1) (Updated) Ontario to table budget on May 15 amid impacts of U.S. tariffs

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Allison Jones, May 1, 2025

Ontario is set to table its 2025-26 budget on May 15, with the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs likely to take centre stage.

Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy announced the date on Thursday, saying it will be a plan that helps Ontario build more, build faster and achieve free trade across Canada. 

“I think we’ve been pretty clear that it’s going to involve making sure that we shore up our economy, support our workers, (such as with) skills development funds as an area that we did in the past, and some big work to retrain and re-skill workers,” he said.

Ontario announced last month that businesses will see select provincial taxes deferred for six months, giving them about $9 billion worth of relief amid U.S. tariffs. The province also said the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board will issue a $2-billion rebate to safe employers.

Bethlenfalvy wouldn’t divulge if the budget will include targeted stimulus measures, but pointed to the previously announced $11-billion package and said he knows more needs to be done.

“It’s really important that the status quo is no longer acceptable, that we have to move on,” Bethlenfalvy said. “We have a new relationship with the U.S., and we’re going to do what it takes to have a strong economy.”

A report Wednesday from Ontario’s Financial Accountability Office said American tariffs will reduce demand for Ontario’s exports, slowing real GDP growth from the projected 1.7 per cent to 0.6 per cent, which “implies that a modest recession would occur in 2025.”

The FAO estimated that the tariffs would result in 68,100 fewer jobs in Ontario in 2025. 

The effects on jobs and the GDP could vary by quite a bit, however, depending on whether existing tariffs, such as on steel, aluminum and automobiles, are reduced — or if additional ones, such as on copper or pharmaceuticals, are enacted. Canada’s retaliatory actions would also play a role.

Ontario’s fiscal plan is being tabled later than usual, in part due to the timing of a winter provincial election that secured a third majority mandate for Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives. It was held on Feb. 27.

The province’s last major fiscal update, the fall economic statement, had projected a relatively small $1.5-billion deficit for 2025-26 and eyed a balanced budget for 2026-27, but that came before the election of Trump and the implementation of tariffs.

NDP Leader Marit Stiles said she hopes the budget will address ways to prevent jobs from leaving Ontario, rather than focusing on re-training workers.

“What we want to see this government’s budget deliver is a budget that protects people in the first place, that builds opportunities and jobs for Ontarians and that strengthens our economy,” she said.

Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie said she hopes to see stimulus for industries hard hit by tariffs, and spending on health care, housing and tax cuts.

“There has to be balance,” she said. “It’s important to get the basics right, but it is also important to protect us from job loss.”

2) GM Canada to cut shift at Oshawa Assembly Plant, union calls move ‘reckless’

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Sammy Hudes, May 2, 2025

GM Canada says it plans to cut a shift at its Oshawa Assembly Plant due to updated demand forecasts and the evolving trade environment.

The company said Friday that it will move from a three-shift to two-shift operation to “help support a sustainable manufacturing footprint as GM reorients the Oshawa plant to build more trucks in Canada for Canadian customers.”

“We are implementing a plan to keep building here for Canadians for another 100-plus years,” the company said in a statement.

“The company will work with our partners to support employees through the transition.”

Unifor called the move a “reckless decision that deals a direct blow to our members and threatens to ripple through the entire auto parts supplier network.”

The union urged GM to reverse its decision, which it said is set to take effect in the fall.

It comes on the heels of U.S. President Donald Trump’s imposition of a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian-built vehicles, which came into effect on April 3.

“GM’s move is premature and disrespectful — jumping the gun before Prime Minister (Mark) Carney and President Trump even begin their talks on a new economic deal,” said Unifor national president Lana Payne in a press release.

“Trump’s tariffs are designed to crush Canadian production — but GM doesn’t get a free pass to abandon its commitments, and the U.S. doesn’t get to free ride in Canada.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford called the announcement “extremely tough” news for autoworkers in Oshawa.

“These are hardworking people who have helped build Ontario’s auto industry,” he said in a post on X, noting GM has reaffirmed its commitment to the Oshawa plant.

Ford said the province would continue working to support a strong future for the facility.

“In the face of economic uncertainty caused by the chaos of President Trump’s tariffs and tariff threats, we will continue to fight every single day to attract new investment, secure good-paying jobs and support workers and their families.”

Last month, GM Canada said it was also temporarily halting production and cutting staff at its CAMI plant in Ingersoll, Ont., because of lower-than-expected demand for its electric delivery vehicles.

Meanwhile, Stellantis confirmed Thursday it will close its auto assembly plant in Windsor, Ont. for a week starting May 5. The company said that closure was due to preparations for the upcoming launch of the 2026 model year Chrysler Pacifica, Chrysler Grand Caravan, Chrysler Voyager and Dodge Charger Daytona.

The company said it “will continue to monitor the situation.”

The auto sector did get relief earlier this week when U.S. Customs and Border Protection guidance released Thursday said automobile parts compliant with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade will not be hit with Trump’s tariffs.

The Big Three — Ford, General Motors and Stellantis — had been lobbying the Trump administration for months, saying the duties would drive up prices and devastate the North American industry. General Motors CEO Mary Barra warned on Thursday that the tariffs could cost the company up to $5 billion.

3) Canadian farmers cope with Chinese tariffs on canola and peas

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press

By Canadian Press Staff, April 26, 2025

Her grandfather was among the first to grow the bright yellow flowering crop in the 1970s, and it has been a staple ever since.

“For a large part of Saskatchewan, the farm economy has been driven by canola,” Rigetti, a director with SaskOilseeds, says in an interview on her land near Moose Jaw.

“It feels personal when people come after canola, just because it’s such a Canadian story, such a western Canadian story, such a Saskatchewan story and such a story that’s right here on my farm.”

China hit Canadian farmers with 100 per cent tariffs on canola oil, canola meal and peas in retaliation to Canada slapping Beijing with levies on Chinese-made electric vehicles, steel and aluminum. 

Producers are also caught with uncertainty around U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs. Trump has imposed levies on Canadian aluminum, steel and automobiles, while musing about applying additional duties. 

Products that fall within the Canada-U.S.-Mexico agreement, including agricultural and energy goods, are not subject to U.S. tariffs. Canada has retaliated with countermeasures.

Rigetti has the TV news on in her living room. She says she’s been watching it more often to keep up with the latest developments.

“We’ve seen challenges before, but we’ve never been in the crosshairs between our two biggest trading partners,” she says.

She pulls out a book of her family history, flipping to a page with an image of a combine picking up canola swaths. Underneath, an excerpt reads, “The new crop that changes everything.”

Canola is a portmanteau word combining Canada and ola, which means oil. Saskatchewan and Manitoba researchers developed the crop in the 1970s to address erucic acid issues in its predecessor, rapeseed. 

Canola is used for cooking oil, high-protein animal feed and biodiesel. The crop’s development led to the boon it is today for farmers’ pocketbooks, with more than half of it grown in Saskatchewan.

In Rigetti’s yard, there are massive steel bins where her husband and son empty dark brown canola seeds into a truck. They’re off to deliver the product to a grain terminal.

Rigetti says her son will plant his first field of canola this year.

“We have to be careful to keep things in perspective and not scare our kids,” she says.

“I do try to keep the focus on what we can actually control, which is planting a crop, growing the best crop we can grow, manage our costs and manage our mental health.”

At a farm near Fillmore, southeast of Regina, producer Chris Procyk says history is repeating itself.

“We are unfortunately once again caught in the middle of a trade dispute that we didn’t cause or we didn’t create, and we’re left paying the bill,” says Procyk, vice-president of the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan. 

He also says there would be greater problems if the U.S. imposes levies on agricultural goods. Canadian crops and potash go south and farm machinery comes up north.

Procyk says the federal government should provide financial aid or other supports to farmers who have been affected by the trade war. 

“There’s not really a place to pivot,” he says. “The whole farm is under a trade dispute, and we don’t have control of how these things play out.”

Farms have faced headwinds from China before.

In 2019, Beijing blocked Canadian canola imports from two companies, citing contamination issues, though the move was believed to be in response to Canada detaining Meng Wanzhou, a Chinese business executive. Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig were also detained in China days after Wanzhou’s arrest.

Wanzhou and the two Canadians were released to their countries in 2021. China lifted its ban on canola the next year, but it’s estimated the Canadian economy lost about $2 billion as a result of the dispute. 

“Farms can withstand some short-term pain,” Rigetti says. “If it goes on longer, it calls things into question.”