Toronto to buy 17 new fire trucks from Canadian firms as part of tariff response

Mayor Olivia Chow speaks at a news conference Monday March 17, 2025.

Toronto will buy 17 new pumper trucks from a Canadian company as one of the first steps in its tariff response plan, city officials said Monday.

“They are a critical piece of our firefighting equipment in Toronto, and going forward, they will be made in Canada,” Mayor Olivia Chow said at a news conference Monday.

The trucks were approved in the 2025 city budget and the contracts have not yet been awarded. In the past, the trucks have been purchased from American firms at a cost of $1 million-plus each.

The mayor unveiled details about the city’s plan under an enormous Canadian flag, flanked by her economic response team, with fire trucks in the background.

Chow said only Canadian companies can bid on construction work that is worth under $8.8. million, and goods and service under $353,000 going forward.

U.S.-based suppliers will no longer be able to bid on city contracts.

“This plan outlines a series of actions we will fulfill over the next 30 days, and it will create a more resilient economy so we emerge from this trade war even stronger and more united,” Chow said. “Canadians have never been more united. We will never be the 51st state.”

The city also unveiled an industrial property tax deferral program as part of its tariff response.

The program is expected to provide cash flow relief of about $28,600 to an average industrial property during the deferral period of June 1 to Nov. 30, 2025.

As well, city employees will have to receive special permission from the city manager for business travel to the U.S. They will also have to limit their use of U.S.-based rideshare services, such as Uber and Lyft, where locally-owned alternatives exist.

“When you impose a senseless and hurtful trade war, especially in Toronto, we’re going to fight back,” Chow told CP24 in an interview.

Chow told CP24 that part of the plan is encouraging residents to buy local. She said the city will be holding an “elbows up” event at city hall this weekend to encourage people to take part in the campaign.

“We’re gonna keep our elbows up to Trump to say ‘no way, not a chance, no 51st state,’” Chow said.

Full impact not yet clear

Officials did not have an immediate estimate for how much damage tariffs could do to Toronto’s economy.

“We think we’ll weather it (tariffs) fairly well,” said Patrick Tobin, Toronto’s general manager of Economic Development and Culture. “Certainly there will be an impact. Manufacturing is a sector that we’re watching.”

He noted that around 160,000 Torontonians – about eight per cent of the city’s workforce – is employed in manufacturing.

“But it’s a little too early right now to say what those numbers might be,” he said when asked for a projection of the impact of tariffs on the city.

City Manager Paul Johnson said staff are still working to figure out how to extend the buy Canadian directive for each department.

“Some of our key division heads have 90 days to come up with what that plan looks like. The Transition might be much longer and so some of that work may take months and happen relatively quickly. Some of it could take years,” Johnson said. “But you know, the goal is, let’s see what’s possible now, and we’re going to try and shift as much as our procurement as possible right now.”

He said staff have built in the ability “to normalize the relationships” again if circumstances shift.

Speaking with reporters, Coun. Brad Bradford said the plan is “a step in the right direction,” but amounts to “half measures.”

“I think this is a step in the right direction, but the mayor should be more ambitious, and I hope that the economic task committee can push her to do more and to do it faster,” Bradford said.

He said the city should permanently lower the industrial tax rate to make it easier for businesses to set up shop here .

‘This is nonsense’: Chow

Earlier in the day Chow slammed the “senseless, hurtful trade war” sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs in an interview with CNN Host John Berman.

“It’s going to cost more to build housing in America, and Canadian tariffs make gas more expensive. And guess what? A tariff for produce and grains makes food more expensive,” Chow said. “So higher cost for housing, gas, groceries; I don’t think that’s what Americans want.”

The city previously said that it would preferentially do business with Canadian companies on any contracts worth more than $353,000. Last week Chow went a step further and said there will be a motion coming to city council to bar U.S. companies from bidding on any City of Toronto contracts.

Chow told CNN that the city’s plan will cost U.S. companies about a billion dollars in business over the next 10 years.

“So we’re hurting each other. So I think this is nonsense,” she said.

The mayor cited the Canada-U.S. relationship as historically being “the envy of the world” and noted her own brother is a U.S. citizen who lives in Seattle.

“This trade war makes no sense. We are valued friends, we are allies. Don’t hurt us, there’s no reason to.”

Trump’s tariffs are expected to have a crippling effect on Canada’s economy if they go ahead. Premier Doug Ford has previously said that the tariffs could cost as many as 500,000 jobs in Ontario, many of them potentially in the GTA.