Electric vehicles for export are parked at a port in Hangzhou, in eastern China's Zhejiang province, on April 2, 2025.-/AFP/Getty Images

Margaret McCuaig-Johnston is a senior fellow at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa and the inaugural co-chair of the Electric Vehicle Technology Roadmap for Canada.

In the lead-up to last month’s meetings in Beijing, government officials reassured Canada’s auto companies that electric vehicles were not on the table.

Not true.

Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that he had agreed to drop the tariff on Chinese electric vehicles from 100 per cent to 6.1 per cent, allowing 49,000 autos to be imported per year, rising to 70,000 over five years, which would be more than half the number of EVs sold in Canada in 2025.

And Mr. Carney gave Beijing an even bigger prize: a commitment to allow EV manufacturing in Canada, giving them the foothold in North America they’ve been seeking.

Canada reaches tariff deal with China on electric vehicles, canola

If the Canadian government had consulted with our auto companies, it would have learned about the challenges it would face in introducing Chinese EVs, beginning with national security.

It is widely known that the software in EVs made in China send the data from the cameras, microphones and location to China. Regular software fixes are made remotely........

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