Good afternoon.
Premier Ford, it’s a pleasure to be with you again.
We are working together for Ontario and working together for Canada.
We share the same conviction. Canada is the best country on earth, and Ontarians and Canadians are making it better still.
This is happening all across Canada.
We’re building small modular reactors at Darlington.
Clean, affordable energy for 300,000 homes.
A new fleet of armoured vehicles at General Dynamics Land Systems in London. Two billion dollars invested. More than 6,000 jobs. Just one of many defence contracts in Ontario. Designed by Canadians, built by Canadians, with Canadian steel.
A new fleet of all-Canadian passenger rail cars built by workers at Alstom in Thunder Bay. Seven hundred jobs, 900 Canadian suppliers, generating more than $1.6 billion for our economy.
New mining projects across northern Ontario. Canada Nickel’s Crawford mine near Timmins, securing the low-carbon nickel needed for batteries and steel production for decades to come.
Together, we have cut taxes on incomes, investment, and homes – up to $200,000 on new homes in Ontario (I’ve seen the ads!) – while protecting the vital social programs that Ontarians and Canadians rely on every day.
Here in Ontario, and across the country, Canada is growing stronger.
Canadians from coast to coast to coast agree. The Alberta referendum was a huge, clear vote for a united Canada focused on building.
Canada is working, and we’re just getting started.
There will always be forces beyond our control that will seek to divide and break us.
They will not succeed. Because Canadians take care of one another. We have always done so, and we know that we are stronger together.
Now, the United States has upended a trade bargain that has existed for decades. They have raised costs for American families, while putting Ontario workers and businesses at a disadvantage and under a cloud of uncertainty.
We cannot control what others do, so we are focusing on what we can control – and building Canada strong at home and diversifying our partnerships abroad.
We are investing more than $30 billion in the steel, aluminum, lumber, and auto sectors.
Protecting nearly 35,000 jobs and helping 1,000 small and medium-sized businesses pivot to better opportunities.
Creating a bridge to keep good jobs here while our companies invest for the future.
And we are making Canada the best place in the world to invest, including through the new Productivity Mega Deduction. With it, our businesses – large and small – can immediately deduct 100% of the cost of most new capital investment.
The result? Canada’s effective tax rate on new investment is by far the lowest of any major economy and less than half the rate in the United States.
The world may have changed.
But what makes Ontario and Canada great hasn’t changed. We have the minerals. We have the steel. We have the ingenuity. And we have the best workers on earth.
Protecting what we have is not enough. We must go further. To transform our economy. To secure our future.
To that end, Premier Ford and I are proud to announce a new action plan: a $9 billion partnership that protects jobs today and makes bold investments to build a stronger, more resilient, more independent Canada.
One billion dollars to the Ring of Fire, to unlock the critical minerals supply chain essential for our strategic autonomy – creating an opportunity for 70,000 jobs.
More than $5 billion to our steel mills, so steelworkers in Hamilton and Sault Ste. Marie can make what Canada – and the world – needs. Protecting over 100,000 jobs.
Two and a half billion dollars to the assembly line, so Ontario workers in plants can build the vehicles of the future – safeguarding more than 120,000 direct jobs in our auto sector.
From mine to mill to line, the critical minerals in the ground, the steel in the frame, the vehicles on the road. Made in Ontario. Made in Canada. Made for the future.
Let’s start with the first link in the chain: the minerals in our own backyard.
Ontario has plenty of nickel, lithium, platinum, cobalt, and other raw materials needed for electric vehicles, industries of the future, and defence. We are investing more funds than ever before in critical minerals to protect the sovereignty of our supply chain, strengthen our strategic autonomy, and create new well-paying jobs, right here at home.
The Ring of Fire has the potential to add over $22 billion to our GDP. We can secure a sovereign supply chain and bolster Canada’s position as a critical minerals leader.
To build mines, we need roads.
Today, Canada is matching Ontario’s $1 billion investment to build road infrastructure to reach the Ring of Fire – an area rich in critical minerals, over 500 kilometres north of Thunder Bay.
To build mines, we need to build together. Canada and Ontario are creating a working group to engage with local Indigenous communities, so together, we will identify opportunities for economic development, conservation, and Indigenous protected areas.
To seize opportunities in a fast-changing world, we need speed.
Historically, it has taken over 15 years to open a mine in Ontario. We're changing that.
Canada will always be a country of high standards, but high standards do not mean decisions have to be slow.
Bill C-39, the Building Canada Strong Act, will improve the effectiveness of federal decisions.
One project. One review. One year. That means proponents tell us all information once. It means coordination across governments. It means extensive, comprehensive, and focused consultations with Indigenous peoples to build in true partnership and create real opportunities.
On mining, Canada and Ontario are establishing a coordinated process for provincial and federal permitting – removing duplication, streamlining the system, and cutting wait times.
Now, turning to steel. Generations of steelworkers have built up our country. More than 100,000 people work in the industry today, including in Hamilton and Sault Ste. Marie.
To support the industry in pivoting and increasing competitiveness, we’re launching a more than $5 billion Joint Steel Action Fund.
We have the best steelworkers in the world, and vast natural resources. Yet we import over 6.5 million tonnes of steel a year. Often that’s because we don’t make the steel Canadian companies need. It’s time to be our own best customer.
Today’s investment will enable mills to upgrade machinery, manufacture more products Canada needs, and expand to meet demand in non-U.S. markets.
At the same time, we are further strengthening Canada Border Services Agency enforcement to protect against foreign steel dumping.
When projects in Canada need specialised steel, they can increasingly count on Canadian mills, and Canadian steelworkers, to supply it.
Canada and Ontario will establish a joint working group to implement these measures. Its first priority will be to recommend ways to reduce the cost of transporting Canadian steel and to open up new opportunities, here in Canada and around the world.
Finally, the assembly line.
More than 120,000 people wake up and go to work every day because we make cars and trucks in this country, in Ontario.
Ontario builds more than one million vehicles every year. And we are among the best – the Toyota Canada plant is now the most decorated auto plant in the world.
The average car is built from parts that travel across the Canada-U.S. border up to eight times.
Canada’s auto exports to the U.S. have declined by more than 10%.
U.S. exports to Canada have fallen by over 20%, even though Canada is still the United States’ largest auto customer.
Nobody wins from this. Tariffs make both our industries weaker and reduce choice for families. That’s why Canada remains ready to negotiate a fair deal when the U.S. is ready to sit down in good faith.
An integrated North American auto sector will be stronger, more competitive, and provide better jobs for our workers.
But we recognise these are not the objectives of the current U.S. administration. Their approach has changed, and so must ours.
The imperative to invest is reinforced by the radical transformation of the global auto sector with rapid shifts toward lower emissions, greater connectivity, and even more advanced manufacturing.
For example, within five years, electric vehicles are expected to account for more than 40% of all car sales worldwide.
Canadians know we must skate to where the puck is going.
Last February, we launched Canada's new Auto Strategy to position ourselves as a global leader in electric vehicle production.
Today’s announcement takes the next major step forward – investing $2.5 billion so the industry can advance this pivot and increase its competitiveness. So Ontarians can build the connected and electric vehicles of the future.
From Alliston to Oakville to Oshawa, cutting-edge technology on the factory floor. We need optimised production lines. Investments in innovation.
We are advancing our economy while protecting the environment. Earlier this year, Canada chose its own more ambitious method of reducing motor vehicle emissions. By 2035, we will make stricter Canadian standards on vehicle greenhouse gas emissions.
That will allow us to reduce emissions as much as if 75% of vehicles were electric.
To mitigate the impact of unjustified tariffs, federal performance standards that apply to vehicle fleets will be maintained at the same level from 2027 through 2029. This will give vehicle manufacturers more leeway in the short term, while enabling Canada to reach its goal of reducing emissions in the long term.
We are also establishing a new Canada–Ontario automobile working group, which will implement these new measures, develop our domestic market, and increase our competitiveness on the international stage.
From mine to mill to line, we are connecting all the links in the value chain, as part of our larger plan.
Our Defence Industrial Strategy will catalyse $500 billion in investment over the next decade. This will create enormous opportunities in critical minerals from the Ring of Fire, steel from southern Ontario, vehicle manufacturing across Ontario, as well as building on Ontario and Canada’s strengths in aerospace, shipbuilding, artificial intelligence, cyber, quantum, robotics, and autonomous systems.
Our major projects from ports to power will create energy and materials for that manufacturing.
More jobs. More opportunity. More prosperity.
More sovereignty. So we can live our lives as we choose.
That’s what makes a Canada that works. A Canada that seizes opportunities and works together.
We are becoming stronger and more independent.
Our exports to non-U.S. markets are on track to double over the next 10 years. Our economic growth is accelerating. We are creating jobs at twice the rate of the U.S.
We are already giving ourselves more than others could ever take away.
And we are just getting started.
Building Ontario strong. Building Canada strong. For all.