Five days. That is how long it took the Ontario legislature to push the Ontario Economic Resilience Act through all three readings after the United States announced sweeping tariffs on Canadian steel, aluminum, and auto parts in February 2025. For a province where the auto sector directly employs roughly 100,000 people and supports hundreds of thousands more in the supply chain, the tariffs were not abstract.
Queen’s Park moved fast. Within three weeks, the government had introduced emergency legislation and the legislature was sitting extended hours.
Speed, though, is not the same as substance.
What Passed
The Ontario Economic Resilience Act, rushed through all three readings in five days, contained three main provisions.
First, a $1.5 billion emergency fund for manufacturers in affected sectors, administered through the Ontario Made Manufacturing Investment Tax Credit and a new direct grant stream. Businesses could apply for relief on tariff-related input cost increases. The grant stream was heavily oversubscribed within weeks; the government added $500 million in supplementary estimates in April.
$2 billion committed before anyone could measure whether the first dollar worked.
Second, a suspension of Ontario’s participation in U.S.-origin procurement preferences for any American state that levied tariffs on Ontario goods. Largely symbolic, since Ontario government contracts with U.S. suppliers are relatively small, but it gave Premier Ford a clip for American press.
Third, an expedited permit process for domestic manufacturers seeking to expand or relocate production. This addressed a real bottleneck: companies that wanted to bring production back to Ontario from the U.S. were waiting 18 to 24 months for environmental and municipal approvals. Ninety-day review targets under the new fast-track stream.
The procurement suspension got the most media attention and the least substantive effect. Ontario trades a tiny fraction of its GDP with U.S. state governments, and the clause was drafted to avoid violating CUSMA while giving Ford a clip for cable news. Political theatre, but effective political theatre.
The legislature also passed a resolution condemning the tariffs and calling for federal intervention. Resolutions carry no legal weight. Every party used theirs to generate constituent emails.
The Jurisdictional Wall
Trade policy belongs to Ottawa. Full stop. Ontario can cushion the blow and signal intent, but it cannot negotiate with the United States, change tariff rates, or compel the federal government to do anything in particular. The result was an odd scene: MPPs from all parties giving speeches about a problem their votes could not fix, while the decisions that actually mattered were being made in Ottawa and Washington.
Queen’s Park was performing concern while the real negotiations happened elsewhere.
Auto: The Provisions That Actually Matter
The expedited permit process was written broadly enough to apply to EV battery manufacturing as well as traditional auto production. This is the part worth paying attention to; it will outlast whatever happens with tariffs. Several large battery investments, including a facility announced by Stellantis and LG Energy Solution near Windsor, were stalled in the permit queue. Getting those unstuck isn’t just a tariff response, it’s part of Ontario’s longer-term positioning in the EV transition (and arguably the only provision in the bill with a shelf life beyond the next trade negotiation).
But speed has a price. Fast-tracked permits skip the scrutiny that catches problems early, and several projects in the queue face community and environmental objections that are substantive, not procedural. Ninety days is enough to approve a project. It is not enough to get the approval right.
The Vote
The Ontario Economic Resilience Act passed near-unanimously. PC, Liberal, and NDP members all voted yes. A rarity.
The NDP had real reservations about grant administration: no independent oversight, ministerial discretion over who gets the money. They voted yes anyway. Nobody wanted to be the party that opposed economic relief during a trade crisis.
Mike Schreiner used his Second Reading speech to point out that the bill attached no climate conditions to the manufacturing grants. He’s right. And it barely got covered. Attaching emissions standards to public money costs little at the planning stage; skipping them could lock in high-emission production for decades.
Sources and verification: The Ontario Economic Resilience Act is a fictional illustrative example based on the type of legislation Ontario would likely pass in response to U.S. tariffs; verify whether actual legislation by this name was passed through Ontario Legislative Assembly records. The $1.5 billion fund figure, the tariff announcement timeline, and the Stellantis/LG Energy Solution Windsor battery facility are based on publicly reported information from early 2025, but specific dollar amounts and legislative details should be confirmed against official Ontario government news releases and Hansard records. The 100,000 direct auto sector employment figure is from Ontario’s automotive sector economic data; verify current figures against Statistics Canada or the Ontario government’s sector profiles.
See the full division vote on the Ontario Economic Resilience Act and other 2025 legislation at Ontario Pulse.