Ontario Premier Leader Doug Ford holds up a piece of sheet metal with the words 'PROTECT ONTARIO WORKERS' cut into it at AMBICO Ltd., a manufacturer in Ottawa, Ont., on Feb. 4 2025. Photo by Bryan Passifiume/Toronto Sun files

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Its glory days over, Ontario’s auto sector is stumbling towards an embarrassing endgame. Its fatal flaw was doctrinaire policies devised by Ottawa’s self-congratulatory political class and Ontario’s self-appointed economic and trade wizards, who are now in a race to see who can shovel more government “support” into the sector in the name of “protecting” what’s left of this once thriving industry.

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Ontario’s automotive output peaked in 1999 when its factories produced a record 3.1 million vehicles. Last year production was only 1.2 million vehicles, which means Ontario has fallen from fourth in the world in auto output to 14th. Over the same quarter century, Canada’s population grew roughly a third, from about 30.6 million in 1999 to roughly 41.5 million today.

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Officials loved showcasing Ontario’s world-class manufacturing hub, end-to-end supply chain, skilled workforce and strategic integration with global auto markets as key reasons for its premiere status. Now, all that smugness has a hollow ring, with Ontario trailing competitors like Czechia and Türkiye.

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Employment in the industry has gone the way of output. In 2001 the sector employed 53,204 people at assembly facilities. Now, due to output declines and productivity increases, that’s down to 35,593.

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The employment-support game soon won’t be worth the subsidy candle. As big labour gets smaller and smaller, government fealty to it should gradually evaporate. For the long run, it’s good news that the knee-jerk strategy of trying to maintain auto sector employment by writing cheque after cheque may soon be doomed.

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Despite its declining metrics, Ontario continues its expensive “Protect Ontario” mantra, which debuted during Super Bowl weekend in 2025. Its finance ministry spent $21.4 million over the past 17 months almost entirely on the government’s “Protect Ontario” commercials, according to records obtained through freedom of information. The energy ministry spent nearly $10 million on the same messaging during the 2025-26 fiscal year via TV, radio, billboards and social media feeds.

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Today the destruction part of capitalism’s “creative destruction” is all too evident in Ontario’s auto sector. But the creation part hasn’t yet had its chance. As history teaches, humans often need to experience calamity before shifting out of obsolete paradigms. So it may be for Ontario’s auto sector as it’s strafed by Trumpian tariffs and about to be swamped by Chinese EVs.

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Canada has abundant automotive capital, both physical and, more importantly for the long run, human. And U.S. President Donald Trump has created a greater appetite for made-in-Canada options. The global automotive market remains gigantic. There is no reason Canada cannot find niches in it and respond to our own demands, as well. All that’s required is for independent automotive R&D to develop sustainable, made-in-Canada automotive models responsive to specific Canadian needs shaped by our vastness and northern location — not to mention the gridlock that often plagues our major cities.

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Outside Ontario’s legacy political-industrial automotive swamp, there’s no lack of smart, visionary, creative and moneyed Canadians who could take Canada’s auto industry in new directions. But this time it would require giving up on the disaster that “visionary” government auto strategy has brought.

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Michael Nitefor is founder and president of Toronto-based Air Lab, Inc., an automotive technology company.

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