually in compliance penalties because hybrids are not adequately recognized as a path to reduced emissions.
Jamieson made the case that hybrids deserve more credit. They don’t require new charging infrastructure, cost less than full EVs, hold up in Canadian winters, and already deliver roughly 25 to 30 percent lower emissions than comparable gasoline models. Dismissing them in favour of a strict EV mandate, he argued, ignores where Canadian consumers actually are.
He called for a “unified, national realistic emission framework” aligned to real-world demand one that treats hybrids as a genuine bridge to a cleaner future rather than a compliance problem.
Ottawa announced in February that it was scrapping its original target requiring 100 percent EV sales by 2035, replacing it with stricter greenhouse gas standards for vehicles starting in 2027, and setting a revised goal of 90 percent EV adoption by 2040. The government said the shift would ease the regulatory burden on the domestic industry. Critics in the auto sector remain unconvinced.
The speech has already stirred political reaction.
Conservative MP Raquel Dancho, who has been raising flags about Canada’s auto industry for months, said on social media that Honda’s warning validated concerns she has long raised about the cumulative effect of U.S. tariffs, Chinese EV deals, and what she characterized as an EV mandate repackaged under new emissions rules.
“I have been sounding this alarm for months,” Dancho wrote. “Unfortunately, it seems the government is incapable of listening to reason, and our auto workers will pay the price.”
Kingston called the government’s correct response “obvious” secure U.S. market access, cut regulatory burden, and cancel the China EV deal.
The Liberal government, for its part, maintains that its revised emissions regulations strike the right balance. “Canada will rationalize emission reduction policies, focusing on the outcomes that matter to Canadians without placing undue burden on the Canadian industry,” it said in February.
Whether that assurance is enough to bring Honda’s $15 billion investment back from the brink remains very much an open question.
