(Ottawa) Canada should follow the United States in imposing tariffs on electric vehicles and their components produced in China, says Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre. The government responds that he is a “hypocrite.”
“We want jobs for our workers, on our land, under our flag,” Poilievre said at a news conference at an Ontario steel mill.
Mr. Poilievre ruled that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is “putting hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk” in the steel, aluminum, mining and auto manufacturing sectors “by allowing Beijing to flood our markets with electric vehicles and other products made in China at artificially low prices.”
He also believes that the Liberal government “favors foreign dictatorships” since the discounts on the purchase of an electric vehicle are also valid when it is manufactured in China. “It’s ridiculous! It doesn’t make sense,” he protested.
The office of Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said it was stunned that Poilievre would echo the government’s position that it was necessary to protect Canadian auto workers from China’s “unfair trade practices” in electric vehicles.
In an email sent to The Canadian Press, the deputy director of communications for Mme Freeland’s Katherine Cuplinskas also assures that the government “will say more about this soon.”
“Poilievre comes into the conversation two months late and is hypocritical. He has a long history of anti-unionism and has worked consistently to delay the implementation of the government’s key investment tax credits, which are essential to ensuring the competitiveness of Canada’s auto sector in the 21st century,” writes Katherine Cuplinskas.
Mme Cuplinskas also listed the days this summer when his boss, “unlike Pierre Poilievre”, met with representatives of unions and industry.
On Friday, Poilievre proposed 100 per cent tariffs on Chinese-made vehicles entering Canada, 50 per cent on semiconductors and solar cells, and 25 per cent on steel and aluminum products, graphite and other key minerals. He also wants Ottawa to stop giving rebates on Chinese-made electric vehicles.
At the end of June, Mme Freeland had announced the launch of a process to impose new import taxes on electric vehicles made in China and accused Beijing of having “intentionally created overcapacity and excess supply.”
The decision came weeks after the United States and the European Commission decided to impose their own new import duties on Chinese electric vehicles, citing unfair subsidies aimed at replacing more expensive vehicles made in Europe and North America.