Auto assembly and parts manufacturing are among Canada’s largest manufacturing industries, with important strategic links to industries that have not been traditionally included in previous analyses.

As well, those traditional descriptions of automotive production in Canada have underestimated the sector’s true size.

This report summarizes FOCAL’s findings on the size, importance, and impact of the automotive manufacturing and technology sector. The first section sets out FOCAL’s broader definition of the sector, FOCAL’s workforce model, employment within the broader automotive manufacturing sector, and its links to automotive technology clusters. The second section highlights the contributions of the automotive production sector to Canada’s economic development.  The third section summarizes the main findings of FOCAL’s report entitled “The Economic Impact of Expanding Automotive Production” which forecasts the impact of two scenarios: (1) a 20% increase in vehicle assembly, and (2) a 20% increase in vehicle parts exports.

Full details on the direct, indirect, and induced labour market changes, and on the provincial distribution of these changes can be found in FOCAL’s paper “The Economic Impact of Expanding Automotive Production”.