The Current - Is Team Canada truly united against Trump’s tariffs?

Episode Date: February 3, 2025

Are Canada’s political and business leaders united in the face of U.S. tariffs? The Globe and Mail's Stephanie Levitz and the Toronto Star’s Ryan Tumilty take a good look at Team Canada.

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could hit the follow button on whatever app you're using. There is a lot of news that's out there these days. We're trying to help you make sense of it all and give you a bit of a break from some of that news too. So if you already follow the program, thank you. And if you have done that, maybe you could leave us a rating or review as well. The whole point of this is to let more listeners find our show and perhaps find some of that information that's so important in these really tricky times. So thanks for all of that.

Appreciate it. And on to today's show. To help make sense of everything that's unfolded over the course of this weekend, we thought it prudent to bring together our national affairs panel. Stephanie Levitz is a senior reporter in the Globe and Mail's parliamentary bureau. Ryan Tumulty is a politics reporter for the Toronto Star.

Good morning to you both. Good morning. Stephanie, Justin Trudeau is set to speak with Donald Trump in a matter of minutes, apparently. Donald Trump has signaled not to expect much to come out of this call. Last night, as he was returning to Washington, DC, he was adding things to the list of grievances

in some ways, talking about how American banks aren't able to operate here, that the Americans can't sell dairy in this country. What do you think is going to come out of this call, if anything? That's a great question, right? I mean, the Canadian government for the last several weeks has been on this full court press with the Americans trying to present facts to them that say, you know, if you impose these tariffs, here's the implication of this.

You are arguing that you're imposing the tariffs because of fentanyl. Well, here's how much fentanyl. You're arguing that you're imposing these tariffs because of illegal migration. Well, here are the actual numbers on that. None of these facts actually matter to US President Donald Trump, it appears, or certainly have not stopped the imposition of these tariffs. So the question is, what are these two guys going to talk about this morning? What case does Justin Trudeau have left to press with Donald Trump, or is it going to be another round of, actually these are the reasons I'm imposing the tariffs,

and if you don't do another set of things, they're going to stay in place? Ryan, it's interesting, in speaking with the finance minister Dominic LeBlanc just earlier, he seems to be trying to wrap his head still around what exactly the United States and what Donald Trump is looking for. What is this about? Do you think that there is any clarity on what this is actually about? I think people are reaching for other things for this to be about because those things could be solvable. But I think we're getting pretty clear indications that this is about Donald Trump wanting to

raise money for the US Treasury. These tariffs will be bad for the economy on both sides of the border. That part is clear. Every economist you talk to says that. Donald Trump does not like being unpopular and he's about to raise gas prices and grocery prices. But it will also bring in a bunch of money to the US Treasury that he can then use for a promised tax cut.

And I think it may be the time for Canada to start opening up to that possibility, that this has nothing to do with us and everything to do with the president's own policy. Where does that leave us then? It's a great question, and I'm really glad I'm not finance minister right now. It's gonna be very difficult.

And I think ultimately what, I don't think through the time we have seen Donald Trump as president in his first term and now in his second term, what we consistently see is a man who does not enjoy being unpopular and he was willing to lie about his popularity when he is unpopular. You know, we saw that in his response to the 2020 election. We saw that on the first day in office back in 2016 when he lied about crowd sizes at the inauguration. What he is doing though is likely to make him unpopular. There are a lot of businesses that are going to lose out a lot of Canadian business. There are a lot of American

consumers who are going to end up paying high prices. I think at this point, you know, Canada has to make the case that what he is doing is going to be worse for him than not being able to proceed with that tax cut because he doesn't have the money. It's interesting. There are comments coming out from the White House economic council director, Kevin Hassett saying, we've noticed that Mexico is serious about Trump's

executive order, that Canada appears to have misunderstood the language in Trump's executive order and that Trump has given Canadian and Mexican politicians an enormous amount of leverage. Stephanie, do you think there is any wiggle room to avoid these tariffs coming into place tomorrow? No, because it doesn't seem, as we've sort of already discussed,

what's the wiggle room? This idea that we've misunderstood, it's pretty clear, here are tariffs, they are being imposed. What's to misunderstand in this equation? You know, to pick up on Ryan's point, if there's wiggle room, it's going to be not in the calls that Justin Trudeau has with US President Donald Trump, it's going to be the calls that hopefully everybody is having with state governors and the governors going to Donald Trump and saying, hello, this is a Republican state and this is what you're about to do to this Republican state. That kind of pressure

is going to take time to build. I mean as the mayor alluded to in your previous interview Matt, the imposition of these tariffs will take time to trickle down through the economy. It's not as though they're going to be you know put in place immediately. We will all feel the pain on everything immediately. This will roll out over time and at this point in the game, it really feels like we're looking for a solution we can implement at the national level, sort of immediately to stop this. It's no longer an immediate game. It's going to be a medium to long-term play for the Canadian government to try and get these tariffs removed.

Steve, what did you make of the Prime Minister's speech on Saturday night? A speech that in many ways was initially targeted towards Americans. He spoke to Canadians as well, but he tried to speak with Americans, two Americans. What did you make of that? It was too long until he started speaking to Canadians. To think that US President Donald Trump is watching, with all due respect, a CBC or a CPAC at 9 o'clock on a Saturday night, that's not happening. It feels like we're at this inflection point in Canada that we're on the verge of, if not already into, a national unity crisis exacerbated by an economic crisis. The messaging now needs to be internal focusing, explaining to Canadians, okay, here's what we think is about

to happen, here's what we're doing to try and not just mitigate, again, the imposition of the tariffs themselves, but any economic damage in the meantime. If we're getting all the way to the end of that before the Prime Minister is saying hey you know we've got this under control I can say Matt you know over the weekend every community chat group I'm in all the mom chats everyone was panicking is there going to be a run at the grocery store what about toilet paper if I'm going to Florida for spring break if I shop there and bring it back is that suddenly going to be more expensive? There's a lot of anxiety here in the Canadian public.

And I think lots of folks are looking to their leaders to address that anxiety and help deal with it. Ryan, a venue where that could be addressed is in parliament. Parliament is not sitting right now. If it were to be recalled, what could happen considering the possibility of a non-confidence vote that could bring down the government and trigger an election in the middle of all of this? Yeah, I mean, the liberals, the government has the tools it needs for its initial response

to these tariffs. So the government can bring in tariffs on American products as it intends to do without parliament. What it can't do without parliament is spend that tariff money on Canadian jobs, on Canadian communities, put it back into the hands of Canadians to limit this economic blow. They need parliament for that. I think the open question here is what would happen if parliament comes back?

Because all the opposition parties have said for some time now that they will bring down the government at the first available opportunity and if they do that this government can do even less to respond to tariffs than it can do now. So this is not ideal timing. I think the fact that the prime minister is, you know, in his last couple of weeks on the job is not an ideal time. But I also am not sure that recalling Parliament is the magic answer unless there is some sort of negotiation between the government and the opposition parties. Do you have any indication that those opposition parties are interested in working with the

government on this? I mean, the conservatives have put forward ideas. I don't know if those ideas trump an election. And the NDP though has certainly sounded more open to working with the Liberals in the past few weeks on a tariff response than they were in early January, I'd say. Stephanie, when he was asked Saturday night whether he would recall Parliament, the Prime Minister said, we have the tools to support Canadians at this time. You just heard the Finance Minister Dominic Lulong talk about how EI could be expanded, perhaps.

There could be other programs put into place as well to directly support people who, as I said, I mean, are worried about, and what you've heard, worried about keeping the lights on, worried about buying groceries and being able to afford the vegetables that we might get from the United States. Are those programs and the plans and the tools that the Prime Minister talks about, are they sufficient in this moment? We can't know because one of the things that could in theory happen in Parliament is scrutiny of those decisions, accountability for the decisions that are getting made. I don't mean to cast any shade on the civil service, which I'm sure is working, you know, over time to try and come up with plans and programs and policies here, but in a democracy and in a Westminster system of government, we are supposed to have accountability to Parliament, which is to say that the Prime Minister is supposed to be able to put things forth and every other political party

which represent in this case the majority of Canadians, Matt, ought to be able to have a say on that. The partisan bun fighting that has been our parliament for the last few months raises questions about whether that would be possible in today's parliament, but there is room for scrutiny of these decisions and absolutely accountability for them. And both of those things are lacking at the moment, at least in the public eye. This message comes from Viking, committed to exploring the world in comfort. Journey through the heart of Europe on a Viking longship with thoughtful service, destination-focused dining, and cultural enrichment on board and on shore. With a variety of voyages and sailing dates

to choose from, now is the time to explore Europe's waterways. Learn more at Viking.com. Struggling with debt? Help is available. Discover reliable solutions to help you get back on track. Visit Canada.ca slash debt-solutions for support you can trust. A message from the Government of Canada. Pierre Poliakoff, the Conservative leader, spoke over the weekend from Vancouver. Have a listen to a little bit of what he said. We are in this state because we sell twice as much to the Americans as we sell to ourselves.

These interprovincial barriers are destructive. They kill jobs. They drive up consumer prices and they cost the average family $6,000 a year. Let's knock them down. Stephanie, where does this situation leave Pierre Poliev and the Conservatives? It leads them in a place where the idea, this is a change election, which is Canadians were just simply tired

of the Liberal government, they were ready to vote in somebody new. For a while, that narrative meant that there was no, maybe from the Conservatives' point of view, how much policy did they have to put in the window? How many ideas did they actually have to put forward for Canadians? How much evidence needed there to be that Pierre Poliev was in fact ready to become Prime Minister? The situation now has changed in that regard. There's pressure on Mr. Poliev in a way that I think did not exist prior to present as a prime minister in waiting, to propose ideas, to take this away from, this is all Justin Trudeau's fault, he has ruined your life, to more of the change narrative,

which is here's what I would do differently and why you should vote for me, because the story has changed, the ballot box question has potentially changed. We could be in an election that is about economic disaster in this country as opposed to a broader change narrative which is always sort of more amorphous in its in its texture. Brian do you want to pick up on that? One of the things people were talking about over the weekend and again this is formal informal chatting what have, is that what is the question if we go to the polls now? Is the question about change, is it about carbon tax, is it about Canada?

Where does that leave the election whenever it's going to happen? Yeah, I think for at least a year and a half now, the conservatives had planned an election around sort of three ideas, you know a carbon tax election Affordability and Justin Trudeau is terrible Justin Trudeau is exiting the stage his replacements whoever they are are all promising to move away from the carbon tax and

Affordability is still going to be an issue, but it's going to be an issue for a different circumstance So I think the ground shifted under the the conservatives feet a little bit and as Steph points out they're gonna have to adapt They are in a good position to adapt They still have a substantial polling lead even with the tightening that we've seen they have 41 million dollars Ready to go for the next election before they fundraise a dime So, you know, they're in a good space to shift. The question becomes, does Pierre Polyov have other gears? We've seen opposition leader Pierre Polyov. He is very effective.

I'm not sure, you know, now we're gonna have to see conservative leader candidate Pierre Polyov and see how he does there, especially reacting to changing things on the ground. Stephanie, I wanna go back to something you said earlier, which is that this is a conversation in some ways about a national unity crisis. Have a listen to the Premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith, speaking on Fox News over the weekend, talking specifically about border security.

We've already taken action in Alberta to make sure that we're shoring up as much as we can to have the dogs at the border and the commercial vehicle inspection and teams of of sheriffs and and drones though that's what what I think that the president wants to see is that we're taking it seriously that we're gonna stop the flow of drugs and guns and people across the borders. I asked Dominique LeBlanc about this about just the idea of everybody speaking you know from the same page of the same book in some ways.

Why did you use that phrase national unity crisis? Pierre Paulye made an observation a couple of weeks ago where he referred to the fact that it felt like we currently had 10 foreign affairs ministers all going out and selling a different message to Americans and with no overarching coordination there. And that's a salient point. It seems as though who is directing traffic at this moment in time? Is it the Prime Minister? Is it Dominic LeBlanc? Is it the provinces? You can't fault them for looking after their own interests. Of course, they're going to.

They spoke even before the Prime Minister did on Saturday night, some of those premiers. Not only did they speak, they all rolled out responses, which I guess we were told later that, you know, they had flagged that to the Prime Minister's office, oh, and by the way, I'm going to announce this thing. But from the get-go here, it has seemed as there's not a coordinated national effort on this, and the risk then becomes, you know, we've already seen it, I think, with Danielle Smith for a while, where her advocacy for Alberta's interests, she is willing to advocate for that at the, potentially at the cost of other provinces. There is no doubt that the 10% tariff the Trump administration wants to place on oil and energy

products could hurt Alberta far more, will hurt Alberta far more than other provinces. But this sense that we're in this together and that it's not one provincial self-interest trying to trump another provincial self-interest, that stuff's risky. And, you know, we had that problem, if you will, during COVID too, because you had all of these provinces with different regulations and it made no sense. I remember at the time, people would say in Ontario, well, why is, why can I go do this thing in British Columbia when I can't go do it in Ontario? That creates a tension when you get to any potential bailout money, let's say, that comes from the federal government. Well, is that going to be equitable?

Is it going to be by industry? You're going to see a lot of people saying, well, what about this and what about that? We don't need that national fight. It's not helpful to our psyche and it's certainly not helpful for a go-forward for the Canadian economy or perhaps is it we learned during COVID, the federalism that we enjoy in this country doesn't always work in situations like this. Ryan, just about out of time, briefly, what is your take on that?

I mean, you have the Premier of Ontario is out campaigning now because he's in the midst of an election campaign, has announced this morning he's going to tear up the contract with Elon Musk's Starlink to bring internet to rural communities. Are we all, we as Canadians, all speaking from the same page or the same book here? We're speaking from similar pages. Everyone has said that the tariffs are wrong. Everyone has said that they shouldn't be in place and that the US is making the wrong choices. But at Steff Point, provinces have different, you know, different values here and different

industries they need to protect. And that's hard. And we don't have a prime minister who is in a position to really rally them around. He is a lame duck prime minister. He is on his way out the door. You know, and it is hard to follow someone who is leaving. We will see where that leaves us. There's a lot to talk about.

In the meantime, it's been a weekend. I'm glad to have you here both to sift through it. Thank you very much. Thanks, Matt. Thanks. Stephanie Levitz is a senior reporter in the Global Mails Parliamentary Bureau. Ryan Tumulty is a politics reporter with the Toronto Star.