Forget Trump.
No one forced Canada to put unrealistic tariffs on the US, or have intra-provincial tariffs, or stoke anti-Americanism to such obscene lengths to win an election.
We know who is to blame for this:
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Outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, prime minister-elect Mark Carney, Ontario premier Doug Ford, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre — the list goes on — all blatantly spoke out loudly against threats from President Donald Trump’s threat to impose 25% tariffs on Canadian goods.
Canadian leaders across the board in lockstep have declared Canada needs to “fight back” against Trump, calling the tariffs an “existential threat” and threatening to impose retaliatory tariffs and even cut off energy and electricity to the Americans.
Ford on Monday morning announced he is immediately slapping a 25% surcharge on residents and businesses in three US states for access to Ontario's hydro and said he wouldn’t think twice to shut it down altogether if Trump retaliates.
Former Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, who lost to Carney in Sunday’s leadership race, said on the debate stage the US has gone from friend to foe — “a predatory threat,” she said — and Canada should align against the US with countries who possess nuclear weapons.
Both the federal Liberals and Conservatives have made Trump, tensions with the US and the tariff war primary talking points as they prepare for the campaign trail, as an election could now be called at any time.
Despite all the showmanship around the American president, all the above mentioned Canadian leaders have failed to even publicly acknowledge the fact that China imposed a 100% tariff on all rapeseed (used for canola oil), oil cakes and peas, plus a 25% tariff “on aquatic products and pork originating in Canada.”
The silence from Canadian authorities raises a number of questions: Why are leaders willing to go neck-and-neck with the far more powerful United States but shy away from condemning the Chinese communists for the same, or worse, punishment?
The tariff will go into effect March 20. China’s ministry of finance released a statement over the weekend announcing the tariffs are in response to a 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles Ottawa imposed on Beijing on October 1 and a 25% tariff on Chinese steel and aluminum on October 22.
China, as usual, has laid out its demands and waits for Canada to comply.
Why hasn't the Trudeau-Carney government replied?
Why, indeed:
Among those named in Cooper’s expose are former Canadian ambassador to China Dominic Barton, Trudeau campaign backers Mark Wiseman and Gerald Butts, former CBC Power & Politics host Evan Solomon and Jin Liqun of AIIB, who is reportedly a senior Chinese Communist Party (CCP) operative and former Red Guard.
The common denominator among these figures is their stated goals: “consolidating financial power across borders to coordinate carbon-reduction policies and progressive social outcomes,” Cooper wrote.
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In fact, on leaked information from Canadian Security Intelligence Service alleging Chinese money influenced two Canadian elections, the only official investigation is on the whistleblowers who exposed it.
“There is an investigation under way by CSIS and our partners regarding the sources of the information, the leaks,” CSIS Director David Vigneault told a parliamentary committee last week.
Yet there is no probe into the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, named after the late former prime minister who was current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s father, revealing it returned a $200,000 donation to a Chinese billionaire in response to those documents. While the foundation said it has returned the donation, the public didn’t know it’s former president and CEO was the same oversight official who did “not detect foreign interference.”
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Xi Jinping's threatening rebuke of Justin Trudeau was a rare and surprising move by the Chinese president, and highlighted the disregard he has for the Canadian prime minister, according to some experts and former diplomats.
"He certainly wouldn't speak like that to the U.S. president. So it does suggest that Mr. Xi has a degree of disdain for the prime minister and does not see Canada as an important partner," said Charles Burton, senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and a former diplomat to China.
Burton said he found the language used by Xi during his interaction with Trudeau at the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, to be "quite dismissive and threatening," indicating that any illusions the government has that China respects Canada as an influential nation in the world have long since disappeared.
Anyway, how it started and how it's going:
Cabinet should consider an energy export tax to hit the U.S. “where it really hurts,” former prime minister Jean Chretien said last night. It was up to premiers to agree, he added: “Governments altogether can consider going further and hitting the Americans where it really hurts.”**
Ontario has placed a surcharge of 25 per cent on electricity exported to the United States as of Monday, and the government says it could raise that amount even higher in response to further American escalation.
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U.S. President Donald Trump dramatically upped the ante in his trade war with Canada Tuesday morning.
In a Truth Social post, the president wrote he will double the tariff on steel and aluminum, expected tomorrow, and said he will declare a “National Emergency on Electricity” in areas affected by Ontario’s 25 per cent surcharge on energy exports to the U.S. ...
U.S. President Donald Trump dramatically upped the ante in his trade war with Canada Tuesday morning.
In a Truth Social post, the president wrote he will double the tariff on steel and aluminum, expected tomorrow, and said he will declare a “National Emergency on Electricity” in areas affected by Ontario’s 25 per cent surcharge on energy exports to the U.S.
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Ontario Premier Doug Ford says U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has dropped the plan to double tariffs on Canadian aluminum and steel, and has committed to lowering U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff back down to 25 per cent.
This comes after Ontario agreed to pause a surcharge on electricity exports to the U.S., which dramatically upped the ante in Trump’s trade war with Canada Tuesday.
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