Tariffs are here…or are they?
Over the weekend, US President Donald Trump made good on his threats to levy 25% tariffs on Canadian goods. While on Monday he gave Canada an 11th hour stay of 30 days, the threat of tariffs (and further economic hardship) still hangs over Canadians.
Let’s be clear, Donald Trump has an endgame; an objective and a plan to get it. The threat of tariffs is a means to an end.
While we, like all Canadians are grateful for the reprieve—however brief—Canada’s Conservatives condemn President Trumps massive and unjustified tariffs on Canada’s already weak economy.
Canada will never be the 51st state. We are an independent, proud, and a strong sovereign nation.
Canada is the United States’ closest neighbour, a steadfast ally, and best friend.
We share the longest undefended border in the world.
Canadians fought alongside Americans in WWI, WWII, Korea and most recently in Afghanistan, where we lost 158 of our servicemen and women, helping the US fight those who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. homeland.
This is no way to treat your friends.
Sadly, as I outlined in last week’s piece, Justin Trudeau, Chrystia Freeland, and Mark Carney have put Canada in this position of weakness.
Rather than harness our energy sector and diversify our trading relationships, the Liberals have done all they could to vandalize this driving force of our economy.
Rather than bring provincial leaders together to foster national pride and unity and break down barriers to interprovincial trade, they have sought to divide Canadians at every turn for their own partisan political gain.
Rather than work together, Parliament remains prorogued and the country in limbo as the Liberal Government is more interested in their own political fortunes than in the plight of the Canadian people.
Our country needs a strong and principled leader who can deal with President Trump and fix our economic woes.
Pierre Poilievre has laid out a clear and common sense plan to deal with tariffs (should they come).
First, if we are going to use dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs, these need to be carefully targeted at American companies where they will have the greatest impact while seeking to minimize the impact on Canadian consumers. Moreover, every penny of tariff revenues we collect must be used to help affected worker and businesses. Government should not keep one dime of that new revenue.
Nor does the government need to do what they are calling a “COVID-level response package”. Rather than explode inflation further by taking on more debt, common sense Conservatives are proposing a massive emergency Bring It Home Tax Cut to bolster the economy, stop inflation, and save/create jobs.
Canada needs massive tax cuts on work, investment, energy, homebuilding, and making stuff at home. We are calling for Parliament to be immediately recalled so we can pass this tax cut for Canadians and help mitigate the impact of any future tariffs.
Justin Trudeau repeatedly refused offers from our allies to buy Canadian oil and gas. He rejected these offers by inexplicably claiming there was “no business case” for doing so.
The United States is the world’s largest consumer of oil and gas, and Canada’s biggest customer. Overall, 81% of Canadian oil and gas exports go to the United States. Anyone in business will tell you if you only have one main customer your business is vulnerable. Opening up our energy sector and becoming the world’s supplier of oil and gas would go a long way towards mitigating the effects of tariffs. We must immediately scrap the Liberal anti-resource laws Bills C-69 and Bill C-50, and greenlight LNG plans, pipelines, mines, factories, refineries, and port expansions to expand our access to overseas markets.
Conservatives have been calling for years to get the provinces together and bring in truly free trade within Canada by knocking down interprovincial barriers. By agreeing to uniform standards on things like trucking, credential recognition, and sales taxes we could replace some of our lost north-south trade with east-west trade and take huge steps toward self-sufficiency and greater national unity.
One thing Donald Trump is correct about is the need to secure the Canada-U.S. border. Justin Trudeau’s bizarre woke “post-nation state” experiment has been a colossal failure. We need to empower law enforcement, rebuild our military, and take back control of our borders. Doing so will help us regain the confidence of our citizens and international partners, assert our sovereignty, and protect our people by stopping the guns, drugs, and criminals from crossing into Canada.
These tariffs are a wake-up call. It is time for us as a nation to come together and meet our potential.
Canada’s common sense Conservative plan will defend our sovereignty, protect and grow our economy, and bring home production and powerful paycheques for Canadians. Conservatives will put Canada First—now and always.