Doug Ford has poured everything into making Ontario a leader in electric vehicles. Working closely with the Trudeau government, he’s helped bring in billions from automakers like Volkswagen, Stellantis, and Honda to set up shop in the province. Together, they’ve built an EV dream: mining minerals up north, building batteries down south, and creating thousands of jobs along the way.

For a while, it looked like everything was going smoothly—partisan bickering aside, the province and feds were actually working together for once. But now Donald Trump is back, and his return could blow up Ford’s plans.

Trump doesn’t care about EVs. He’s all about oil, gas, and “drill, baby, drill.” His talk about scrapping U.S. EV subsidies has automakers nervous, and Ontario’s entire plan depends on a strong American EV market. To make things worse, Trump just picked Pete Hoekstra, a guy who’s openly against EV subsidies, to be the next U.S. ambassador to Canada.

Ford’s doing his best to butter up Trump’s team with a “charm offensive,” but it’s a risky move. We’ve seen this movie before—Ford tried playing nice with Trump during his first term, and it still ended with tariffs on Ontario steel and aluminum.

If Trump follows through on his anti-EV agenda, Ontario’s big investments could be in serious trouble. Ford’s carefully built EV strategy might collapse, leaving taxpayers holding the bag and thousands of jobs at risk.

Ford is betting big on Trump playing along. But if this gamble doesn’t work, it won’t just be Ford’s reputation on the line—it’ll be Ontario’s economic future.

Please subscribe to my Substack newsletter, if you haven’t already. Posts come out every Friday as I summarize the week that was in my editorial cartoons. What you’re reading now is regarded as a “note”, which is used to help compose my weekly posts and showcase the animated versions of my daily editorial cartoons. Subscriptions will always be free - as long as my position remains as a staff editorial cartoonist. Thanks.

Here’s the making-of clip of my Friday editorial cartoon. Sound up, and please enjoy!