REVIEW: Carney’s “less than 3%” hides more than a quarter of the EV market opened to Beijing

A hundred electric cars

The registry on September 25

On September 25 at 3 p.m., the federal permit registry counted 15,763 Chinese electric cars brought into Canada under an annual quota of 49,000.

That left 33,237 spots before February 28, 2027, according to the same registry.

Take a hundred electric cars sold in Canada last year. The Chinese quota equals nearly twenty-eight of them.

Twenty-eight out of a hundred. Remember that unit. It will be back.

A charger in a driveway

Somewhere, a family is comparing two prices on a screen. The charging cable hangs on the garage wall. They are working out the monthly payment. Not the geopolitics.

That’s normal. They are not the ones who signed.

The decision dates from January 16, 2026, in Beijing. It carries Mark Carney’s political signature.

Eight months later, the counter is running.

It runs without a sound. Every week. In a spreadsheet.

A hundred cars, and nearly thirty spots already promised.

Carney’s number

Under 3% of the market

The prime minister’s news release is clear. Canada will let in up to 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles a year. At the most-favored-nation tariff rate: 6.1%.

The same text states that this volume represents less than 3% of Canada’s new vehicle market. A return, it says, to volumes from before the trade frictions.

It also promises, within three years, Chinese joint ventures in Canada with trusted partners.

The agreement also covers clean energy, technology and lumber. Autos are only one pillar.

Carney repeated his number to Donald Trump on a hot mic at the G7 in June, The Hub reports.

A true number

The number is true. In 2025, Statistics Canada counted 1,866,714 new vehicle registrations. Forty-nine thousand is about 2.6% of that.

I’ll admit it: at first I found that 3% reassuring. It is. If you count gas-powered pickups.

The number is round. It reassures. It sticks.

The problem is not the number. It is the box it gets filed in.

An exact percentage can still look the wrong way.

Two denominators

The EV market on its own

Let’s change the denominator.

In 2025, zero-emission vehicles made up 9.5% of new registrations, according to Statistics Canada. About 177,000 vehicles, by my calculation.

Forty-nine thousand out of 177,000 is nearly 28%. The Hub reaches the same figure in its editorial of September 23.

Addisu Lashitew, of McMaster University, uses 191,000 EV sales in 2025 instead, against 264,000 in 2024. On that basis, the quota is worth nearly 26%.

More than a quarter, either way

In 2024, that share reached 14.6%, Statistics Canada notes. The segment shrank. The quota did not.

Between 26% and 28%. More than a quarter. Whichever counter you use.

Same quota. Same year. Two stories.

Out of a hundred new cars, fewer than three. Out of a hundred electric cars, more than twenty-five.

2.6% of cars, 28% of EVs.

I stand with the people working in the electric vehicle supply chain Canada says it wants to build. Against the quota Mark Carney announced on January 16. Because it weighs 2.6% of the total market, but more than a quarter of the one segment where this country is betting its industrial future.

I judge it on four criteria. The right denominator. What we got in return. Reversibility. Alignment with our allies.

The right denominator changes the whole sentence.

Six and a half percent a year

A ceiling that rises

The quota does not stay at 49,000.

It will increase by 6.5% a year, Global Affairs Canada writes in its consultation on administering the quota.

In year two, that comes to about 52,000 vehicles, by my calculation. The Hub calculates it will reach about 67,000 vehicles a year by 2031.

The share reserved for cars with an export price of C$35,000 or less will rise from 10% in the second year to 50% in the fifth, Ottawa specifies.

An escalator, not a step

The January 16 release talked of a return to earlier volumes. A return is a single step.

What is written down is an escalator.

One step in 2027. Another in 2028. Then the next.

A quota on an escalator is judged by the top step, not the first.

Every year, one more step. Nobody will have to vote on it. Nobody will have to announce it.

A return that climbs every year is no longer a return.

While we were watching Washington

May, July, August

While the country followed Trump’s tariffs, the quota was filling up.

March: zero. April: zero. May: 3,510. June: 621. July: 5,982. August: 5,490.

Total for the first period, March 1 to August 31: 15,603 vehicles, according to the federal registry.

During those six months, permits were handed out first come, first served, Global Affairs Canada writes. Each permit is valid for 60 days.

No debate. No vote. A number going up.

What the table says

The registry says 49,000 for the year. The registry says 15,603 for the first period. The registry says 160 for September, as of the 25th. The registry says 33,237 spots still open. The registry says February 28, 2027 for the end of year one.

It does not say who is buying. Or at what price.

It was updated on September 18, then on the 25th. No press conference. A table online.

International Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu provided the first-period figure to the Globe and Mail, The Hub reports.

While Washington shouted, Beijing filled in boxes.

Canola for cars

What Ottawa got

Here is the government’s strongest argument. It deserves to be laid out in full.

In exchange for the quota, Beijing was to cut its combined duties on canola seed from about 85% to about 15% by March 1, according to the prime minister’s release. A market worth C$4 billion a year.

There is canola. There is canola meal, lobster, crab and peas, exempted from the so-called anti-discrimination tariffs from March 1 to the end of the year. There is nearly C$3 billion in unlocked orders, Ottawa projected.

Cheaper cars

The same text promises more affordable cars. Within five years, more than half the vehicles under the quota would cost less than C$35,000 at import.

Ottawa is also aiming for a 50% increase in its exports to China by 2030.

Add the visa exemption for Canadians traveling to China.

Canola sold. Cheaper cars. Fewer visas.

It is concrete. It is costed. It is signed.

The prime minister presented the whole package as a “new strategic partnership,” not a simple tariff swap.

The argument has numbers, and they carry weight.

What Beijing got

Punitive tariffs, then a quota

Now read the same agreement from Beijing.

The Trudeau government had matched Washington’s 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles. Beijing had retaliated with punitive tariffs on canola, peas and seafood, The Hub recalls.

Then Beijing lowered its tariffs on canola, peas, lobster and crab. It lifted the visa requirement. And Ottawa brought its tariff down to 6.1%.

The lesson learned

Beijing taxed. Ottawa negotiated. Beijing got its quota.

In other words, Chinese pressure on our farmers produced exactly what it was aiming for.

That is not a diplomatic detail. It is a precedent.

Out of a hundred electric cars sold here, Beijing won the right to place nearly thirty. By taxing our fields first.

The next time a Canadian sector bothers Beijing, someone will remember that canola was enough.

And yet the January 16 release speaks of a strategic partnership. Not a ransom.

Taxing our fields reopened our roads.

Our farmers paid first

Real distress

I have to write here what cuts against my own reasoning.

The Chinese tariffs hit canola, pea, lobster and crab producers. People who had decided nothing. The quota relieved them. That is a fact. It counts.

EV sales were collapsing too. In 2025, zero-emission vehicle registrations fell 34.7%, according to Statistics Canada. Cheaper cars met a real need.

Statistics Canada attributes that drop partly to the pause in zero-emission vehicle rebates. The relief is real. So is the need.

A market picking up

Another inconvenient fact: the EV market is recovering. In the second quarter of 2026, 58,811 zero-emission vehicles were registered, 26.7% more than a year earlier, Statistics Canada reported on September 8.

If that growth holds, the quota’s share of the segment will fall.

And Donald Trump himself said on September 11 that he would be okay with Chinese plants in the United States if they hire Americans, The Hub reports.

That is true, and it does not change this: a quota that climbs 6.5% a year does not depend on our sales. It rises on its own.

Our farmers were right to feel relief, not to be traded.

A car that listens

Taipei says no

A modern electric car is connected. It has cameras. It has sensors. It gets remote updates.

Taiwan imports no complete vehicles from mainland China. Its economy ministry cites national security and information security, The Hub reported on September 22.

You don’t want your vehicles “controlled by [China] and weaponized by them,” I-Chung Lai, president of the Prospect Foundation in Taipei, told The Hub.

To him, an electric car is “a moving computer.”

In 2024, a Biden administration review warned that these cars can collect driver data, map infrastructure, and “be piloted or disabled remotely,” The Hub recalls.

Washington closes the door in 2027

In the United States, a Commerce Department rule adopted under Biden and kept by the Trump administration bars China-linked automakers starting with the 2027 model year, according to The Hub.

The rule also covers cars assembled on American soil, the outlet specifies.

That is a Washington move I file as a good one. It keeps Beijing away from drivers’ data.

Poland, the United Kingdom and Israel keep these vehicles off their military bases, the outlet adds.

The Hub wants Ottawa to adopt an equivalent connected-vehicle rule.

An electric motor makes almost no noise. Data traffic makes none at all.

You can’t hear it. You can’t see it. It moves.

A silent car can still say a great deal.

Aluminum and forced labor

A CUSMA clause

The Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement requires each country to ban goods produced “in whole or in part” by forced labor, The Hub recalls.

In April, analyst Margaret McCuaig-Johnston told MPs that forced labor can be traced through the aluminum in Chinese electric cars. Uyghur workers are reportedly transferred to smelters and coal mines.

Beijing rejects the findings on Xinjiang, the same article notes.

A metal. A mine. A question.

One more grievance for Washington

In March, Washington opened a forced labor investigation covering 60 countries, Canada among them. I won’t go further into it here.

A deal sold as diversification hands Washington one more grievance, The Hub writes.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies puts Beijing’s subsidies for electric vehicles and batteries at US$230 billion between 2009 and 2023, according to The Hub.

Chang Chien-yi, president of the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research, speaks of “origin-washing.” Chinese parts assembled elsewhere, then exported under a local certificate, The Hub sums up.

A country looking for allies against Trump’s tariffs gains nothing by handing him arguments.

Every imported car also carries its aluminum.

Build where you sell

Mélanie Joly’s trip

In June, Industry Minister Mélanie Joly traveled to China to court BYD, Chery and Geely, The Hub reports. Her message: to sell beyond the quota, you have to “build where you sell.”

All three automakers say they are exploring assembly joint ventures. BYD also wants to roll out its fast-charging stations in Canada, according to a job posting in Toronto.

Ottawa’s conditions: majority Canadian ownership, Canadian labor standards, Canadian parts, secure software.

No guardrails

Brian Kingston, president of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association, told MPs in May: “There are no guardrails in this agreement” for automakers that have invested here.

BYD makes more than 70% of its parts in-house, according to a UBS study cited by The Hub.

Canadian parts, from an automaker that makes almost everything itself? The question has no public answer.

Ottawa even asked, in its consultation, whether to reserve quota volumes for automakers that invest in Canada. And how to track their promises.

BYD has overtaken Tesla as the world’s largest maker of electric cars, Addisu Lashitew notes. The competitor is not small.

A joint venture is signed in a day. A supply chain takes years to build.

Ottawa invites the competitor to build the house.

Reversible until February 28

Two-thirds of the quota untouched

Here is the only good news in the registry.

As of September 25, less than a third of the annual quota had been used. The rest can wait.

Year one of the quota ends on February 28, 2027. After that, the next step.

A closing window

The Hub asks for three things. Freeze the escalator. Adopt a connected-vehicle rule aligned with Washington’s. Stop recruiting plants that cannot be certified.

The third is open to debate. The first two rest on the registry and the calendar.

The quota can be frozen at 49,000. The quota can come with a data rule. The quota can be tied to real investment.

The calendar is short. The registry is public. The decision is political.

Every month that passes brings the second step closer.

If nothing moves before February 28…

And yet the registry still shows a ceiling of 49,000 for the year.

Reversible today, entrenched tomorrow.

Two neighbors, two doors

The same model year

In 2027, Washington will close its door to China-linked automakers. In the same model year, the Canadian quota will climb its second step.

Two neighbors. Two doors. A border in between.

Same continent. Same year. Two decisions.

The wavering partner

Trump is not consistent. Trump says he would accept Chinese plants at home. Trump says he refuses Chinese cars assembled in Mexico, according to The Hub.

And yet the American rule on connected vehicles has not moved.

Our trade sovereignty is real. It includes the right to choose China. It also includes the duty to count straight.

An ally that counts straight stays free. An ally that miscounts becomes predictable.

Sovereignty, here, also means control over our road data.

On connected vehicles, I side with Washington against Ottawa. On the 50% tariffs imposed on Canada, I side with Ottawa against Washington.

Choosing alone is a right; miscounting is a risk.

The quarter nobody mentions

Four criteria, one judgment

The denominator: the government chose the most flattering one. What we got in return: real for our farmers, obtained under pressure from Beijing. Reversibility: complete until February 28. Alignment with our allies: missing.

Three criteria out of four go against the quota as written.

Canola was worth a deal. It was not worth an escalator.

An escalator climbs on its own. It rarely comes back down.

Twenty-eight out of a hundred, today. More, if the market stalls while the quota climbs.

A hundred cars in 2031

What share of our electric cars will go to Beijing, if nobody does the math out loud?

In 2031, out of a hundred electric cars sold here, the Chinese share will have been decided in an online table.

Under 3% at the announcement, over a quarter on arrival.

Sources:

Primary Sources:

• Prime Minister of Canada — the China agreement and the 49,000-vehicle quota, January 16, 2026
• Export and Import Controls — use of the Chinese EV quota, updated September 25, 2026
• Statistics Canada — new motor vehicle registrations in 2025, March 12, 2026

Secondary Sources:

• The Hub — editorial on the “3 percent” and the 28, September 23, 2026
• The Hub — Chinese EVs seen from Taipei, September 22, 2026
• McMaster University — analysis in favor of lower tariffs, January 21, 2026