The province, which recently ordered 10,000 ventilators from O-Two Medical Technologies, has also worked with the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association to boost production of the machines. 

Thornhill Medical, a Toronto-based company, says it's making 500 ventilators that will arrive at hospitals and health-care facilities in early April. The company said it has teamed up with manufacturing company Linamar Corp. to make them.

It took Cavalier Tool & Manufacturing of Windsor, Ont., about four days to go from being interested in lending a hand to producing the parts another Canadian company desperately needed to fill orders for wall-mount, pump-action hand sanitizer units used in hospitals.

Mid-April appears to be the earliest that most North America production could resume, but the deaths of at least six UAW members at Ford and FCA in the United States underscore the worries many workers have about returning to the factory floor. In Canada, the union Unifor remains skeptical about a return to production.