IESO is considering ways to grow Ontario’s economy and secure its energy supply without relying on trade with its U.S. neighbors, just as President Donald Trump launched another salvo in his ongoing trade war on Canada.

Trump on Oct. 23 posted on Truth Social that he was ending all trade negotiations with Canada after learning that an advertisement sponsored by Ontario would be broadcast during Game 1 of the World Series the next day. The somber ad included images of Americans working while excerpts from a 1987 radio address by President Ronald Reagan criticizing tariffs are heard.

In a subsequent post Oct. 25 calling the ad “fraudulent” and a “hostile act,” Trump announced he will increase the tariffs on Canada by an additional 10%.

Trump’s posts came just after Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a goal for Canada to double its non-U.S. exports in the next decade, pointing to the president’s ongoing tariffs. “We have to take care of ourselves because we can’t rely on one foreign partner,” Carney said.

The moves are just the latest in the nine months of “chaos” since the trade war began, as Lauren Tedesco, COO of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association, described them during a meeting of the IESO Strategic Advisory Committee on Oct. 16.

Providing a customer perspective to a panel discussion on the role of electricity in economic growth, Tedesco spoke about “the amount of stability that we need across Ontario right now given what’s happening right now in the south with our biggest trading partner.”

“We have about $45 [billion] or $46 billion that have been invested in the last couple of years across the federal and provincial governments looking at what the future is for electric vehicles here in Canada,” Tedesco said. “We have a lot of advanced manufacturing that takes place” in Ontario that consumes a “huge” amount of energy. “This will grow even further.” That depends on “stability here at home … because of the nature of what’s happening in the world, not just with our partners in the south. …

“Of course, looking at the instability that’s happening across the U.S. right now, it’s only been nine months, and we’ve seen a lot of chaos,” she said. “I think the biggest role of the ISO is that, people do not understand how important the stability and reliability of energy is in the province because they are so used to it. … People often take things for granted. So I think part of that economic growth is also the awareness of the role of the ISO.”

“One of the key strategic issues for the IESO is to broaden its lens to incorporate both economic growth and innovation,” moderator Monica Gattinger, a professor of political studies at the University of Ottawa and chair of the college’s Positive Energy program, said in introducing the panel. “This is new for the organization.” Economic growth “can be quite lumpy in its dynamics and, in the current moment, can also be very uncertain. …

“The IESO plays a pivotal role in terms of economic growth and innovation by fostering integration and alignment across a number of key areas of the energy system,” including between transmission and distribution, and the gas and electricity sectors, Gattinger said.

Much of the discussion focused on how to attract foreign investment to the province — without relying on the U.S.

“The reality is, our ability to grow Ontario’s economy is going to found itself in our ability to make sure we can attract investment into the province,” said Heidi Bredenholler-Prasad, vice president of commercial, strategy and business development at Enbridge Gas. “And it really does depend on ensuring that we do have a stable, future-looking energy system.”

Bredenholler-Prasad emphasized “removing red tape and reducing friction for businesses to want to do business in Ontario.”

“The reality is there’s a misalignment right now with respect to the regulatory environment as well as government policy,” she said. “And those two really need to sync up at the pace with which customers need to move.”

IESO can help by providing “well-informed scenario modeling” and set an “example of what good coordinated and integrated planning might look like,” she said. It also can have a role in “advancing coordination between gas distributors, municipalities, as well as the” Ontario Energy Board. “This coordinated planning needs to be streamlined.”

Tedesco urged IESO, and the province, to focus on the benefits they can provide.

“I travel back and forth to D.C. a fair bit, and when we are having these meetings at places like the Department of Commerce … we can stand there with all of our facts and our data to say, ‘This is why Canada is important; this is why automotive is important; this is why you should pay attention and your tariffs are not helpful to us’ — that does not resonate,” Tedesco said. “Could I be so bold as to say they don’t care? They have so many things happening internally, and there’s so much upheaval that is taking place, and their goal is to protect the U.S. …

“When we’re looking to attract investment, it has to be with the eye of not, ‘here’s what Ontario has to offer,’ but with ‘here’s how we can help you.’”

She also praised the country’s new Major Projects Office as important to increasing province-to-province coordination. (See “Major Projects Office,” Ontario Environmentalists Slam New Nuclear Units.)