Poilievre and Ford both want Canada to thrive against Trump

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In some ways, Friday was a day like any other in this new Trump world order. The American president sat at his desk and attacked Canada once again.

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“Canada has been ripping us off for years on lumber and dairy products,” Trump said.

He spoke about more tariffs coming, he spoke about ensuring auto jobs move to the United States, and he talked about making sure factories come back to America. His remarks came against the backdrop of a weak jobs report number and a report in the New York Times that said Trump and his team are truly serious about annexing Canada.

The Times said Trump and his team have discussed in calls with Canadian officials – changing the Canada-US border, ripping up the treaty that governs the shared stewardship of the Great Lakes, kicking Canada out of the Five Eyes Alliance and the North American Aerospace Defence Command – aka NORAD.

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It’s clear that we are facing four years of instability in relations with Trump. But what should we be doing?

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says it is time to unleash Canada’s economy to make us one of the wealthiest countries in the world. During a radio interview on Newstalk 1010 in Toronto on Friday, Poilievre said Canada has so much potential that the Trudeau-Carney Liberals have refused to allow to be developed.

Now, in the face of constant and ever-changing economic threats from Donald Trump’s White House, Poilievre says it is time to make changes in how our economy operates.

“We need to grant permission to Canadian businesses to build pipelines, mines, LNG liquefaction facilities that can get our gas on a boat so it can go off to Asia and Europe and break European dependence on Putin while turning dollars for dictators into paychecks for our people,” Poilievre said.

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In the middle of the vacuum of leadership that came about with Trudeau’s resignation and the Liberal Party’s leadership race, Poilievre is the only politician who has been putting forward clear policy on what we need to do in response to the Trump threat. It’s not just the tariffs Trump is putting on and taking off again with incredible speed, it’s his plan to fundamentally transform the American economy, to unleash it, that poses perhaps the biggest threat for Canada.

We were already losing the battle for investment, now Trump’s tariffs are putting projects on hold. Ontario Premier Doug Ford, also joining me on Newstalk 1010 on Friday morning made that point clear.

“All investments are on hold,” Ford said, noting investors and business leaders are nervous.

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The just re-elected PC Premier of the country’s largest province has been filling that leadership void created by the Trudeau-Carney dance in Ottawa. While he’s often worked closely with the Trudeau government, he’s recently been calling them out for policies he says are hurting the Canadian economy like approving projects such as mines.

“We can’t be waiting 20 years for a permit to get our critical minerals out of the ground and into the markets to refining the critical minerals here in Ontario,” Ford said regarding the Ring of Fire proposal in Northern Ontario.

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The Ring of Fire has been talked about for decades – proposals to start building roads into the remote area and engaging in mining with local First Nations partners have been met with resistance over the past several years. At times, the Liberal government in office has slowed down attempts to push ahead with the project. At other times, protests fronted by First Nations groups further away from the project have been an impediment.

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Ford said that despite Trump’s claims of wanting auto jobs to move south – one source said the demand was 50% of auto jobs move from Canada to the U.S. – the Americans simply can’t fill those jobs.

“The U.S. doesn’t even have workers to fill the jobs they have. And I talked to a bunch of auto part manufacturers, and they’re all complaining about the workforce and the communities that they have plants in the U.S.,” Ford said.

Still, one needs to be concerned about the bluster and threats and act to insulate ourselves.

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Poilievre also said that in order to be competitive, he wants to cut income taxes and taxes on work and investment.

“I want to get rid of all the taxes on energy that the Liberals have brought in so our factories can get humming and producing without this horrible burden on their shoulders we call the carbon tax,” he said.

We need new thinking, we need ideas that will. As Poilievre said, unleash Canada’s economy. Both Poilievre and Ford are looking in the right direction.

Staying on the same path we’ve been on under Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government in Ottawa is a recipe for disaster in this new Trump world.

blilley@postmedia.com

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