Canada’s largest private-sector union is warning that conventional trade retaliation may no longer be enough to protect Canadian jobs as the economic confrontation with the United States deepens. Unifor is urging Ottawa to use “every economic lever” available, arguing that tariffs, worker assistance and industrial policy must work together if Canada wants to prevent production from migrating south.
The warning carries particular weight in the automotive industry, where factories and parts plants are tightly integrated with the United States and thousands of workers have already faced layoffs or uncertainty. Ottawa has responded with counter-tariffs, worker supports and production-linked incentives, but Unifor wants an even more forceful strategy—one that makes abandoning Canadian production economically costly for corporations.
Unifor Wants Ottawa to Go Beyond the Latest Counter-Tariffs
Unifor sharpened its message on September 9, one day after Canada’s newest retaliatory tariffs took effect. The union said Ottawa must be prepared to deploy every economic lever at its disposal against U.S. measures it says are attacking Canadian jobs and strategic industries. Its demands extend beyond tariffs. Unifor wants stronger support for affected workers, Employment Insurance reform, tougher measures against companies that shift production out of Canada and greater use of Canadian purchasing power.
The timing matters. Ottawa’s September 8 countermeasures imposed tariffs of 15%, 25% and 50% on C$27.6 billion worth of U.S. imports, matching a new round of American tariffs rate for rate. Existing Canadian counter-tariffs on U.S.-made automobiles also remain in place. For Unifor, however, matching tariffs is only part of the response. The union’s argument is that Canada needs a broader industrial strategy capable of influencing where companies invest, manufacture and employ workers once the trade dispute ends.
Canada’s Auto Industry Has Exceptional Exposure to the U.S.
Few major Canadian industries are as dependent on the American market as automobile manufacturing. Federal industry data show the sector directly employed more than 125,000 people in 2024 while supporting roughly 427,000 additional jobs through suppliers, dealerships and other related businesses. Five major automakers—Ford, General Motors, Honda, Stellantis and Toyota—assembled more than 1.31 million light-duty vehicles in Canadian plants that year.
That scale is impressive, but the industry’s geography creates its biggest vulnerability. More than 90% of Canadian-made vehicles and roughly 60% of Canadian-made auto parts are exported to the United States. Canadian motor-vehicle manufacturing exports to the U.S. were worth more than C$45 billion in 2025 alone. A tariff that changes the economics of selling a Canadian-built vehicle in Detroit, Chicago or Dallas can therefore affect production decisions hundreds of kilometres away in Oshawa, Windsor, Alliston or Cambridge. This is why Unifor treats trade policy as employment policy rather than simply a dispute between governments.
Job Losses Were Already Appearing Before the Latest Escalation
The employment numbers explain why new tariff threats are being greeted so seriously. Statistics Canada found that manufacturing employment fell by nearly 36,000 workers between December 2024 and December 2025. Motor-vehicle-parts manufacturing was particularly weak, with employment falling 9.3%, while employment in motor-vehicle manufacturing declined 1.3%. Those numbers predate the latest September escalation and show an industry entering the new confrontation from an already fragile position.
Not every lost auto job can be attributed solely to tariffs. Slower vehicle demand, changing electric-vehicle strategies, product cycles and corporate investment decisions have also played roles. Yet workers can see the uncertainty directly. Roughly 2,200 Unifor members connected with Stellantis’ idled Brampton Assembly Plant remain on indefinite layoff, while Unifor said in August that about 30% of its Canadian GM membership was then on layoff. For families dependent on assembly and supplier work, trade uncertainty is no longer an abstract economic forecast.
North America’s Integrated Auto Model Is Now a Source of Vulnerability
The tariff problem is unusually complicated because a vehicle produced in Canada is rarely entirely Canadian. North American automakers operate interconnected supply chains involving engines, transmissions, electronics, metals and other components made across Canada, the United States and Mexico. The federal government has estimated that approximately half the value of vehicles assembled in Canada can represent U.S. content.
Since April 2025, the United States has applied a 25% tariff to the non-U.S. content of CUSMA-compliant Canadian vehicles. Because American content is excluded, Ottawa has estimated the effective tariff on a typical Canadian-produced vehicle at roughly 12.5%, although the actual amount depends on its content. Canada responded with its own 25% tariffs on non-CUSMA-compliant U.S. vehicles and on the non-Canadian and non-Mexican content of qualifying U.S.-made vehicles. A supply chain designed to make borders commercially invisible is consequently being forced to calculate national content much more carefully.
Unifor Wants Companies to Face Consequences for Moving Production
One of Unifor’s most aggressive proposals involves Canada’s Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act, or FEMA. The union wants Ottawa to use the legislation as part of a strategy preventing corporations from simply responding to U.S. political pressure by moving Canadian jobs and production south. Unifor has suggested punitive measures could ultimately include blocking or restricting imports from companies that offshore Canadian work.
The legal distinction is important. FEMA already permits the federal government, under specified conditions, to prohibit people or companies in Canada from complying with certain foreign measures that harm significant Canadian trade interests or sovereignty. It is fundamentally a mechanism designed to counter unacceptable extraterritorial pressure. The statute does not itself contain a simple automatic provision saying that imports from any company moving jobs can be banned. Unifor’s proposal therefore represents an expansive policy strategy that Ottawa would have to design and implement carefully, potentially alongside other trade authorities. Its significance lies in the principle: Canadian market access should come with obligations to Canadian workers.
Employment Insurance Has Become Part of the Trade-War Debate
Unifor is also pressing Ottawa for what it describes as long-overdue Employment Insurance reform. The union’s concern is straightforward: industrial layoffs can arrive far faster than displaced workers can find comparable employment. An assembler or skilled-trades worker losing a well-paid manufacturing job may not easily replace that income locally, particularly in communities built around one major factory and its network of suppliers.
Ottawa has already expanded its trade-related safety net. In August, the federal government announced C$7.5 billion in new and enhanced tariff-response measures, including C$3.5 billion in rapid supports for workers and employers. Temporary EI provisions waive the normal one-week waiting period, change how separation payments such as severance affect benefits and provide 20 additional weeks of regular benefits for qualifying long-tenured workers. Those measures are designed as emergency cushions. Unifor’s larger argument is that prolonged industrial restructuring requires a more durable income-security system rather than temporary programs repeatedly extended whenever another tariff shock arrives.
Buying Canadian Is Being Treated as an Industrial Tool
Unifor’s call is not directed exclusively at governments. Lana Payne has also argued that Canadian corporations should examine what they purchase and direct more spending toward Canadian-produced goods and services. The logic is that every procurement decision can either reinforce domestic supply chains or send demand elsewhere, particularly when export markets have become less predictable.
Ottawa is already moving in that direction. The federal Buy Canadian framework prioritizes domestic suppliers and Canadian value-added content in major federal purchasing. Strategic procurements worth C$5 million or more can favour Canadian suppliers and award additional consideration for Canadian content, while separate requirements support domestic steel, aluminum and wood in qualifying large construction and defence contracts. By June 25, 2026, Ottawa said 14 contracts worth C$726.4 million had been awarded under the policy. Procurement cannot replace the U.S. vehicle market, but predictable public demand can provide manufacturers and suppliers with additional reasons to invest and maintain Canadian capacity.
Ottawa Already Has a Powerful Auto-Specific Lever
The federal government’s automotive tariff-remission framework demonstrates how trade rules can be tied directly to production decisions. Under the system, automakers manufacturing vehicles in Canada can import specified quantities of U.S.-assembled, CUSMA-compliant vehicles without paying Canada’s counter-tariffs. That benefit is conditional: companies are expected to maintain Canadian production and honour planned investments.
Ottawa has shown that those conditions can carry consequences. In October 2025, the government reduced General Motors’ annual remission quota by 24.2% after production reductions affecting Oshawa and Ingersoll. Stellantis’ quota was cut by 50% after the company changed its Brampton production plans. Canada has since examined ways to strengthen the system further, potentially rewarding companies that increase domestic production rather than merely maintain historical levels. The broader 2026 automotive strategy includes more than C$6.9 billion in announced support. For Unifor, mechanisms like these demonstrate how access to Canada’s consumer market can become leverage for protecting manufacturing jobs.
Recent GM Investment Shows What Job Guarantees Can Deliver
There are signs that investment commitments can still be secured even in an exceptionally difficult trade environment. Unifor members at General Motors ratified new contracts in late August covering more than 4,600 workers in Ontario. The agreements contain more than C$1 billion in investment commitments, including C$144 million for next-generation heavy-duty GMC Sierra production in Oshawa and C$215 million for a next-generation transmission program at St. Catharines.
The contrast with other plants is significant. GM’s agreement offers workers a degree of product certainty at the same time that the CAMI plant in Ingersoll remains idled and many employees have endured layoffs. At Stellantis, meanwhile, Unifor entered September negotiations representing more than 9,000 workers while the future of Brampton Assembly remained unresolved. Ford’s recently negotiated agreement covers another 5,150 Unifor members. These bargaining rounds illustrate why the union is focused so intensely on guaranteed products and investment: wages matter, but a strong contract provides limited security if future vehicle programs are assigned elsewhere.
The Bigger Fight Is Over Canada’s Place in North American Manufacturing
The dispute is ultimately about more than the tariff rate applied to one vehicle. The 2026 CUSMA review process has brought automotive rules of origin, steel, aluminum and North American supply chains back to the negotiating table. U.S. officials have separately held rounds with Mexico focused partly on automobiles and economic security, reinforcing Canadian concerns that the structure of continental manufacturing could change significantly.
Ottawa’s stated objective has been to remove the U.S.-Canada automotive tariffs while preserving a strong Canadian manufacturing base. Until that happens, Unifor is arguing that defensive measures must be strong enough to prevent temporary trade pressure from producing permanent factory closures. Once tooling, supplier work and future vehicle programs migrate elsewhere, rebuilding that industrial ecosystem can be extraordinarily difficult. The union’s “every economic lever” message is therefore as much about the next decade as the next round of tariffs. Canada is being asked to decide how valuable domestic manufacturing capacity is—and what it is prepared to do to keep it.
