EYE ON POLITICS:
Poilievre fights to return to the House as tariffs make an impact
by Kerry Turner
Summer is in full swing and so is the Canada - US trade war, as US President Donald Trump’s trade deadline of August 1st looms over Canadians. Many Canadians are starting to feel like the trade war closely resembles Groundhog Day; having the same scramble to reach an ever elusive deal, while continuing to feel the impacts of inflation and increased costs of living in their pocketbooks and on the grocery shelves.
Trump has said he does not expect to reach a trade deal with Canada, after he gave the country a deadline of August 1 to carve out an agreement. "We haven't really had a lot of luck with Canada," Trump told reporters prior to his trip to Scotland on July 25th. "I think Canada could be one where there's just a tariff, not really a negotiation." His remarks come after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney signaled earlier this week that Canada "will not accept a bad deal" and rush into an agreement.
Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc was in Washington this week and said Thursday that he was feeling encouraged after a meeting with the U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Republican senators in Washington. LeBlanc said he would be returning to the United States capital next week for further meetings but indicated that getting to a deal will require additional time. The Minister's office said it would not be commenting on Trump's Friday statements about negotiations with Canada.
Kirsten Hillman, Canada's ambassador to the US, said Thursday that "there is a time when the deal is the right deal… It's important for us to be in a position to continue negotiating until we get to that point."
Meanwhile, Americans are seeing the impacts of the steel tariffs implemented earlier this year by Trump. Both Cleveland-Cliffs and Steel Dynamics said in their latest quarterly earnings reports this week that they are charging buyers about 14% more than they did in the previous quarter, while Acerinox said it is considering doing the same as soon as this fall.
“Whenever you introduce a tariff, it has two effects,” said Werner Antweiller, an economics professor and chair in international trade policy at the University of British Columbia. “It basically raises the prices in the market overall because it curtails output, and so consumers are paying a higher price overall, and then the domestic producers are pulling even to the price of the foreign producers.”
However, Canadian made steel is seeing a push here at home to be manufactured and used in construction specifically geared at accessing new markets – domestically, and across the world. Prime Minister Mark Carney announced his government is significantly restricting foreign imports of steel – Chinese ones in particular. He also said he was increasing spending on subsidies for Canada’s domestic industries and workers affected by Trump’s tariffs.
Speaking at a steel-manufacturing company in Hamilton on Wednesday, Carney said Canada has become too dependent on the U.S. market, with more than 90% of the country’s exports going there. “Moving forward, we must diversify our trade relationships, and above all, we must rely more on Canadian steel for Canadian projects,” he said. “Those shifts start today.”
To aid this effort, Saskatchewan has joined Alberta and Ontario in signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) aimed at expanding Canadian pipeline infrastructure. The goal is to improve energy exports in Canada and with our trading partners, with a focus on reducing reliance on the US. The Memorandum, signed in early July, is another step in bringing down trade barriers that have impacted the nation's ability to easily exchange Canadian made goods. The northwest B.C. coast is seen as a strategic access point for Asian markets.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford emphasized the need to diversify trade globally, citing dependency issues with the US, especially around pipelines like Line 5. The agreement includes creating new corridors to refineries in Southern Ontario and ports near James Bay, and tapping into Ontario’s Ring of Fire minerals for western export.
Support at home for Carney continues to gain momentum, with provincial leaders continuing to distance themselves from the federal conservatives; support that is on relatively new ground. During the election, Ford was critical of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's campaign, and less than a week before election day, on the eve of Poilievre's visit to Nova Scotia, Houston released a campaign-style video on social media, prompting some to wonder whether he was eyeing Poilievre's job. "I actually have tremendous confidence in the prime minister, and the team that is representing us as Canadians, to look at all of the factors and the moving parts, and come up with the best deal for Canadians," Houston said.
Meanwhile, across the floor at the House of Commons, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is set to soon make his less than triumphant return to the capital, with the election for his new seat in the Alberta byelection coming on August 18th. Poilievre is vying to win the vote in Battle River–Crowfoot, a sprawling rural riding that takes up the entire eastern side of Alberta from Edmonton down to Calgary. However the same issue of long-ballots that plagued Poilievre’s loss in Carleton Place is rearing its head westward– leaving Poilievre to call on the government to take action against the advocacy group that’s encouraged nearly 150 candidates to register as Independents in the upcoming byelection in rural Alberta’s Battle River—Crowfoot riding. In a letter addressed to the Government House Leader, Steven MacKinnon, Poilievre calls the ballot flooding “a blatant abuse of our democratic system.”
Jayson Cowan, a Battle River-Crowfoot candidate affiliated with the Longest Ballot Committee, said the initiative isn't a gimmick. "It's not even completely a protest because everybody has their own reasons.” Cowan said election rules – specifically the requirement that a candidate have 100 signatures on their nomination form – favour organized political parties.
In his letter, Poilievre continued to touch on electoral reform, a long-standing issue for Canadians and the politicians who represent them. Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made election reform a major campaign promise during his tenure – but no lasting impactful changes to the flawed democratic system were made. Poilievre continued in this regard, urging Canada’s highest level of government to enact legislation that would change the number of signatures a candidate is required to have on a nomination form — from the current 100 to 0.5 per cent of a riding's population. He also said electors should only be allowed to sign one nomination form and that official agents should only represent one candidate.
With Poilievre more likely than not heading back to Ottawa in September, Carney will come face to face with the leader of the opposition in a way he has not yet encountered, who despite setbacks still remains fiercely defended and supported by his Conservative party. Perhaps the real work will begin as the two politicians face off; working together in a bipartisan effort will be yet another challenge Carney faces as prime minister that Canadians will be watching closely.