It’s hard to tell where the on-again, off-again Canada-U.S. trade battle is when viewed from the American side.
In his inaugural address on Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump didn’t single out our country, and in the ream of executive orders he signed on his first day back in office, there wasn’t one imposing his threatened 25% penalties on goods entering the U.S. from Canada.
Indeed, officials in the new Trump administration explained to the Associated Press that rather than immediate tariffs, they would invoke a national security clause of the 2018 CUSMA (Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement) to conduct an expedited review of Canadian trading and currency practices, to ensure we weren’t using trickery to gain benefits at America’s expense.
Then Trump, after most Inauguration Day festivities were concluded, told a gathering of reporters he “thinks” he might impose his threatened tariffs on Feb. 1.
To say the least, Trump’s position is fluid and impulsive.
But, believe it or not, the situation is worse here in Canada.
The Liberal party is holding the federal government and, indeed, the entire country hostage while it indulges in choosing a new leader.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau could have — should have — gotten out of the way much sooner, but he waited until the worst possible moment to resign. (when our economy is vulnerable to every sneeze and hiccup in Washington, D.C.)
Then he chose to leave.
Except he hasn’t left. So our government is currently headed by the lamest of lame ducks. Even an interim prime minister would be listened to better than the soon-to-be-insignificant Justin Trudeau.
Our Foreign Affairs Minister, Melanie Joly, is not up to running her portfolio in good times. And we are currently far from good times.
Dominic LeBlanc, the finance minister and intergovernmental affairs minister, might be one of the few Liberal cabinet members with the intellectual heft to guide the federal government through the swirling eddies and riptides of dealing with Trump. But he has no official position — such as interim Liberal leader — to give legitimacy to his decisions.
Chrystia Freeland’s skills are vastly overrated. And Mark Carney, the other legitimate Liberal leadership contender, is as preoccupied as Freeland.
And thanks to Trudeau’s prorogation of Parliament, the Liberal government cannot even be held to account for all this bedlam and ineptitude.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, head of the premiers’ conference, is busy grandstanding and seemingly unaware most of the domestic oil consumed in Ontario and Quebec comes through a pipeline that crosses through North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, which means it could be shut down by Americans if Canada decides (as Ford has proposed) to get tough and embargo oil to the U.S.
Then there’s the little fact that while Canada is the source of 60% of oil imported by the U.S., there is no guarantee it will stay that way. If we act tough, other countries would be more than happy to fill the void and Canada might never recover its market share.
It’s a carnival of clowns with no obvious ringmaster.
Only Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has suggested making contact with Trump and his officials to show our country is serious about their biggest concerns — illegal immigration and illegal drugs entering the States from Canada. And Smith has been scoffed at for not playing nicely with the other Canadian leaders.
There’s a downside for the Americans, of course. Over 25 of their refineries, producing more than a quarter of their petroleum products, are tooled to handle Canada’s heavy oil and cannot be re-tooled easily, quickly or cheaply to refine lighter grades.
The Americans will not be able to impose tariffs on our oil or auto parts without suffering immediate, mid-term economic pain of their own.
But if, in the chaos created by Liberal self-indulgence, Canada ends up starting a trade war by talking tough, the damage to our economy could last a decade.
An election cannot come soon enough.