OTTAWA – As Canadians brace themselves for President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” of reciprocal price lists on Wednesday, one political chief in Canada believes it would spark the beginning of a brand new technology of Canada-U.S. family members freed from cross-border taxes.
Maxime Bernier, who served as overseas affairs minister in former High Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative executive and now heads the right-wing Other people’s Celebration of Canada (PPC), informed Fox Information Virtual in an interview from Halifax that it’s “completely” the time for Canada to take away all price lists towards the U.S.
He stated the 25% tasks the Canadian executive, below then-Liberal High Minister Justin Trudeau, imposed at the U.S. in early February to counter Trump’s 25% price lists towards Canada “received’t harm the American citizens – it’s hurting Canadians.”
New Canadian High Minister Mark Carney stated in a observation following his March 28 name with the president – the primary touch between each leaders since Carney used to be elected Liberal chief by means of his celebration just about 3 weeks earlier than – that Canada would enforce retaliatory price lists in keeping with Wednesday’s U.S. “business movements.”
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President Donald Trump, left, and Canadian High Minister Mark Carney. (Getty Pictures)
The PPC chief stated that Trump must learn that “the actual reciprocal reaction” to price lists is “0 on our facet, 0 for your facet.”
Bernier stated that as a substitute, Carney and his primary rival, Conservative Celebration Chief Pierre Poilievre, are being “pretend patriots the usage of a dollar-for-dollar business struggle towards Trump” and telling Canadians: “That’s the most efficient factor to do.”
“We can not impose counter-tariffs,” stated Bernier, who additionally served as trade minister within the Harper executive.
“The American citizens are 10 occasions larger than us. We received’t win a business struggle,” he stated, underscoring that retaliation will result in a recession in Canada.
Former Canadian Conservative baby-kisser Tony Clement, who served along Bernier in Harper’s Cupboard, informed Fox Information Virtual that “from an financial standpoint,” doing away with Canadian price lists “makes numerous sense” and “might come to that someday, however the public isn’t there at the moment.”
“From a standpoint of the emotional wounds of Canadians created by means of Trump and his annexation communicate and price lists, I’m no longer positive {that a} political voice would live to tell the tale if it went down that public-policy direction,” stated Clement, a former Canadian trade minister within the Harper executive.
Maxime Bernier, chief of the Other people’s Celebration of Canada, meets together with his supporters at an election rally in Borden Park on Saturday, 9-11, 2021 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. (Artur Widak/NurPhoto by means of Getty Pictures)
“The temper of the folk is outrage. I’ve by no means observed other folks in Canada this incandescently mad at america,” he stated, who’s campaigning within the Toronto house for Poilievre’s Conservative Celebration forward of the April 28 common election. “There may be whole mistrust of no matter Trump says as a result of it may possibly trade inside 24 hours.”
He stated that each Poilievre and Carney have highlighted the significance of doing away with “the threat of price lists for a protracted time period – if you’ll accept as true with Trump to be a bona fide negotiator.”
Getting rid of Canadian price lists, and not using a quid professional quo from Trump, may “display weak spot to a bully,” added Clement, who, previous to getting into federal politics in 2006, served as a Cupboard minister in former Ontario Premier Mike Harris’ Revolutionary Conservative executive.
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Canadians hang an “Elbows Up” protest towards U.S. price lists and different insurance policies by means of U.S. President Donald Trump, at Nathan Phillips Sq. in Toronto on March 22, 2025. (REUTERS/Carlos Osorio)
Within the observation launched following his contemporary dialog with Trump, Carney stated that each leaders “agreed to start complete negotiations a couple of new financial and safety courting right away following the election.”
Conservative strategist Yaroslav Baran, who served as communications leader for Harper’s a hit Conservative 2004 management marketing campaign, and director of struggle room communications for the Harper-led Tories all over the 2004, 2006 and 2008 federal election campaigns, informed Fox Information Virtual that below the United States-Mexico-Canada Settlement (USMCA), “business in items and services and products needs to be tariff-free” between Canada and the U.S., except carveouts at the Canadian facet for dairy, eggs, poultry and softwood lumber.
Alternatively, Baran added that he “can’t see the removing of all Canadian price lists on U.S. merchandise so long as the U.S. has price lists on Canadian merchandise.”
Cars in line to move into america on the Canada-U.S. border in St-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Quebec, Canada, on Thursday, March 6, 2025. President Donald Trump exempted Canadian items coated by means of the USMCA from his 25% price lists, providing primary reprieves to the U.S.’ two biggest buying and selling companions. (Graham Hughes/Bloomberg by means of Getty Pictures)
Bernier stated that whilst Trump’s price lists will harm Canadian exporters to the U.S., “the answer is to have a extra productive financial system with actual free-market reforms” in Canada thru such measures as decreasing company taxes, selling interior business and fostering expansion within the nation’s oil and fuel trade, all of which might be featured within the PPC’s election platform that incorporates the established order of a “Division of Govt Downsizing” to abolish “ideologically motivated systems that advertise wokeism,” no longer in contrast to the Elon Musk-led Division of Govt Potency.
The PPC chief additionally stated that Canada must be prepared to “put the entirety at the desk” below the USMCA “at the moment” and earlier than the trilateral business deal is scheduled for a joint assessment subsequent yr.
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In keeping with Bernier, that are meant to come with finishing the “cartel” of provide control that units quotas and costs, and protects Canada’s dairy, poultry and eggs sectors from overseas pageant, which he described as “a communist machine” that reveals Canadians paying two times the cost of the ones agricultural merchandise than American citizens do within the U.S., and which additionally imposes tasks – starting from 150% to 300% — on U.S. imports of the similar merchandise past limits agreed to however but to be reached below the USMCA.
All the way through the renegotiation of the North American Loose Industry Settlement in 2018 that ended in the USMCA, the primary Trump management sought to have Canada’s provide control machine eradicated.
