What is the future of Canadian exports if tariffs are enacted?

Donald Trump: Coming on the first. Okay. Saturday. But no oil tariff. No oil tariffs. No, I don’t, well, I didn’t say that you said that. No. Well, I didn’t. I don’t wanna misinterpret. No, we may or may not. We’re gonna make that determination probably tonight on oil. Yeah, because they send us oil. We’ll see. It depends on what the price is.

If the oil is properly priced, if they treat us properly, which they don’t look, Mexico and Canada. Have never been good to us on trade. They’ve treated us very unfairly on trade, and we will, uh, be able to make that up very quickly because we don’t need the products that they have. We have all the oil you need.

Vassy Kapelos: US President Donald Trump speaking from the Oval Office not long ago, as you heard there, doubling down on the idea that tariffs are coming to Canadian imports this weekend, but now raising the factor of exempting oil as you heard. In his own words, he may or may not tariff oil as well. That decision is coming later tonight.

It of course, will prompt a big reaction here in Canada. One that NDP leader Jug Meet Singh says, should force the recall of parliament. Have a listen.

Jagmeet Singh: So I’m calling on the liberals recall parliament. Put forward protections for workers before Parliament. Let’s get the opposition leaders together.

Obviously we need to support that kind of package. And then let’s have an election in the spring. We are still going to be voting against the government at the end of March, but there’s two months before that happens. I.

Vassy Kapelos: There’s a lot to unpack to help us do that. The front bench is here, former Alberta MLA, and cabinet Minister Gary Mar is with us.

He’s the president and CEO of the Canada West Foundation, former Manitoba Premier and Canadian ambassador to the us. Gary Doer is with us. He’s now a senior business advisor at Dentons and Stefan Levitt. Stephanie Levitt rather, is a senior reporter with the Globe and Mail and the Parliamentary Bureau.

Hi everybody. Good to see you. Uh, Gary, doer, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll start with you. It’s, it’s so kind of yo-yo ish, but yesterday we had this comment from Howard Lutnick, the incoming commerce secretary that made everyone again breathe maybe the tiniest sigh of relief when he said that if the border plan could be executed on that this weekend’s tariff threat could be avoided today, that that was as though, you know, it had never been spoken.

How certain do you think we can be that there are tariffs coming this weekend?

Gary Doer: Well, I don’t think you can ever be certain, uh, with uh, Donald Trump as president. I don’t think we were certain with him, uh, in his first term after 2017. I don’t think we should be, can be certain of what he’s gonna say. Uh, I just think we have to plan on the basis that, uh, you have to plan, uh, for the worst case scenario for Canadians and be prepared for it.

Uh, we’re going into this event, uh. With nobody having a, a, a mandate in Ottawa. It’s, uh, it’s a horrible situation. Uh, and, uh, it’s, uh, very, very unfortunate. I think, uh, he’s talked about O Oil. He went back and forth with, uh, Wilbur Ross on softwood lumber. Uh, I, I know that, uh, he’s mentioned that we’ve got lots of trees, uh, et cetera, et cetera.

But I think we should. I don’t think we should be petting our small response. I think we should be like Florida orange juice. I’d rather go after big, big items that the United States uses. Uh, obviously oil is one of them ’cause that affects inflation in the United States. Uh, but uh, when I was in Washington, there was a ahead of a mining organization, uh, Ms.

Kennedy, and we were speaking to the Chamber of Commerce in the US and she said. Uh, we are the Costco of Critical Minerals in North America. We have 29 of the 31 critical minerals that the Americans need. So I think we should, uh, offer a, a, a partnership on critical minerals in, in, uh, north America. Uh, if, uh, they don’t bring in terrorists, if they do, I think we should a fast track all these.

Uh, different opportunities in critical minerals that are delayed and delayed and delayed in Ottawa. You know, we just dither and dither about getting things done and, uh, and, and make sure that, uh, we look for other markets for our critical minerals at the expense of, uh, you know, the US needs these critical minerals for, uh, all of the technology innovations they need to have in their own country to com uh, compete around the world.

So I think we should be, have a strong. A brand on why it, it is gonna hurt them. Not Florida orange juice. Not that I,

Vassy Kapelos: Gary. Gary, what are your,

Gary Doer: but I don’t wanna pick that.

Vassy Kapelos: Gary, Gary, Gary Mar, what are your thoughts on the response? Because of course, uh, you know, Gary Dewar alludes to it, but there is a lot of back and forth in this country about.

Uh, how far to hit beyond the initial package of counter tariffs, which, as Gary mentions, are things like Kentucky Bourbon and, and Florida orange juice. There’s three, you know, two other levels beyond that. But the big kind of x factor is what do we do with oil? What do we do with broader energy exports and do we have to address that very quickly if in fact our economy is.

In, its in the aggregate slap with 25% tariffs on Saturday. What are your thoughts on that?

Gary Mar: Well, I think you have to look first of all at what are the purpose of the tariffs in that, in the mind of, uh, president Trump. And I think the clearest indication that he gave, uh, was in his speech to the World Economic Forum last week.

Uh, and I would, I would frame it this way. I mean, he, he talks about. Really being an industrial policy. He told partners at the WEF that, uh, if you wanna move your manufacturing to the United States, we’re gonna treat you really well. And if you want to import, you know, finished goods to the United States, we’re gonna tariff you.

And so that the purpose of that. Is to repatriate manufacturing and jobs, uh, back to the United States. And so, uh, I would say that, uh, you know, Gary Duro always talks about Donald Trump needs a bumper sticker. Here’s the bumper sticker, mama wins, and mama is make America manufacturers again. And we can make the argument not just in oil, but in so many things that we export to the United States, that we provide inputs for them to create jobs and make finished.

Product. So, uh, I’ve often argued and I think premier. Uh, premier Smith has made this argument. We export jobs to the United States in the form of a pipeline. And, uh, the manufacturing of finished goods happens in refineries in places like Ohio, where, uh, vice President Vance comes from, or Michigan, or in the Gulf Coast where l and g uh is, you know, they take.

Natural gas from Canada and turn it into LNG. But you could make the same argument for auto parts. It’s an input that goes into finished goods that are manufactured and assembled in, uh, in Michigan. You could make the same argument about, uh, potash that goes to farmers in, uh, in the Midwest. You could make the same argument about the electricity that goes into the United States, uh, that, you know, generates the power for AI data centers.

And so we do. Uh, create the opportunity for the United States to create jobs in the us. That’s a good thing to do. And, and so that’s the first piece that I, I talk about is consistently make the case, um, that we create jobs in the United States. And I, I note that last week the president was talking about.

The $250 billion trade deficit they have with Canada this week, it’s $175 billion. In fact, it’s probably closer to $50 billion and if you take energy exports outta the equation, the united

Vassy Kapelos: yeah,

Gary Mar: actually runs a pretty healthy trade surplus vis-a-vis Canada.

Vassy Kapelos: Yeah, I mean, Gary lays out so many crucial facts def that have so far.

You know, though they’ve been presented by premiers and you know, federal, the federal government and even members of the opposition have failed to convince Trump otherwise. And so we are left with this scenario where. All the stuff that, that both Gary’s lay certainly could provide, could prove to be effective in the medium to long term.

But in the short term, if those tariffs are applied, there’s a political story here as well, and, and Mr. Singh’s clip alluded to it, right? This back and forth between the opposition and the government about, well, what does an aid package look like if one is necessary, and does Parliament have to come back early rather than wait till the end of March to deal with it if these things come on February 1st?

What do you think that does to that conversation?

Stephanie Levitz: It, it, it is interesting if you, you think about it Fasci, that the folks that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has not have not spoken to in the last several weeks have been the opposition leaders. He’s called the Premiers. He’s met with Canadian business leaders, he’s met with unions, he’s met with Americans.

He’s spoken to the American media, but at no point has he called in the opposition leader since that initial meeting that he had on the hill before. I guess everything blew up politically here in Ottawa. And so when we’re talking about this Team Canada approach. To an answer. Um, not just in terms of, you know, potential bailout packages for Canadians, but also in terms of our retaliatory tariff response.

He’s not going to the politicians that represent the other two thirds of this country. I, I’m overstating the numbers, but to say, okay, what are we going to do here? What makes sense as a path forward? As, as one of the Gary’s alluded to, where this very strange time in Ottawa where nobody. Has a clear mandate to govern.

They’re resting on, you know, a previous mandate, the Trudeau liberals. You have a leadership race running off to the side. It’s messy and there’s no clear consensus, obviously emerging in Ottawa with no inputs coming from the opposition leaders about what could get through the House of Commons. It’s it, it has the risk right now of devolving into yet another political bun fight in Ottawa that helps nobody.

Um, and certainly doesn’t help all the workers that everybody claims they wanna help.

Vassy Kapelos: Yeah, very good point.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQZKw2IKgB0