Prime Minister Mark Carney rolled out a series of measures on Friday that he says will transform Canada’s economy into a force that can withstand the trade shocks of the Trump administration.
The measures announced in the strategy have been targeted to specifically help workers and businesses that have been most impacted by U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and trade disruptions.
“If you look back over our country’s history, we have turned challenges into opportunities,” Carney said in Mississauga, Ont. “And now, at this moment of profound change, we bear the same responsibilities and we should have the same ambitions as those who came before us.”
“We know we need to act now. Invest now. Precisely when it’s hard,” he added. “We are charting an economic strategy to move Canada from reliance to resilience, from uncertainty to prosperity.”
A noteworthy part of the plan is to pause the electric vehicle (EV) mandate, a demand by the auto industry. The strategy waives the mandate for the 2026 model year and launches a 60-day review of the policy.
Prime Minister Mark Carney said his government is taking a series of measures to increase Canada’s ‘climate competitiveness’ across the economy, and that includes a broad ‘restructuring’ of the auto sector. He said it’s too early to say if tariffs on Chinese EVs would be removed.
The mandate requires the number of new ZEVs (zero-emission vehicles) sold in Canada to hit 20 per cent by next year, 60 per cent by 2030 and 100 per cent by 2035 in order to help the country hit its emission-reduction targets.
A government release explains that the EV pause and other measures in the strategy will help workers acquire new skills, businesses retool and spur more domestic demand.
The measures are wide-ranging and involve a mix of loans, training and policy moves.
Helping workers
Up to 50,000 workers will be able to access a new “reskilling package” that will help them with training through their employer or recruitment companies.
“We will automatically enrol new employment insurance claimants to our jobs-matching program, and introduce a new platform with a ‘skills-to-job’ tool to make job searches easier and to match people more quickly to new jobs, connecting them to training opportunities and career counselling,” Carney said.
To help laid off workers bridge to their next job the federal government is extending EI to 65 weeks for long-tenured workers — 20 weeks more than they currently get.
The one-week waiting period is also being waived for as many as 700,000 workers, Carney said.
A strategic response fund
This new $5-billion fund will help businesses develop products and find new markets.
“The fund will be open to all sectors given the fact that the tariff impacts are wide-ranging and across Canadian industries,” Carney said.
Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a series of measures in a lengthy speech Friday, including funds for retraining workers and tariff-hit businesses, as well as a ‘comprehensive’ policy to buy Canadian products, saying businesses and employees are facing a ‘rupture’ in the trade environment.
Businesses can use the fund to invest in new products or retool plants to boost productivity to help offset the costs of accessing new markets.
The Liberal government’s Regional Tariff Response Initiative, set up in 2025 with $450 million to help small- and medium-sized businesses with tariff relief, is also being increased to $1 billion
Buy Canadian policy
“Canada’s public procurement is following outdated rules of free trade order that no longer exists,” Carney said.
“For years we have been buying significantly from foreign suppliers for short-term gain. Now, we need to use government procurement, using Canadian taxpayer dollars, to spur Canadian businesses for longer-term prosperity.”
The federal government along with all of its agencies and Crown corporations, Carney said, will be required to leverage every dollar the Canadian government spends to help the domestic economy.
The policy, the prime minister said, replaces the federal government’s “best efforts” to buy Canadian, with “a clear obligation to do so.”
Helping businesses with cash flow
Describing the impact of U.S. tariffs on the global economy as a “rupture,” Carney said companies have been unable to adapt to the scale of change in its trading relationship with the U.S. and need some help.
To do that, the federal government will raise the maximum loan size for small- and medium-sized enterprises available from the Business Development Bank of Canada from $2 million to $5 million.
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For larger business, the Large Enterprise Tariff Loan Facility, a program that loans money to companies hit by the U.S. tariff regime, will provide loans with longer terms and at lower interest rates.
“These changes will be implemented immediately to ensure businesses can bridge the gap to the future,” Carney said.
Helping the agricultural and seafood sectors
The prime minister said his government would also help the Canadian canola, beef and seafood industries, which have been hit hard by tariffs imposed by China.
“To strengthen these sectors, the government will introduce a new biofuel production incentive, providing more than $370 million to assist domestic producers and help them restructure their value chains,” Carney said.
Forthcoming changes to Canada’s clean fuel regulations, Carney said, would also be crafted to help “spur the development of a vibrant biofuels industry in Canada.”
These moves would be accompanied by a marketing and trade diversification measures to help the agriculture and seafood sectors innovate and find new markets.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre dismissed Carney’s initiatives as “a big show about nothing.”
“With Mark Carney its been all show business and no real business. He’s gotten absolutely nothing done this summer other than shuffle a lot of papers and hold a lot of meetings while Canadians lose their jobs, can’t afford food and are unable to buy homes,” Poilievre said in Ottawa Friday.
The Conservative leader said Carney has failed in his efforts to negotiate with the Trump administration.
“We’re in a worse position now than we were when he took office,” he said.
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