Ford’s Buy Ontario act sells out Canada

By Martin Regg Cohn / National Affairs

No longer is Doug Ford putting Canada first.
On second thought, the country comes second.
After pining so patriotically for national unity and economic comity all year long, Ontario’s premier is now taking a page from Donald Trump’s Fortress America – by putting his own province, and his personal political fortunes, at the top of the list.
Captain Canada has hung up his cross-country cape. Perhaps inspired by MAGA, he’s gone MOGA – Make Ontario Great Again – in purchasing power if not political power.
The premier has decreed that henceforth, the provincial government and municipalities must “Buy Ontario” first and foremost. Only in exceptional cases, where local suppliers can’t deliver the goods, can governments go outside the province to consider other Canadian companies.
It’s called the Buy Ontario Act.
You could also call it the Selling Out Canada Act.
Wait, I can hear you saying – if America has gone protectionist, why can’t our own province go parochial?
Fair question.
Answer: Foul play.
Shamelessly, a mere 24 hours before Ford proclaimed his procurement plan that punishes the rest of Canada, Ontario Industry Minister Vic Fedeli was in Yellowknife solemnly signing his name to a supposed breakthrough for free trade within the country.
Hailing the Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA), Fedeli lavished praise on his counterparts for embracing its newest chapter, the wordy but worthy “Canadian Mutual Recognition Agreement on the Sale of Goods.”
If goods are “good for you in your province, well, it should be good for all of us in other provinces,” Fedeli opined.
That was Wednesday of last week.
By Thursday, Ontario was raising the drawbridge and shooting down out-of-province prospects for procurement.
“It’s about using the public sector’s buying power to … create jobs in our own backyard,” boasted Procurement Minister Stephen Crawford, putting a new spin on the old NIMBY label by proclaiming, effectively: YIMBY – Yes In My Backyard (and let’s fence off neighbouring backyards).
Perhaps most devastating, he made it clear that Ford’s Tories would punish anyone spending money out-of-province, with legislated fines, holdbacks and future bans from government contracts: “We’re making sure that every possible procurement dollar that can be spent in Ontario is spent in Ontario.”
This may be the fastest turnabout in the tortured history of trade barriers within Canada.
For decades, various premiers paid lip service to a Canadian common market permitting the free flow of goods and services, capital and people. But they placed a bigger bet on continental free trade along north-south lines – until Trump trampled on those trade links.
In the aftermath, Ford vowed to stand up to Trump while sitting down with his fellow premiers to get goods and services moving at home:
“We need all 13 provinces and territories working together, along with the federal government, to build a stronger, more united Canada,” Ford gushed last April, vowing yet again that Ontario was “open for business.”
One after another, his fellow premiers signed on as Ford led them on.
“These agreements are a blueprint, and they’re a challenge to other provinces and territories to join us,” he enthused. “No single province can tear down these trade barriers alone.”
Estimated savings from reduced barriers range from four to six per cent of the country’s economic activity, or as much as $200 billion in benefits. Fedeli has suggested Ontario could benefit by $23 billion because it has the lion’s share of interprovincial trade.
Ontario is in a position to be generous – economically, geographically and historically. It enjoys a trade surplus with other provinces, exporting more than it imports; and it has traditionally benefited from its central location as the country’s industrial heartland.
Which is why most provinces assumed Ontario was on board when it signed last week’s deal promising to expand Canadian free trade. After all, the preamble declares: “The free movement of goods is essential … to open new domestic markets for Canadian businesses.”
Brimming with optimism, B.C. Economic Growth Minister Ravi Kahlon talked about “one agreement, one market and unlimited opportunity across the country.”
Not so fast. The enthusiasm seemed infectious, but Ontario inoculated and exempted itself the very next day.
Now, Canada’s richest province is back to erecting barriers again, all on its own. Thanks to Ford’s Ontario, it is once again each province for itself.
How will this help Ontario weather the economic storm ahead? Ford’s Buy Ontario policy will only provoke other provinces to retaliate when we need them most, at the very moment that Trump’s tariffs are targeting the province’s auto assembly plants for destruction and relocation.
For all his fulsome words, Captain Canada has gone back on his word. Amid Ford’s paeans to pan-Canadian unity, he’s been playing both sides.
The problem with Buy Ontario? Canadians may no longer buy what our fast-talking premier is selling.