Toyota is doubling down on its Canadian footprint by investing over C$300 million in new facilities aimed at improving dealer support, logistics and long-term growth.
The Japanese automaker said the spending will be rolled out over the next three years and will fund construction of a new head office in Toronto and two parts distribution centers in Western Canada.
The new 225,000-square-foot head office will be built on the company’s existing property at 1 Toyota Place in Toronto.
It will consolidate sales, marketing, distribution, service, and training operations under one roof, the company stated.
Finance subsidiary Toyota Credit Canada Inc. will also relocate from nearby Markham to the site.
“This investment is part of Toyota‘s ongoing commitment to Canada, the chief of Toyota Canada Cyril Dimitris stated on Monday.
The company aims towards “creating spaces and operations that improve how we support our dealers and customers, encourage collaboration and enable continued growth across our business,” the chief executive added.
Canadian Footprint
Toyota Canada Inc. is the exclusive distributor in the country of Toyota and Lexus vehicles in the country.
It has sold more than 7 million units in the country to date through its 287-dealer network.
In addition to its Toronto head office, the company runs regional offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Halifax, and currently operates parts distribution centres in Clarington, Ontario, and Vancouver.
Out west, Toyota plans to replace its parts facility in Richmond, British Colombia, with two larger distribution centres — located in Surrey, BC, and Calgary, Alberta.
The Surrey facility will span about 210,000 square feet on an 8.1-acre site, while the Calgary operation will total roughly 220,000 square feet on 13.5 acres near the airport.
The company has already broken ground for the construction of both facilities, which are slated to open in 2028.
They will more than triple Toyota‘s current Western Canada parts footprint — while reducing delivery times to dealerships across British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan, the company said.
Additionally, Toyota has “manufactured vehicles in Canada for almost 40 years and currently employs more than 8,500 team members at its facilities in Cambridge and Woodstock, Ontario,” it said.
Record EV Sales
Toyota Canada sold 49,628 vehicles in the first quarter of 2026.
While overall sales declined slightly by 2.4% year-over-year, electrified models set a new record quarter — accounting for 29,415 units, or 59.3% of the brand’s vehicle registrations.
These include hybrids (HEV), plug-in hybrids (PHEV), battery electric (BEV), and fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEV).
March alone delivered a record 15,057 electrified units, up 20.9% year-over-year and representing 66.7% of the month’s total volume.
Zero-emission vehicles — comprising BEVs, PHEVs and FCEVs — totaled 9,379 units in the first quarter, buoyed by a record quarter for the Toyota bZ SUV.
BEV sales also reached their best quarter ever — at 4,891 units — driven by record bZ volume, strong RZ demand, and the arrival of the new 2026 C-HR.
Toyota‘s BEV lineup in Canada remains mainly imported, and the company has yet to assemble a fully electric model on Canadian soil.
Carney’s Auto Strategy
The announcement lands at a delicate moment for Canada’s auto sector.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced the Government’s new Automotive Strategy earlier this year.
The new plan repealed the Electric Vehicle Availability Standard (EVAS) and replaced the binding ZEV mandate with voluntary targets of 75% by 2035 and 90% by 2040.
The strategy also includes a C$5,000 rebate under the new Electric Vehicle Affordability Program (EVAP), which applies to vehicles priced at a maximum cap of C$50,000 if they are shipped from countries that have free-trade deals with Ottawa.
It doesn’t apply to Chinese electric vehicles, for instance, which saw their import tariff lowered after Carney’s January agreement with Beijing.
It allows for up to 49,000 Chinese-built EVs to enter Canada per year at a 6.1% duty, down from the 100% surtax imposed in 2024.
Ottawa began issuing Chinese EV import permits on March 1 and has been courting Chinese, South Korean and German automakers to set up local assembly as the USMCA review approaches.
The Conservative opposition has pledged to scrap the Chinese EV quota and pursue a tariff-free auto pact with the US.
However, the pact was rejected in the House of Commons last month, at the same time that the Liberal Party majority was consolidating.
Canada EV Sales
Electric vehicle sales in Canada come mostly from imports, as local production of the powertrain is both low and mostly dedicated to exports to the United States.
As trade tensions unraveled last year, several companies have halted investments in EV production and assembly in Canada, opting to relocate to their domestic markets.
Ottawa has allowed a set group of five automakers — Ford, GM, Honda, Stellantis and Toyota — to import a capped volume of US-built, USMCA-compliant vehicles without paying Canada’s 25% counter-tariff, under the United States Surtax Remission Order (Motor Vehicles 2025).
Quotas are reviewed quarterly and tied to domestic production commitments, and the framework has so far been used mainly to penalise cuts — with Stellantis‘ allocation slashed by 50% in October after it abandoned its Brampton retooling, and GM‘s cut by 24% following the closure of its Ingersoll EV van plant.
Together with Honda, Toyota accounts for more than 76% of Canadian auto assembly, according to figures cited by Canadian broadcaster CPAC.
Last month, CPAC pressed Conservative Shadow Labour Minister Kyle Seeback on whether his party’s tariff-free auto pact proposal — unveiled against the Government’s plan — was “off” by prioritising relationships with US carmakers over the two Japanese manufacturers.
Seeback rejected the premise, arguing that “the number one issue for both Toyota and Honda is tariff-free access to the United States” — an acknowledgement that most of the output from the two Japanese automakers’ Canadian plants is exported south of the border, leaving them heavily exposed to the 25% US tariffs imposed last year.
Canadian Manufacturing
Against that backdrop, Canadian vehicle output fell to around 1.2 million units last year — roughly half of 2016 levels.
Only 1,370 domestically-made EVs were sold in Canada in 2025, with Stellantis remaining the sole automaker producing electrified vehicles in the country for the domestic market.
Toyota‘s Cambridge and Woodstock plants in Ontario continue to build the RAV4 — Canada’s best-selling vehicle.
The model is produced in both full hybrid and plug-in hybrid versions.
“Over 4 million RAV4 have been produced by TMMC [Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada] since it assembled its first RAV4 in 2009,” the company’s manufacturing division wrote in January.
The company has yet to assemble a fully electric model on Canadian soil.
Toyota‘s Japanese rival Honda — Canada’s second-largest auto manufacturer — is still evaluating its own C$15-billion Ontario EV hub announced in April 2024, after suspending the program last May amid tariff uncertainty and slower-than-expected EV demand.
