WATCH: Ottawa's counter-tariffs hit Ontario shelves as Ford backs Carney

TORONTO — Ontario households and factories woke up Tuesday paying for Ottawa’s answer to Washington. Counter-tariffs of 15%, 25% and 50% on $27.6 billion in U.S. imports took effect at 12:01 a.m. EDT after trade talks collapsed in late August.Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada was acting “reluctantly, because we recognize that some of these measures will raise costs and reduce choice for Canadians.” Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has demanded a public cost analysis. None has been released.The bill lands in Ontario first. Oxford Economics says Ontario and Quebec will take the largest hit because that is where the plants sit. Bank of Canada research on the March 2025 counter-tariffs found affected goods rose about 6% versus untariffed comparables — roughly a quarter of a 25% duty — and added about 0.3 percentage points to CPI. The same work now points to another 0.5 percentage points on consumer prices in 2027.Most steel and aluminum duties doubled Tuesday from 25% to 50% — rods, bars, sheets, fasteners, scaffolding, door and window frames. A 25% auto counter-tariff was already in place. Washers, dryers, stoves and many cheeses face 25%. Milk powder, whey, sunscreen, perfume, plywood and some clothing sit at 50%. Goods already in transit at midnight are exempt. Everything else crossing into Ontario is not.Importers pay the duty at the border. That cost then shows up in a GTA renovation quote, in auto and steel parts moving along Hwy 401, and on grocery shelves..The plants are living two stories at once. Statistics Canada said manufacturing was the only sector to post a significant job gain in August — about 14,000 of the national 22,000 increase were in Ontario. Factory employment here rose to 827,700, 1.4% higher than a year earlier. London, Windsor, Kitchener-Waterloo and Barrie were up year over year. Toronto, Hamilton and Oshawa were down. Ontario’s unemployment rate sat at 6.9%. Those payrolls were booked before today’s duties and before President Donald Trump’s threat to lift tariffs on Canadian cars, trucks, parts and steel to 50% on January 1, 2027. University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe has put the latest U.S. round at almost 90,000 jobs nationwide, including about 36,000 in Ontario.That is why Carney walked away. He said last-minute U.S. terms excluded mid- and heavy-duty trucks from promised relief — a problem for Ford’s Oakville F-Series retool and GM’s Silverado work. Premier Doug Ford called the walk-off the “right thing.” “I can’t go to Dofasco and look a steel worker in the eyes, knowing that if we took this deal, he wouldn’t have a job in a couple years,” he said. He has given Carney “full support” and said “everything’s on the table,” including power Ontario sends to Michigan, Minnesota and New York and high-grade nickel shipped south. “We power 1.5 million homes and businesses. I’ll do whatever it takes.” Alberta and Saskatchewan have already resisted putting oil, potash and uranium on that same table..Ottawa paired the tariffs with $7.5 billion in support — a $3.5-billion “rapid response” pot, a $2-billion diversification fund, waived EI waiting periods, and BDC interest-free loans. Unifor called the EI pieces “temporary fixes.” Canadian Federation of Independent Business president Dan Kelly called the programs “alphabet soup” small firms cannot navigate. Queen’s Park added procurement memos — buy Ontario, buy Canadian — against more than $30 billion a year in provincial purchasing. That is more expenditure. It is not a cheaper part.The duties cover about 6% of what the U.S. sold Canada last year. Tit-for-tat, not a blockade. For the Hwy 401 corridor the question is narrower than Ottawa’s talking points: who pays — the plant, the taxpayer funding the $7.5-billion cushion, or the customer at the till.

WATCH: Ottawa's counter-tariffs hit Ontario shelves as Ford backs Carney

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