Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the federal cabinet are scheduled to meet near the nation’s capital next week, as Donald Trump celebrates his inauguration day in Washington.
Updated yesterday at 7:20 p.m.
Allison Jones et Sarah Ritchie
The Canadian Press
Mr. Trudeau’s office announced that a cabinet retreat is planned for January 20 and 21 to discuss the defense of Canadian interests.
“Faced with the threat of customs duties brandished by the new American administration, the Council of Ministers intends to protect and defend the interests of Canadians, strengthen Canadian-American relations and demonstrate unequivocally that our two countries maintain trade and security relations mutually beneficial,” reads the statement from the Prime Minister’s Office.
The next U.S. president has pledged to impose a 25% tariff on all Canadian goods and said he would create an “external revenue agency” on his first day in office to collect those tariffs.
Justin Trudeau is also scheduled to meet with the country’s 13 prime ministers on Wednesday to discuss how to handle the new Trump administration.
Several senior ministers said they decided not to join the race to replace the Liberal leader as prime minister so they could focus on their portfolios.
The Minister of Industry, François-Philippe Champagne, is the latest to announce that he will not run in the party leadership race, joining the Minister of Finance, Dominic LeBlanc, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Joly.
Speaking to reporters after a meeting with Ontario Premier Doug Ford in Toronto on Tuesday, LeBlanc said he outlined the federal government’s steps to secure the border to key members of the the Trump team during their meeting in Florida – although that did not convince Mr Trump to back down.
The Minister of Finance and Intergovernmental Affairs added that Ottawa had done its own modeling of the national impact of the tariffs, but did not want to share these figures.
“We are not going to speculate on different scenarios. Next week, we expect to know the precise details of what these tariffs will mean for the Canadian economy, and we will be prepared, of course, to respond from a position of strength and, we hope, as a unified country,” he declared.
Mr. LeBlanc simply indicated that unity will be the message when he and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meet with the country’s premiers on Wednesday. He stressed the need for prime ministers and the federal government to jointly defend the Canadian economy.
Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne said Tuesday at an event in Toronto that Canada must organize itself to export its oil, gas and essential minerals to other markets.
“Besides, we have other markets, because energy is economic security and economic security in this world is national security,” he said.
He also said the “Team Canada” approach hasn’t been as successful this time around as it was under the first Trump administration, adding that he tried to encourage a multi-party approach.
Former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he had “a real problem” with Mr. Trump’s comments.
In an interview on a US podcast broadcast Monday, Mr. Harper refuted Donald Trump’s assertion that the United States subsidizes Canada, attributing the “modest trade surplus” to the fact that the United States buys so much oil and of Canadian gas at reduced prices on world markets.
“It is in fact Canada which subsidizes the United States in this regard,” he pointed out.
The former prime minister said the shared defense of North America through the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) is not a subsidy either. “The United States is doing this because it is in its vital interest,” he noted. “Do you want Canada to be a neutral country? »
He also said there was no major flow of migrants into the United States from Canada, while calling the Biden administration’s policies on the southern border “shameful.”
“I’ll tell you right now: drugs, guns, crime – most of these things flow north, not south,” Harper said.
With information from Kelly Geraldine Malone, Washington
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