"Back in the late 1960s if you wanted to buy a car in Canada, in most cases, it had to be built in Canada. This was before the NAFTA Free Trade agreement,"
NAFTA was 1994. One could buy an import car well before the 1990's in CDN.
Here is information from
https://www.hagerty.com/articles-vid...adian-Pontiacs
It wasn't NAFTA, it was the 1965 Automotive Products Trade Agreement (APTA) that started free trade between CDN and USA. After that, GM slowly started importing US built cars.
Quotes:
"The 1965 Auto Pact took effect within months, but eliminating tariffs on cars and auto parts exchanged between Canada and the U.S. didn’t put an immediate end to GM’s popular Canadian Pontiacs"
"It wasn’t until the 1970 model year, in fact, that senior Pontiacs shared the exact wheelbase and wore the same sheet metal as their U.S. cousins."
"Even then, Canadian-specific names, trim variations, and the use of Chevrolet engines continued for the next two decades..."