AUTOMOTIVE
The Big Picture
A guide for anyone looking to buy Canadian for their next vehicle.
By Matt Bubbers | Illustration by Guilherme Henrique
CANADIANS HAVE THEIR ELBOWS UP. In the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump's unprecedented trade war and threats about annexing Canada, Canadians have been fighting back by putting our money where our mouth is. Suddenly, everyone is trying to buy Canadian.
At grocery stores, shoppers are avoiding U.S. produce and looking to purchase locally sourced foods. At many liquor stores across the country, you won’t even find American brands on shelves. When it comes to travel, there’s been a steady decline in the number of Canadians flying to the U.S., and the drop off is even more dramatic for cross-border trips by car, according to Statistics Canada.
The buy Canadian movement is sweeping the car market as well, since the auto industry was among the first and hardest hit by U.S. tariffs. However, when it comes to vehicle shopping, buying Canadian is complicated.
For one thing, of the hundreds of cars, pickups and SUVs sold in Canada, only 10 passenger vehicle models are currently being assembled in this country. (See below for a complete list.) For another thing, the definition of a Canadian car isn’t exactly clear-cut. For reasons that could each be a story unto itself, there are no major Canadian-owned passenger vehicle makers, only Canadian assembly plants putting together cars for foreign-owned companies. Adding to the complexity of the buy Canadian question is the fact that modern cars are pieced together from tens of thousands of parts, which come from a mix of suppliers in Canada, the U.S., Mexico and across the world. If a car has 20 per cent Canadian parts, is it Canadian? What if the engine is made in Canada? Some experts argue there’s no such thing as a Canadian or American car anymore because the industry is so international.
Ultimately, the choice of where to draw the line on what is or isn’t a Canadian car lies with you.
How big is Canada’s auto industry?
What is clear, however, is that the auto industry is a big business in this country. According to the federal government, it’s a sector that contributes $18 billion to the gross domestic product and supports nearly 550,000 jobs. Look at industry towns such as Windsor or Oshawa; it’s hard to overstate the importance of the sprawling assembly plants to those communities.
It's too early to predict how the trade war will impact production, but last year, just under 1.3 million new passenger vehicles were assembled in Canada. And it’s not just the traditional Big Three American companies making cars here.
“Most people probably don’t know that between them last year, [Honda and Toyota] produced more than 70 percent of all vehicles made in Canada,” said David Adams, president of the Global Automakers of Canada, an industry advocacy group.
Stellantis, General Motors and Ford are the three other major automakers that have passenger vehicle assembly plants in Canada. Production has been on pause at Ford’s lone assembly plant since 2024, but new vehicles should start rolling off the line in 2026.
Looking beyond Ontario’s assembly plants, Canada boasts engine plants and a raft of top-tier suppliers, including Linamar, Magna and Martinrea, not to mention hundreds of smaller parts, tire and equipment manufacturers across Alberta, British Columbia, Québec and Nova Scotia. Many of those companies rely in some form or another on Canadian oil, steel and aluminum as well.
“People look at me and laugh when I say building cars and selling cars on a mass scale is the hardest thing that humans do,” said Dimitry Anastakis, auto industry historian and the Wilson-Currie Chair in Canadian business history at the University of Toronto. He calls the auto industry the most competitive, most difficult, and most challenging sector in the world.
Cars are devilishly complex mechanical marvels, made of 30,000 parts sourced just-in-time from around the world and put together in factories the size of small towns. The finished products are then shipped all over the globe. Adding to the complexity is the fact that modern cars have become rolling computers, running software with more lines of code than a Boeing 787 passenger jet. Despite all this, the largest companies manage to produce about 10 million vehicles per year.
Cars are devilishly complex mechanical marvels, made of roughly 30,000 parts sourced from around the world and put together in factories the size of small towns.
The trade war is doing serious damage
“I really don’t want cars from Canada,” President Trump said in April of this year. “When we put tariffs on, all we're doing is saying, ‘We don't want your cars, with all due respect.' We really want to make our own cars.”
His comments marked an abrupt end to the close co-operation in the auto sector between Canada and the U.S. that began with the 1965 Auto Pact agreement signed by Prime Minister Lester Pearson and President Lyndon Johnson.
“Trump thinks he can move auto plants and dismantle an entire supply chain system overnight. He can’t,” Unifor’s Lana Payne said in a statement. “These tariffs are not just dangerous, they are destructive. If sustained, they will decimate auto jobs across North America and drive costs to an unsustainable level.” Payne represents 22,000 Canadian auto workers as the national president of Unifor, the country’s largest private-sector union.
Following the initial round of U.S. tariffs, three of Ontario’s eight auto assembly plants announced layoffs, production cuts and/or temporary shutdowns, The Globe and Mail reported. In addition, Ford’s Oakville plant and the Stellantis Brampton plant extended ongoing shutdowns with no clear end in sight. General Motors’ plant in Ingersoll, Ont., which makes BrightDrop vans, eliminated 500 of 1,300 hourly jobs following the introduction of tariffs.
All of those shutdowns and layoffs have knock-on effects. Suppliers that feed those plants may shut down. Bars and restaurants in those communities see business dry up, which puts even more people out of work.
Longer term, the trade war is putting the electric future of Canada’s auto sector at risk. After the U.S. tariffs were announced, Ford, Honda and battery supplier Umicore delayed or paused billions of dollars of investment in Canada’s electric vehicle sector.
At the consumer level, price hikes on new vehicles are hitting drivers on both sides of the border. In the U.S., car prices have gone up by thousands of dollars. Here in Canada, experts say prices will go up too, although it appears the increase won’t be as bad as initially feared. (Bear in mind the situation could change as the tariff landscape keeps shifting.)
Does buying Canadian really help?
Given all that, it should be no surprise that the buy Canadian movement has reached the auto sector. Industry insiders and analysts have noticed a national wave of interest in made-in-Canada cars. You can see it reflected in automotive advertising. Assembled in Canada has become a selling point, with companies now aggressively marketing the Canadian origin of vehicles such as the Honda Civic, Toyota RAV4 and Chrysler Pacifica.
Unfortunately, the relatively small selection of made-in-Canada vehicles means there may not be one that meets everyone’s needs or budget.
The good news, however, is that buying Canadian for your next car is more than just a feel-good move for drivers. Anastakis said that if more Canadians bought made-in-Canada vehicles, it would help workers and bolster the industry.
“That would send a signal to the producers here that being good corporate citizens in Canada actually is beneficial,” said Anastakis. In other words, if Canadian consumers reward companies that continue investing and manufacturing in Canada by buying their products, it’s a strong incentive for those companies to stay rather than relocate production.
Adams agrees, adding that strong local demand for made-in-Canada models will help keep assembly plants here going full-tilt. Anastakis noted that if we’re all buying more Canadian cars, it might also end up driving down costs and perhaps alleviate some of the pressure of importing vehicles from other jurisdictions over tariff walls.
Apart from individual Canadian drivers buying Canadian, Payne argues governments should prioritize Canadian-made vehicles for large fleet purchases.
“Unifor has actively engaged with federal, provincial and municipal governments to advocate for procurement dollars to be directed toward Canadian-made transportation vehicles, including cars, vans, streetcars and railcars,” Payne wrote in an e-mail.
For example, Unifor has lobbied the federal government to buy made-in-Canada Chevrolet BrightDrop delivery vans for Canada Post instead of American alternatives.
“Canadians still purchase almost two million vehicles a year,” said Anastakis. “That's not a small marketplace. It's a lot of cars. It's a lot when you consider the dollar value of two million cars.”
It’s hard to believe that 60 years after the Auto Pact created an integrated Canada-U.S. auto industry, we’re watching it fracture in real time. Trade wars, however, like real wars, do eventually end. While buying Canadian isn’t single-handedly going to save the national auto sector, it can help until a new trade deal is reached and cooler heads prevail. CAA
Buying Canadian
Here’s a complete list of all passenger vehicles that are assembled in Canada, as of 2025.
Chevrolet Silverado Heavy Duty
Oshawa, Ont.
Chevrolet Silverado
Oshawa, Ont.
Dodge Charger
Windsor, Ont.
Chrysler Pacifica
Windsor, Ont.
Chrysler Grand Caravan
Windsor, Ont.
Honda Civic (sedan, hybrid and Si)
Windsor, Ont.
Honda CR-V
Alliston, Ont.
Lexus NX
Cambridge, Ont.
Lexus RX
Cambridge, Ont.
Toyota RAV4
Woodstock, Ont., and Cambridge, Ont.
Was it made in Canada?
If you’re not sure whether a particular vehicle was assembled in Canada or not, just check its Vehicle Identification Number (VIN). If it starts with a “2,” then it’s assembled in Canada.