Premier Doug Ford says that he will not cut off the electricity Ontario supplies to 1.5 million homes south of the border without the support of other premiers.
Ford made the comment during a press conference in Vaughan, Ont. on Wednesday. While he stressed that “everything is on the table” in the trade war with the U.S., he seemed to suggest that Ontario will not be acting unilaterally.
“I can’t do it alone. You know, I’m not the only province that ships electricity down to the U.S. We need a Team Canada approach, and I’d be happy, within the provinces, to lead that approach,” he said.
The province briefly applied, and then removed, a 25 per cent surcharge on its electricity exports to New York, Michigan and Minnesota last year as the trade war began.
Ford has previously said he would cut off the energy to those states completely “with a smile” on his face if the trade dispute intensifies.
“If this escalates and we can’t get back to the table, and he (Trump) keeps coming after us, all options are on the table, in my opinion,” Ford said Wednesday.
According to the most recent data from Statistics Canada, Ontario sent 12.8 million MWh (megawatt-hours) of electricity to the U.S. in 2024, the most of any province. British Columbia and Manitoba were the second and third largest exporters, sending 6.3 million MWh and 6.0 million MWh, respectively, south of the border.
Ontario’s previous surcharge on its U.S. electricity exports struck a nerve with Trump at the time. The president questioned why the country was not powering itself domestically before threatening that Canada would pay a financial price “so big” it would be “read about in history books for many years to come,” before the surcharge was walked back.
Ontario won’t run government ads in the U.S. ahead of midterms: Ford
Ford says his government won’t run its anti-tariff ads south of the border in the run-up to the U.S. midterm elections in November, citing a desire to turn down the temperature amid the trade dispute.
“I want to (run the ads), but I don’t want to heighten this fight at all,” he said when asked about the spots which the province spent tens of millions of dollars to produce and broadcast.
“We need to get back at the table. We got to simmer things down.”
Ford went on to say that he hopes the Democratic Party can “get their act together,” ahead of the Nov. 3 vote, pointing out what he sees as divisions within the party. Earlier this week, he encouraged Americans to not vote in a candidate “that is going to kill your jobs” and said that he would go “door-knocking” himself if he could.
The premier’s desire to turn down the temperature follows similar remarks he made on U.S. television on Tuesday, in the wake of a verbal spat with the president a day earlier.
Ford told Trump Monday he could “kiss my ass” in response to the president’s threat to impose a 50 per cent tariff on Canadian cars and trucks. Trump later fired back saying that Ford was the “less charismatic, intelligent and overall unimpressive brother of the late, great, Rob Ford.”
While he said that he does not regret making those comments, Ford admitted that the verbal back-and-forth did become a little “too heated.”
Ottawa announced on Tuesday dollar-for-dollar counter tariffs on hundreds of American goods in response to Trump’s 50 per cent tariffs on roughly $28 billion worth of Canadian products which came into effect after trade talks fell apart on Friday.
Ford, Smith still add odds over oil
Beyond electricity, Ford has encouraged other Canadian leaders, including Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, to cut off oil exports to the U.S. to “put pain on” them.
Although Smith has repeatedly rejected the proposal, she said she remains committed to building a pipeline pitched by the two provinces last month.
“As I’ve said in the past, cutting off Alberta energy exports to the U.S. would be extremely harmful to Canadians and is not a viable option,” Smith said in a statement issued earlier this week following a phone call with Ford.
Ford said that, despite the disagreement, the two premiers get along “quite” well, and that he plans to fly to her province for a meeting in the near future.
