6 min. read
Canola is making headlines again. It’s been the centre of trade negotiations with China since last year, when that country instituted 100 per cent tariffs on canola oil and meal in retaliation for Canadian tariffs on electric vehicles, instituted at the behest of the United States.
Now, as Prime Minister Mark Carney wraps up his trip to China, there’s a new canola deal, which would see canola seed tariffs drop to 15 per cent (from nearly 76 per cent) by March, and tariffs on canola meal removed completely. The preliminary agreement makes no mention of tariffs on canola oil.
With the U.S. and Canada now frenemies, Carney is trying to expand our trade network, including rejuvenating a long-icy Canada-China relationship. But even if dropping vehicle tariffs to restart the flow of canola makes sense geopolitically, it could be a problem nationally, with Ontario’s auto industry and Prairies canola growers at total disagreement about which trade stream is more important.
It appears, for the time being at least, the Prairies got their way. The deal for lower canola tariffs also allows close to 50,000 Chinese electric vehicles into the Canadian market — not great news for Ontario’s auto sector.
“Make no mistake: China now has a foothold in the Canadian market and will use it to their full advantage at the expense of Canadian workers,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said in response to the news.
But it’s sweet relief in the Prairies, especially for the 40,000 farmers whose crops contribute part of the $43.7 billion the Canola Council of Canada said the industry generated in 2024.
All this over a — seed? What is canola, exactly? Here’s what you need to know.
What is canola?
Put simply, canola is a plant that produces yellow flowers and oil-rich seeds.
If you’re old enough, you might remember a time when canola was called rapeseed. And if you’re really old enough, you’d remember that rapeseed was first grown in earnest in Canada during the Second World War, for its oil to be used as an emergency replacement for lubricants in naval ships.
Then, at some point along the line, we decided to start eating it.
But there was one hurdle: rapeseed in its naval engine lubricant form wasn’t all that desirable to ingest.
So, according to a federal government report called “Canola: a Canadian success story,” plant breeders in the Prairies did some tweaking, and in the 1960s, voilà, canola (that’s CAN-ola, short for Canadian oil) was born.
If you’ve ever flown over the Prairies, canola crops are among the most distinct sights. In the patchwork quilt of massive fields, canola is the bold, bright yellow patch — a burst of colour among more subdued fields of wheat or oats.
What is canola used for?
Canola is a versatile crop. You’re likely most familiar with it as an oil used for deep-frying and other cooking, but it can also be used in not-so-tasty-treats including fungicides, sunscreen and something called “mold releasers.”
A canola education website run by the Alberta Canola Producers Commission lists many uses. The same oil used in margarine, cooking sprays, mayonnaise, crackers and cookies (and, of course, a lot of fried stuff) can also be found in plastic wrap, biodiesel, printing inks, lipstick and other cosmetics and as a softening agent for applying plastic casings on window panes.
How big is the canola industry in Canada?
Canola was harvested on more than 21 million acres of Canadian Prairie last year — far exceeding many other well-known crops like oats, barley and soybeans, according to Statistics Canada. Wheat, in all its forms, is the only crop that takes up (slightly) more space on the Prairies landscape.
The conversion of native grasslands and wetlands into cropland, including for canola, has contributed to much wildlife habitat loss on the Prairies, according to the federal government, and “many areas are of concern.” This threatens animals including the burrowing owl, ferruginous hawk, swift fox, greater sage grouse and long-billed curlew, according to the Canadian Wildlife Federation.
How much glyphosate is used on canola crops?
Modern canola is a product of what’s known as agricultural technology or agri-tech — the big business of maximizing yields (and profits) in farming. By some estimates, 40 per cent of canola grown in Canada is what’s known as “Roundup Ready,” meaning it is genetically engineered to survive the spraying of the popular glyphosate-containing herbicide Roundup.
Roundup is a weedkiller, which made news recently when a 25-year-old report — dubbed a “landmark study” that deemed glyphosate to be safe for human health — was retracted by the scientific journal that published it over concerns that scientists from the company that manufactures Roundup, Monsanto, had played a key role in the study’s conclusions.
According to The New York Times, that study was “for decades cited by other researchers as evidence of Roundup’s safety. It became the cornerstone of regulations that deemed the weedkiller safe.”
In 2015, the World Health Organization said glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans.”
Roundup is still applied on a wide variety of crops using ground sprayers or airplanes that cover an entire field with the herbicide to ensure no other plants can compete. Data on the exact amounts of Roundup used on Canadian canola crops don’t exist, but CBC reported in December that 50 million kilograms of it are sold in Canada each year.
How is canola’s sustainability being improved?
There are ways to decrease the environmental impact of bringing tens of millions of acres of Prairies land into cultivation. One big one is what’s called “zero-till.”
In essence, instead of tilling the soil every year to prepare for seeding a new crop as farmers have done for centuries, farmers opt to leave the remnants of the previous crop in place. Rather than a freshly cultivated field of exposed dirt, the “stubble” of the last crop is left in the soil, along with its roots. Minimizing soil disturbance improves its carbon storage potential.
So, about all this tariff talk. What’s the gist?
Last March, China imposed a 100 per cent tariff on Canadian canola oil and canola meal, as well as tariffs on other products. Then, a few months later, it imposed a 75.8 per cent duty on Canadian canola seed shipments.
Canadian canola farmers — and Prairie governments — were mad. Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe called for “immediate action” and, along with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, called on Prime Minister Carney to make a deal with China, including dropping our tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles. But on Jan. 12, as Carney and Moe got set to head to China, Ontario Premier Ford said he was “100 per cent dead set against” any easing of the electric vehicle tariffs.
Meanwhile, Canadians haven’t forgotten China’s nearly three-year detention of Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig between 2018 and 2021, a significant blow to diplomatic relations between the two countries.
This week at least, the tension could be easing.
“What we heard loud and clear is China is looking for reliable trading partners, trading partners that don’t use energy for coercion,” federal Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson, who is also in China, said according to The Globe and Mail.
And for Carney, that’s an opportunity, not only to reduce canola tariffs.
“It is expected that within three years, this agreement will drive considerable Chinese investment into Canada’s auto-sector, create good careers in Canada and accelerate our progress towards a net zero future,” he said.
Updated Jan. 16, 2026, at 10:44 MT: This story was updated to include the latest developments in Canada’s trade deal with China.