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Honda’s Ealking Away. Carney and Smith Shook Hands in Calgary. Alberta Gets Its Pipeline Proposal.
News for residents of the “11th province”: Canadians abroad.
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Honda Has Walked Away From Its $15-Billion Canada EV Plant
Honda Canada has put its Alliston, Ontario electric vehicle plant on “indefinite suspension” - the company’s polite way of saying the project is dead for the time being, and possibly forever. The facility was supposed to produce 240,000 vehicles a year by 2028 and create 1,000 new jobs on top of the 4,200 already made.
Ottawa had promised to pony up $2.5 billion in tax credits. Ontario had committed the same value in direct and indirect support. Honda put up a US$2.7-billion loss Thursday, its first-ever full-year loss, with EV-related write-downs expected to reach US$16 billion across this year and last. The company is trying to blame Trump’s rollback of EV incentives, rocketing gas prices from the Iran war, and auto tariffs - which, even after being lowered to 15%, still hurt.
Honda had already paused the project once in 2025, blaming a “slowdown of the EV market.” This time the language is… more frank. For Canadians watching from abroad, the story is less about one factory and more about what happens to Canada’s industrial ambitions when its biggest trading partner keeps rewriting the rules.
Read more: Global News
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Carney and Smith Shook Hands in Calgary. Alberta Gets Its Pipeline Proposal.
PM Mark Carney flew to Calgary on Friday to sign an energy collaboration deal with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith - a formal implementation agreement building on the memorandum of understanding the two governments signed last November. The headline promise in that MOU was a bitumen pipeline from Alberta to the BC coast carrying 300,000 to 400,000 barrels per day for Asian markets. Alberta has until July 1 to submit its proposal to Ottawa.
The new agreement locks in carbon pricing that climbs from $95 per tonne this year to $100 in 2027, then to $130 by 2040. In exchange, Alberta walks away from Canada's Clean Electricity Regulations - the federal rules that would have capped emissions from natural gas power generation starting in 2035. Alberta's grid runs predominantly on natural gas, and the province fought those rules hard.
The deal is a significant bet that Canada's energy future runs through Alberta's oilsands and out to Asian markets rather than south to a buyer who has spent the last year making trade unpredictable. Whether the pipeline proposal clears federal review after July 1 is the next piece to watch.
For now, Canada's two most powerful political figures managed to sign something in the same room - which, given the past year, qualifies as progress.
Read more: Global News