Building Fortress Am-Can: Ontario’s Am-Can growth plan
Ontario’s Am-Can Growth Plan envisions a new American and Canadian century as we work together to build Fortress Am-Can, a renewed strategic alliance between the U.S. and Canada that’s a beacon of stability, security and long-term economic growth.
Message from Premier Doug Ford
Over the last few months, I have met and spoken with senators, congressmen, congresswomen and governors from every region of America and from both parties, alongside incoming cabinet secretaries and advisors to the new administration. In these conversations, I have promoted Ontario’s close economic partnership with the U.S. and our balanced two-way trade that benefits both sides equally. I have also listened and heard significant concerns about how China is ripping off American workers by hijacking global supply chains to unfairly advantage Chinese companies at the expense of U.S. industry and American communities.
America has had enough. U.S. lawmakers are undertaking one of the most ambitious economic and geopolitical realignments of this century as America decouples from China and its proxies. This will be no easy task. It will require long-term thinking, unyielding dedication and, most of all, it will require friends and allies.
Canada is here to help.
Working together, the U.S. and Canada can be the richest, most successful, safest, healthiest and most secure countries on the planet. This can be a new American and Canadian century, a time of unprecedented growth, job creation and prosperity.
We do so by building Fortress Am-Can, a renewed strategic alliance between America and Canada that’s a beacon of stability, security and long-term economic growth on both sides of the border.
Canada has the fundamentals for getting it done. We offer deeply integrated and entrenched supply chains across strategically significant sectors. Historically, our economies have been intertwined by geography, nowhere more so than in the Great Lakes region, where industries on both sides of the border rely and depend on each other to manufacture at a high standard of living and quality. Canada has an abundant supply of critical minerals, oil and gas, nuclear energy and expertise, a highly trained workforce and a long legacy of standing shoulder to shoulder with our American allies to confront global threats, protect democracy and fight tyranny.
It’s becoming easier and easier to find reasons why a project this ambitious has never been more important. China banning the shipment of critical minerals to the U.S. is the latest provocation. We won’t have to wait long for another.
For Fortress Am-Can to succeed, we need to remain united and focused on addressing the real threats that risk undermining our shared success. A trade and tariff war between the U.S. and Canada only benefits China and Chinese-backed companies by creating the kind of economic uncertainty and conditions that will allow them to continue to rip off American and Canadian workers.
On this front, Mexico needs to step up.
Mexico has allowed itself to become a backdoor for cheap Chinese parts and products, undercutting and ripping off American and Canadian workers. Together, we need to be clear: Mexico either puts a stop to Chinese transshipment or it loses its seat at the table.
In fact, leaders from every country in the world need to ask themselves and answer a simple but significant question: do they stand with Washington or do they stand with Beijing?
Unequivocally, Ontario and Canada stand with Washington. Fortress Am-Can recognizes the fundamental truth that economic security is national security. We can never allow China or other countries that actively oppose our democratic values to ever be in a position where they can undermine and manipulate markets or disrupt supply chains that put at risk our shared safety and security.
Building Fortress Am-Can isn’t something that can happen overnight, but we owe it to every worker worried about their livelihood and every family looking to us to keep them safe to get started right away. Building Fortress Am-Can will require urgent and concrete action by all levels of government on both sides of the border. Ontario’s Am-Can Growth Plan lays out many of these actions.
Together, let’s restore the pride of ‘Made in the U.S.A.’ and ‘Made in Canada’. Let’s be unapologetic as we stand up for American and Canadian workers and fight back against China and other global actors who seek to undermine and weaken us.
Together, let’s usher in the next American and Canadian century. Let’s build Fortress Am-Can.


Doug Ford
Premier of Ontario
Ontario’s Am-Can Growth Plan
The United States and Canada are each country’s most significant trading partners, representing trillions of dollars in annual economic activity and millions of jobs on both sides of the border, nationwide. In 2023, trade in goods and services alone between Canada and the United States exceeded US$967.3 billion, with more than US$2.6 billion worth of goods and services crossing the border each day. The U.S. sells more goods and products to Canada than China, Japan, the U.K. and France combined.
In 2023, Ontario and the U.S. did nearly US$365.2 billion in two-way trade, with a near-perfect balance. If Ontario were a standalone country, it would be America’s third-largest trading partner. Ontario is the number one export destination for 17 U.S. states and number two for 11 others. Every day, millions of Americans wake up, go to work and earn a paycheque to make something that’s sold to a customer in Ontario.
Recognizing the growing security threat of relying on countries that do not share democratic values, the U.S. is decoupling from China and its global proxies, presenting Canada with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to demonstrate strategic value to our American allies by building Fortress Am-Can.
Achieving Fortress Am-Can will require urgent and concrete action to achieve alignment with our U.S. allies. Ontario’s Am-Can Growth Plan recommends action across several themes:
- promote free, fair and balanced trade
- grow the Am-Can economy for Am-Can workers
- accelerate strategic resource development
- achieve Am-Can energy security to power Am-Can economic growth
- protect Am-Can land, air, arctic, water and communities
- enhance Am-Can data and research and development security
As we implement this plan for growth, it is important to recognize that states, provinces and the U.S. and Canadian federal governments each have distinct responsibilities and areas of jurisdiction. Here in Canada, provinces such as Ontario have primary responsibility for mining, natural resources and power generation, including nuclear power. The Government of Canada is responsible for defence, border security and trade. Now is the time for all levels of government in Canada to step up and seize this opportunity to achieve security and economic growth.
To build Fortress Am-Can, Ontario is calling on the Government of Canada to work with provinces, territories and American leaders to implement the following Am-Can Growth Plan.
Promote free, fair and balanced trade
Free trade needs to be fair: fair for workers, businesses and the countries that sign onto agreements.
Fair trade means balanced two-way trade that benefits workers equally on both sides, supporting good wages and high standards of living founded on complementary economic needs. Fair trade also means stopping backdoor free-loaders that rip off workers by taking advantage of free trade agreements designed to protect jobs at home.
To foster free trade that’s also fair, the Am-Can Growth Plan recommends the following:
- Prohibit Chinese transshipment that uses the USMCA as a backdoor into American and Canadian markets, including by restricting access to free trade agreements with any partner that does not take immediate and meaningful action to stop transshipment practices by any country, including China. Every member of the USMCA should match or exceed U.S. tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles and other strategically important products or lose its seat at the table and preferential access to the North American market.
- Ensure every member country to free trade agreements has policies in place to protect against Chinese investment in strategically important sectors, such as critical minerals, while supporting and matching U.S. policies designed to protect domestic markets from Chinese interference, including by banning connected cars that use certain Chinese technology.
- Achieve fair and balanced trade between Canada and the U.S. that recognizes the strategic, unique and value-added nature of specific raw resources and products, like Canadian crude oil so that workers on both sides of the border benefit equally.
- Work with U.S. lawmakers to rebuild and enhance America’s strategic oil and gas reserves.
- Prohibit any direct or indirect actions by China or Chinese State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) to acquire, influence or subvert American or Canadian resources, markets or other strategic assets and property, including artificial intelligence and related technologies.
Growing the Am-Can economy for Am-Can workers
The enduring economic partnership between Canada and the U.S. is the envy of the world. Now is the time to commit to shared economic growth and job creation on both sides of the border. Fortress Am-Can should take action to reshore advanced manufacturing supply chains to bring good jobs back home for workers on both sides of the border.
To promote the pride of “Made in the U.S.A.”, “Made in Ontario” and “Made in Canada” by growing the economy for workers, the Am-Can Growth Plan recommends the following:
- Continue to attract global investments in the future of automotive and battery production by making Fortress Am-Can the most economically competitive market in the world that provides certainty to investors. This should include aligning and streamlining relevant regulations to promote further economic integration and cross-border trade and eliminating unfair or anti-competitive taxes, including by scrapping the digital services tax and the federal carbon tax.
- Agree to the free and fair trade of the U.S.-Canada integrated automotive manufacturing sector and set out an ambitious goal of producing one million more Am-Can vehicles each year by 2028.
- Double the overall size of our world-leading integrated steel industry and increase steel trade between Canada and the U.S. by 25 per-cent by 2028, displacing and replacing the flow of unfairly traded Chinese and other foreign steel into the Am-Can market.
- Continue to strengthen Ontario-U.S. agri-food trade and build relationships with key U.S. partners that support agri-food supply chains and jobs in both countries.
- Establish cross-border partnerships between post-secondary, industry and union training centres to promote skills development and ongoing expertise for current and emerging strategic sectors that match economic priorities, including building roads, highways and other critical infrastructure, manufacturing semiconductors and vehicles and building the future of energy production and transmission infrastructure.
- Harmonize, recognize and support professional certifications across Am-Can borders to improve access to quality engineers, doctors and other professional services.
- Invest in and grow our integrated rail, road, marine and air networks to enhance the safe, secure and fast transportation of people, goods and services between our nations.
Accelerate strategic resource development
The success of Fortress Am-Can depends on the critical minerals needed for new technologies, in particular advanced military technologies that will define geopolitical and economic security for the next century, such as hypersonics, semiconductors, satellites and pilotless air and marine equipment. Ontario and Canada have critical minerals in abundance.
At a time when China is both winning the race to dominate these resources globally and restricting the sale and shipment of critical minerals to the U.S., Canada and Ontario need to urgently get our critical minerals out of the ground, processed and shipped to the factory floors that are building for the future of our national and economic security.
To accelerate the development of critical minerals and other resources, the Am-Can Growth Plan recommends the following:
- Establish a new Am-Can Critical Mineral Security Alliance that invests in and builds out American and Canadian critical mineral supply chains, including by significantly expanding Am-Can processing capacity. This alliance should include prioritizing Canadian uranium to fuel the expansion of Am-Can nuclear energy capacity.
- Accelerate regulatory approval timelines for current and planned critical mineral projects with priority given to projects that displace and replace Chinese supply, including by the Government of Canada enshrining a one project-one process permitting approach to all resource development in Canada with service standard and government timeline guarantees for project proponents, while promoting First Nations equity and economic participation and respecting and meeting duty to consult obligations.
- Designate areas where multiple critical minerals are present or likely to be present, such as the Ring of Fire region in Ontario, as regions of strategic importance to the national security of Canada and the U.S. These regions should be supported with a special approvals process that significantly reduces the timelines to get minerals out of the ground.
- Ensure that federal foreign investment reviews capture emerging strategic sectors and supply chains like critical minerals and energy with the stated objective of protecting these emerging strategic sectors for Fortress Am-Can.
- Fund and accelerate the construction of roads, highways, energy, electricity transmission and other infrastructure required to access, develop and operate new critical minerals mines.
- Work with the U.S. Department of Defense to prioritize shared Am-Can national security objectives for Canadian governments’ investments in critical mineral supply chains, including strategic investments in critical mineral mining and processing projects.
- Establish a cross-border working group on mineral price stability to identify Am-Can policy solutions that promote the long-term sustainability of critical mineral development projects, including cracking down on the practice of naked short-selling and foreign investments tactics that undermine the viability of American and Canadian junior mining companies.

Ontario’s Critical Minerals List contains 33 critical minerals
Mineral | Common use |
---|---|
Antimony | Metal products and fire-retardant material |
Barite | Weighting agent, drilling fluids and X-ray shielding |
Beryllium | Aerospace, industrial and medical technologies |
Bismuth | Pharmaceuticals and metallurgy |
Cesium | Atomic clocks and drilling fluids |
Chromite | Stainless steel and alloys |
Cobalt | Rechargeable batteries and superalloys |
Copper | Electronics, plumbing and antimicrobial applications |
Fluorspar | Chemical, cement, steel and glass production |
Gallium | LEDs and integrated circuits |
Germanium | Fibre optics |
Graphite | Lubricants, batteries, and fuel cells |
Indium | Fusible alloys, solders, electronics, LCD and thin-film application |
Lithium | Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, lubricant, glass and ceramics |
Magnesium | Manufacturing, agricultural and industrial applications |
Manganese | Steelmaking and batteries |
Molybdenum | High-temperature super alloys |
Nickel | Stainless steel and rechargeable batteries |
Niobium | Electrolytic capacitators and high-tech alloys |
Phosphate | Fertilizer |
Platinum Group Elements | Catalysts, catalytic converters and alloys |
Rare Earth Elements | Electronics, catalysts and magnets |
Scandium | Aerospace alloys and fuel cells |
Selenium | Rubber compounding, steel alloying and selenium rectifiers |
Tantalum | Alloys and electrical capacitators |
Tellurium | Photovoltaic solar cells and high-tech alloys |
Tin | Alloys, coatings and construction material |
Titanium | Aerospace alloys |
Tungsten | Abrasives, alloys and electronics |
Uranium | Nuclear fuel & life-saving medical isotopes |
Vanadium | Aerospace alloys and redox-flow batteries |
Zinc | Anti-corrosion agent in batteries and alloys |
Zirconium | Fibre-optics, ceramics and abrasives |
Achieve Am-Can energy security to power Am-Can economic growth
Fortress Am-Can should be powered by Am-Can energy of every type that is produced, consumed and creates jobs in every region of both countries.
With an ambitious plan to build out Ontario’s globally-significant fleet of nuclear power plants and supply chain, including the first small modular nuclear reactors in the G7, Ontario is uniquely positioned to support Am-Can energy security that powers Am-Can economic growth.
To power Fortress Am-Can, the Am-Can Growth Plan recommends the following:
- Enhance and build out the integrated Am-Can energy and electricity grid to encourage more exports of Canadian energy and electricity to the U.S., including Ontario’s clean nuclear energy, to power economic growth on both sides of the border.
- Establish a cross-border working group with U.S. and Canadian lawmakers alongside energy and security experts to ensure both countries adhere to best practices for power system security against foreign interference, cyber-attacks, terrorism and extreme weather, among other threats.
- Achieve Am-Can energy security sooner by streamlining the approval of new small modular and large nuclear reactors, while respecting duty to consult obligations and protecting safe operations.
- Develop new and reinforce existing electricity transmission interties and natural gas and oil pipelines between Canada and the U.S. to promote the flow of energy across borders.
- Establish a cross-border working group with U.S. and Canadian lawmakers and industry experts to align regulations and eliminate red-tape that slows building cross-border energy infrastructure, including for transmission lines, interties and pipelines.
- Promote Ontario and Canadian nuclear expertise by establishing a new small modular and large-scale nuclear reactor partnership with U.S., including with key states and local or regional energy and electricity authorities.
- Expand the production of lifesaving, cancer-fighting medical isotopes at Ontario’s growing fleet of nuclear reactors to support improved cancer patient outcomes in Canada and the United States.
- Complement the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve and further enhance Am-Can energy by rebuilding and enhancing America’s Strategic Oil Reserve to protect both countries, businesses and every-day families from the high-cost consequences of global oil price manipulation.
Ontario’s energy trade with the U.S.
7718 GWh exported
135 GWh imported
259 GWh exported
66 GWh imported
4149 GWh exported
173 GWh imported
Protect Am-Can land, air, arctic, water and communities
For Fortress Am-Can to succeed, Canada needs to demonstrate that we take our shared national security seriously, including by protecting Arctic sovereignty. That needs to include the federal government taking measurable and visible action to better secure Canada’s borders.
To ensure Canada is seen as a credible ally dedicated to protecting Am-Can land, air and water, the Am-Can Growth Plan recommends the following:
- Present a credible and accelerated plan to meet and exceed Canada’s two per-cent NATO target for defence spending, including by investing in the future success of NORAD operations and NORAD base restoration. The world can no longer free ride on the global security bought and paid for by U.S. taxpayers.
- Invest in Canada’s unique strategic capabilities and competencies, including Ontario’s critical mass of innovation in artificial intelligence to support the future of autonomous combat aerial and underwater vehicles for both military and border security and detection purposes.
- Expanding Canada’s shipbuilding capacity to build new ice breakers and other equipment and assets, including by increasing capacity at Ontario-based shipbuilding facilities, to protect Canada’s Arctic and meet other security objectives.
- Work with the U.S. to capture new and catalyzing investments that support accelerated access to urgently needed strategic and critical minerals to qualify as part of Canada’s NATO contributions.
- Secure Am-Can borders and key economic and trade corridors, including the St. Lawrence Seaway, Windsor-Detroit gateway and the Gordie Howe and Ambassador bridges, including by cracking down on the cross-border flow of illegal guns, contraband tobacco, and illegal drugs like fentanyl. This should include increased permanent funding for more boots at the border and enhanced tools for law enforcement, as well as investments to expand cross-border coordination and operations between American and Canadian security and policing agencies.
- Invest in new laboratory technology that will allow Canada to identify where fentanyl and other drugs seized by police forces are manufactured and synthesized for enhanced tracking and tracing.
- Allow for enhanced data and intelligence sharing between federal, provincial, territorial and local police forces to promote better coordination.
- Lower thresholds for Am-Can intelligence sharing on the cross-border movements of convicted sex offenders.
- Crackdown on illegal immigration that threatens shared Am-Can national security and invest in enhanced biometrics capabilities at Canada’s points of entry, including better tracking of entries and exits across Canada’s borders.
- Further promote joint training, operations and scenario planning between American and Canadian armed forces, particularly in the Arctic, including by expanding Canada’s advanced fighter pilot training resources.
Enhance Am-Can data and research and development security
Emerging economic opportunities around data centres and accelerating artificial intelligence require enhanced data security protocols to protect against modern digital warfare tactics, economic espionage and cybercrimes. Fortress Am-Can needs to predict and prepare for every part of the future of national security, which will require enhanced data security and strong data sovereignty. This includes protecting research and development facilities from foreign interference, theft and espionage.
To enhance Am-Can data and research security, the Am-Can Growth Plan recommends the following:
- Align Canada’s data security and artificial intelligence regulations and protocols with U.S. best practices to promote enhanced public- and private-sector cross-border collaboration and integration.
- Increase cooperation and data sharing between the federal government and provinces and territories, noting opportunities stemming from Bill C-70 such as establishing a foreign influence transparency registry and modernizing powers for Canadian intelligence gathering.
- Pursue enhanced information sharing and collaboration between Canadian cyber security infrastructure and U.S. counterparts.
- Guard critical interconnected data infrastructure such as high-value data centres by developing joint cyber risk mitigation practices.
- Develop common Am-Can definitions of sensitive technology research areas and list of research organizations that pose mutual threats to national security.
- Strengthen and protect cross-national collaborations between academic and research institutions in sensitive technology research areas, including defence.
- Support innovation in the cyber security sector with cross-border collaboration to develop a sustainable and secure technology supply chain.
- Build out cyber security talent and capabilities pipelines through joint exercises and training programs.
- Streamline approvals and energy connections for high-value data centres, in particular facilities that support shared national security objectives.