Ottawa not looking to penalize Canadian firms offshoring jobs to U.S. – National [Video]

The federal government has no plans to use legislative tools to penalize Canadian businesses for offshoring jobs to the United States or other countries to avoid American tariffs, the finance ministry says.

The clarifying statement comes after Unifor urged Ottawa last week to use existing measures to prevent the loss of Canadian jobs to south of the border, and strengthen the law through legislative amendments.

“The government is not implementing legislative tools to penalize Canadian companies who relocate abroad,” a finance ministry official said in a statement to Global News on Monday, following questions asking if the government would use new or existing legislation to do so.

“On the contrary, the government has put in place measures to support Canadian companies so they can continue to do business at home.”

The official cited the recently-announced remission frameworkthat allows Canadian auto companies to import some U.S.-made vehicles tariff-free, “provided they continue to produce and invest in …