Mark Carney says he will take part in bid to resolve China canola dispute

Canola plants bloom in a pasture on a farm near Cremona, Alta., Friday, July 18, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

OTTAWA -- Prime Minister Mark Carney on Wednesday said he and other senior officials would work to resolve a dispute with China over tariffs that Beijing has imposed on canola.

China hit Canadian canola seed imports with preliminary 75.8 per cent duties last month following an anti-dumping investigation, escalating a year-long trade dispute. China is by far Canada’s biggest canola seed market.

“We’re going to work hard to get that right ... the minister of international trade has been engaged, our foreign minister is engaged, I will be engaged to work to find a solution for our agricultural relationship,” Carney told reporters in Toronto.

Canada, the world’s largest exporter of canola, shipped almost $5 billion of canola products to China in 2024, about 80 per cent of which was seed. The steep duties on canola seed, if they remain in place, would likely all but end those Chinese imports.

Reporting by David Ljunggren and Promit MukherjeeEditing by Tomasz Janowski, Reuters