On Friday, Justin Trudeau will host the Canada-U.S. Economic Summit to “galvanize business and investment across Canada.” The summit will not include any Americans, despite the name, and will instead see Canadian business and labour representatives discuss matters with Trudeau and long-defeated politicians.
“We are bringing together partners across business, civil society and organized labour to find ways to galvanize our economy, create more jobs and bigger paycheques, make it easier to build and trade within our borders and diversify export markets,” Trudeau said.
Trudeau, like so many Liberals, is starting to sound like Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.
More jobs? Bigger paycheques? Those are Poilievre talking points.
Beyond the change in tune from Trudeau, there are issues with the composition of the panel that will be advising Trudeau. No offence to Jean Charest or Rachel Notley, but their inclusion as former premiers chosen to allow Trudeau to claim it’s a non-partisan committee is not sitting well with many.
Of course, at the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa and the U.S. Consulate in Toronto, the question is why the Trudeau government is holding a Canada-U.S. Economic Summit without inviting them to the table. This “summit” can’t be a smokescreen for further plans to escalate the trade war with the Americans; this should be about how to lower the temperature and avoid tariffs.
They should also quietly discuss how to diversify Canada’s trade so that we aren’t reliant on one market for 76% of our exports. I say quietly because when I mentioned to a U.S. official this week that the Trudeau government was looking to shift to a free-trade deal with the U.K. in the middle of this crisis, their eyes bugged out.
And yet there was the story quoting former cabinet minister Ralph Goodale, Trudeau’s ambassador to Britain, saying it was time to shift away from the U.S.
“We now have both a great opportunity and a great reason to work really hard at trade diversification,” Goodale told Politico in an interview.
Yes, we need to diversify trade, but announcing we will turn to Britain in the middle of a crisis probably isn’t the best strategy.
What we should be discussing is how to unleash an economy that has been locked down and shackled by years of bad policy from the Trudeau Liberals. They killed the Northern Gateway pipeline, Energy East and Energie Saguenay, three projects that would have given Canada easier access to export markets.
They have passed Bill C-69, brought in a carbon tax, an emissions cap, a just transition strategy to move people out of the oil and gas sector. Now, though, the Trudeau Liberals – from cabinet ministers to Trudeau’s anointed potential replacement Mark Carney – are all saying they oppose the carbon tax and that we need pipelines.
RECOMMENDED VIDEO
Carney has spoken about the need for more pipelines in Canada, while also saying that Quebec can have a veto on an East-West pipeline. Jonathan Wilkinson, who has endorsed Carney, is playing games with the pipeline issue after spending decades opposing pipelines – he’s essentially Steven Guilbeault in a cheap suit and glasses trying to look respectable.
And International Trade Minister Mary Ng – who will no doubt endorse Carney at the behest of the Prime Minister’s Office, all of whom are backing Carney – has also tried to claim they back energy infrastructure after more than nine years of blocking it.
There has been no conversion on the road to Damascus – or in this case, Washington – when it comes to the Liberals and Canada’s oil industry. They want to make it seem like they are on the industry’s side now because that is where the country is at the moment.
Given a chance to rule this country, though, there is no chance that the Trudeau Liberals, the Carney Liberals or the Freeland Liberals are going to approve the oil pipelines or LNG export terminals we need to diversify away from the U.S.
They seem to be more interested in a fight with Trump for political gain, even if it costs you your job.