New Trade Rules, Technological Disruption and COVID-19: Prospects for Ontario in the Cross-Border Great Lakes Automotive Industry

Abstract

Canada has been characterised as a 'semi-peripheral' automotive-producing nation. This paper argues that to frame Canada only as a singular 'national' automotive industry is ill-conceived. Overwhelmingly concentrated in Ontario, Canadian automotive production forms an integral and important part of the cross-border Great Lakes automotive production region. The fortunes of automotive production in Canada are reliant, therefore, not only on 'national' policies but also on the continued vitality of the industry in this broader region and must be analysed as such. An analysis of the state of the industry in Canada stressing its integration within the Great Lakes automotive region is followed by an assessment of how the industry in the region, and especially in Ontario, might be impacted by impending challenges. These include supply chain weaknesses exposed by COVID-19, the more complex and stringent USMCA automotive rules of origin, and technological disruption associated with the transition to electric vehicles.