Unifor Tells Ottawa to Use ‘Every Economic Lever’ Against Trump — Including Firms That Move Canadian Jobs South

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Canada’s trade fight with the United States is no longer just about matching tariffs at the border. Unifor is pressing Ottawa to make companies think twice before responding to U.S. pressure by moving Canadian production and jobs south.

On September 9, the union called on the federal government to use “every economic lever” available as President Donald Trump escalates his trade campaign against Canada. At the centre of Unifor’s demand is a rarely discussed federal law that could be used to counter foreign economic pressure, alongside tougher procurement rules, worker supports and potential penalties for companies that shift production out of Canada. The proposal lands at a sensitive moment: Ottawa has just imposed billions of dollars in new counter-tariffs, major manufacturers are reconsidering their Canadian footprints, and policymakers are trying to defend jobs without making an already costly trade conflict even more damaging.

Unifor Wants the Response to Extend Beyond Tariffs

Unifor’s September 9 intervention represents a broader view of what Canadian retaliation should look like. National President Lana Payne argued that Trump’s latest actions are aimed at weakening Canada’s industrial base and said Ottawa should protect production, employment and strategically important sectors. The union is not simply asking Canada to place tariffs on another list of American products. It wants federal economic policy to make abandoning Canadian workers more costly for corporations as well. That shifts some of the focus from Washington’s decisions to the decisions made inside multinational boardrooms.

The union is also asking corporate Canada to use its own purchasing power differently. It wants companies to prioritize Canadian-made products and services when choosing suppliers, reinforcing the consumer-driven “buy Canadian” movement with business-to-business spending. Unifor’s argument is straightforward: governments can retaliate against foreign tariffs, but industrial capacity will still shrink if companies conclude that relocating production to the United States is the easiest route around American pressure. For workers in a plant facing an uncertain future, that distinction is far from theoretical.

FEMA Is at the Centre of the Union’s Strategy

The Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act, or FEMA, provides the legal foundation for one of Unifor’s most aggressive proposals. Section 5 allows the attorney general, with the concurrence of the foreign affairs minister, to prohibit a person in Canada from complying with certain measures or directions originating from a foreign state when significant Canadian trade interests or sovereignty are threatened. Violating an applicable order can carry substantial penalties, including fines of up to $1.5 million for a corporation on indictment and, for individuals, possible imprisonment of up to five years.

Unifor wants Ottawa to apply that framework to tariff-driven offshoring and strengthen it where necessary. Its proposal has included punitive measures against companies that relocate Canadian production in response to U.S. pressure, potentially extending to restrictions on goods those companies later try to sell back into Canada. That distinction matters legally: FEMA does not automatically ban imports whenever a business closes a Canadian factory. Unifor has previously called for legislative changes alongside use of the existing statute. In practical terms, the union wants corporate executives to know that moving a production line south could carry consequences in the Canadian market they are leaving behind.

Brampton Shows Why Unifor Wants a Deterrent

Few cases illustrate Unifor’s concern as clearly as Stellantis’ Brampton Assembly Plant. More than 2,200 workers have been on layoff after the Ontario facility was idled for retooling. The plant had been expected to produce the next Jeep Compass, but Stellantis later shifted future Compass production to Illinois after U.S. tariffs disrupted automotive investment plans. By August 2026, Unifor said Stellantis was seriously considering the plant’s closure and sale, while the automaker said it was examining options for a sustainable future for the facility.

For a worker who once expected an idled plant to reopen with a new vehicle program, the difference between “retooling” and “indefinitely idled” is enormous. The Brampton case is precisely the type of situation behind Unifor’s demand for stronger federal leverage. Multinational automakers can allocate future models among plants on either side of the border, and tariff policy can change that calculation rapidly. Unifor argues that access to Canadian consumers, government support and public infrastructure should come with an expectation that companies maintain meaningful production in Canada rather than treating Canadian factories as expendable when Washington changes the rules.

Amherstburg Became Another Warning About Jobs Moving South

The automotive sector is not the only place where the politics of production have become highly visible. Diageo announced in 2025 that it would shut its Crown Royal bottling facility in Amherstburg, Ontario, as part of a restructuring of its North American supply chain. Reuters reported that roughly 180 jobs were affected. Diageo said some bottling volume would be shifted closer to its large U.S. customer base, while stressing that Crown Royal whisky would continue to be mashed, distilled and aged in Canada and that it would retain other Canadian operations.

The plant ultimately closed in February 2026, and Unifor presented the shutdown as another example of Canadian work moving south. The company described the move in terms of efficiency, resilience and proximity to customers rather than simply as a response to Trump. That difference in interpretation is important. Yet it also demonstrates the policy challenge Ottawa faces: corporate relocations rarely have a single cause. Any tougher anti-offshoring regime would need to distinguish ordinary restructuring from decisions directly driven by foreign economic coercion, while still giving governments enough leverage to discourage companies from using tariff threats as an easy justification for abandoning Canadian operations.

Ottawa Has Already Chosen Dollar-for-Dollar Retaliation

Canada is hardly standing still. Ottawa’s latest countermeasures took effect on September 8 after the United States imposed a 50% tariff on $27.6 billion worth of Canadian goods. The federal government responded with counter-tariffs covering the same dollar value of U.S. imports, with rates of 15%, 25% and 50% depending on the product. The targeted categories include steel, dairy products, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, plastics and electronics. Existing Canadian counter-tariffs in areas including automobiles also remain in place.

The dispute has continued to broaden beyond conventional tariffs. Washington announced additional restrictions targeting Canadian goods, while Trump has also threatened companies such as Bombardier with loss of U.S. market access unless more production occurs in the United States. That environment helps explain why Unifor believes matching tariffs alone is no longer sufficient. A tariff can make an American product more expensive in Canada, but it does not necessarily prevent a multinational corporation from responding to U.S. pressure by reallocating Canadian investment. Unifor wants Ottawa’s next layer of retaliation aimed directly at that corporate calculation.

Worker Supports Are Becoming Part of the Trade Arsenal

The federal response increasingly includes income protection and industrial support alongside tariffs. Ottawa announced a $7.5 billion package in August for businesses and workers affected by the trade conflict, building on nearly $25 billion in previously announced measures. The new package includes $1.5 billion for the Regional Tariff Response Initiative, $2 billion for the Canada Strong Diversification Fund and a $500 million Business Development Bank of Canada liquidity stream aimed at companies facing immediate financial pressure.

Another $3.5 billion is earmarked for Rapid Response Supports for Workers and Employers. Ottawa says those measures will include additional temporary Employment Insurance flexibilities, workplace training and a Worker Retention and Retraining Program designed to help employers preserve jobs during disruptions. Unifor nevertheless continues to call for broader, long-term EI reform. That reflects an important difference between emergency assistance and structural protection. A laid-off worker may need immediate benefits, but income support cannot replace a lost industrial base. The union’s strategy therefore combines both sides of the equation: cushioning workers when trade shocks hit while trying to keep factories, equipment, investment and future production from leaving in the first place.

Procurement Is Turning Into Industrial Policy

Ottawa already has another powerful economic lever at its disposal: government purchasing. Canada’s Buy Canadian framework increasingly gives domestic suppliers and Canadian content an advantage in strategic federal procurement. Since June 15, 2026, the threshold for the policy covering strategic procurements has been lowered from $25 million to $5 million, dramatically increasing the number of federal contracts potentially subject to Canadian-content preferences. Federal data showed that by late June, 14 contracts worth a combined $726.4 million had already been awarded under the policy.

The clearest recent example came from VIA Rail. On September 3, Ottawa announced more than $4.7 billion to acquire and maintain 313 passenger cars from Alstom Canada. Manufacturing and assembly will take place in Ontario and Quebec, supporting nearly 700 jobs. The government says the contract should generate more than $1.6 billion in economic benefits and draw on Alstom’s network of more than 900 Canadian suppliers. For Unifor, this is the model: public money should create domestic production capacity rather than merely purchase the cheapest finished product from abroad.

The Labour Market Picture Requires Some Perspective

Canada’s latest employment numbers underline the anxiety surrounding the trade fight, but they also show why broad claims about tariff-driven job losses require care. Statistics Canada reported that employment fell by 42,000 in August, while the unemployment rate remained at 6.4%. Ontario lost about 18,000 jobs overall during the month. Those figures arrived just as businesses were confronting another escalation in Canada-U.S. trade tensions, adding to fears that more layoffs could appear in tariff-exposed industries.

Yet manufacturing actually gained 22,000 jobs in August, including approximately 14,000 in Ontario. The national decline therefore cannot simply be described as 42,000 jobs lost because of U.S. tariffs. The Bank of Canada has taken a similarly nuanced view. It expects newly targeted industries to face serious pressure but has said the direct economy-wide impact may be more limited because the latest affected products account for only a portion of Canadian exports and government support should cushion some damage. The larger danger may be uncertainty itself: companies delaying hiring, investment and new product commitments because nobody knows what cross-border rules will look like a year from now.

Canada Is Diversifying, but the U.S. Still Matters Enormously

The long-term answer to U.S. pressure is partly to reduce Canada’s dependence on a single customer. Some measurable movement is already occurring. Statistics Canada reported that the U.S. share of Canadian merchandise exports fell from 75.9% in 2024 to 71.7% in 2025. Exports to markets outside the United States increased sharply during that year, providing evidence that companies were finding alternative customers as the trade environment deteriorated.

The trend became even more visible in July 2026. Canadian merchandise exports to non-U.S. destinations climbed 7.4% to a record $25.6 billion, representing 33.7% of the month’s exports. That is encouraging for policymakers trying to diversify trade, but one month does not erase decades of integration. The United States remains by far Canada’s largest export market, and entire industries were built around cross-border supply chains that cannot quickly be redirected to Europe or Asia. Unifor’s push for stronger domestic production rules is therefore partly about buying time: preserving Canadian industrial capacity while businesses develop markets that reduce Washington’s ability to dictate investment decisions.

The Hardest Question Is How Far Ottawa Should Go

Using “every economic lever” sounds simple until each lever begins affecting prices, investment and businesses that operate on both sides of the border. The Bank of Canada warned on September 2 that new U.S. tariffs and Canadian counter-tariffs will increase costs for some companies and could eventually feed into consumer prices. It also said trade uncertainty poses risks to the sustainability of Canada’s economic recovery. Retaliation can create leverage, but it is rarely free. The more aggressively governments restrict markets, the greater the possibility of additional retaliation and unintended damage to interconnected supply chains.

That leaves Ottawa with a difficult balancing act. Unifor wants companies to understand that Canadian market access, public procurement and government support cannot be separated from responsibility to Canadian workers. At the same time, any FEMA-based penalties or import restrictions would need clear rules capable of distinguishing genuine responses to foreign coercion from legitimate corporate restructuring. The debate is no longer simply whether Canada should fight back against Trump. Ottawa has already decided that it will. The more consequential question is whether the next phase will turn Canada’s trade response into a lasting industrial strategy that changes how companies decide where Canadian jobs belong.

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