Important Facts

Facts about the automotive industry in Canada:

Auto manufacturing contributes over $16 billion to Canadian GDP.
Manufacturing sales of motor vehicles and parts were $74.2 billion in 2020, accounting for 12.1% of total sales ($611.2 billion).

Vehicles are the second largest Canadian export by value at $42.9 billion in 2020 of which 93% was exported to the U.S.
Auto is Ontario’s top export at 21.6% of all exports (2019).
In 2020, the North American trade bloc produced 13,375,622 vehicles (a 20.5% drop from 2019). The trade bloc represents approximately 17% of global production.
Given the highly integrated nature of the auto industry, parts and components may cross Canadian-U.S.-Mexican borders as many as 8 times before being installed in a final assembly.¹
The Detroit-Windsor crossing represents the highest number of loaded truck container crossings annually. In 2020, there were over 2.2 million truck crossings on the Ambassador Bridge – a significant percentage of these would be auto manufacturing related.

Auto manufacturing accounts for 135,000 direct jobs in Canada. The majority of these jobs – at least 124,000 – are located in Ontario. The auto industry is responsible for over 500,000 direct and indirect jobs across Canada.
For every one auto assembly job, approximately ten other jobs are created in upstream and downstream activities²

1,358,657 vehicles were produced in Canada in 2020.
Canada is the 11th leading vehicle producer in the world.
Canada contributes approximately 10% of all vehicles produced in North America.
Canada is dependent on exporting outside of its own borders, with domestic consumption of just 12% of the vehicles it manufactures within its borders.

_{1. Wilson C.E., 2011}
_{2. Unifor, 2020; CAR study, 2015}

Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association