Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pulled together a hastily convened “round table” last week to discuss the lingering threat of tariffs that hang over our collective heads like the sword of Damocles.
Business hates uncertainty. As long as the threat remains, industries may choose to move their plants south of the border — which was one goal President Donald Trump had in mind.
In a statement, Trudeau said the meeting would “bring together partners across business, civil society and organized labour to find ways to galvanize our economy, create more jobs and bigger pay cheques, make it easier to build and trade within our borders and diversify export markets. We want business, investors and workers to choose Canada.”
This week, he’s heading to Europe to shore up new deals. So, in the last month of a nine-year stint as PM, he’s suddenly got religion on the need to diversify export markets. For almost a decade, he did the exact opposite.
Russia’s war on Ukraine raised the spectre of energy insecurity for many of our allies in Europe. When friendly countries came with chequebooks looking to buy our energy, he sent them away empty-handed.
He’s convening a collection of business and union leaders to make it look like he’s busy. In fact, we have a group who should be advising on how to run the country. They’re called MPs and they should be in Parliament right now. Instead, Trudeau shut down Parliament and paralyzed this country and our ability to respond to Trump. So MPs have no way to raise questions or debate issues, as is the democratic way. He triggered a Liberal leadership campaign, where frontrunners can’t distance themselves far enough from his policies. Business and foreign leaders know they won’t be dealing with him a month from now.
There are still plenty of irritants to be cleared away before we can declare ourselves tariff-free. Trump has cited border security and fentanyl. He wants Canada to beef up funding for our armed forces and reach the 2% of gross domestic product required to meet our NATO commitment. Protections we put around sectors such as the dairy industry also rankle.
Most of all, though, you get the feeling that what Trump and our European allies find most irritating right about Canada right now is Trudeau.