The problem is that Canada makes ~1.3M cars/year -- and about 1M of those are for Japanese manufacturers like Toyota and Honda. With unbounded Chinese imports at Chinese prices, a sizable fraction of that domestic industry is going to vanish.

Yet what I'd suggest is to go a step further rather than retreat: Subsidize EV production (including from Chinese firms) on the condition that final assembly or some fraction of production is done in Canada. Keep the jobs, make cleaner cars more efficiently, and make them available to Canadian consumers at reduced (subsidized) prices.

...Then export those subsidized vehicles to Europe and wherever else, where they might benefit from favorable EU-Canada or Brazil-Canada trade policies.