Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be convening a meeting of all of Canada’s premiers “this week” to discuss U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s intent to impose a 25 per cent tariff on all products from Canada and Mexico on his first day in office, if border issues aren’t addressed.
“One of the really important things is that we be all pulling together on this. The Team Canada approach is what works,” Trudeau said, reacting to the major trade threat ahead of Tuesday’s closed-door cabinet meeting on Parliament Hill.
The Prime Minister’s Office has confirmed the meeting will be held virtually, on Wednesday, at 5 p.m. EST.
Hours before Trump declared his intent to hit Canada with this sizeable tariff, Canada’s premiers had penned a letter to the prime minister asking him to hold an urgent first ministers' meeting before Trump re-takes office.
Noting that he talked to a few premiers last night – including Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Quebec Premier Francois Legault – the prime minister said he agreed the group needed to get together to “talk about the United States.”
Ford, who chairs the Council of the Federation, called Trump lumping Canada in with Mexico “unfair” and “insulting.”
“It’s like a family member stabbing you right in the heart,” Ford said. He welcomed the coming premiers' meeting and said he hopes it doesn’t come to Canada having to retaliate.
“We’re going to do everything we can to make sure that we understand their concerns, address their concerns,” Ford said.
In the hours since Trump issued this warning, reaction has poured in from politicians of all levels and political leanings, as well as from key cross-border stakeholders, warning about the major impacts on sectors across the country.
Official Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre called Trump’s threat “unjustified,” but panned the Liberal government for exclaiming when Trump won the U.S. presidential election that “Canada will be absolutely fine.”
In stating he was intending to put partisanship aside, Poilievre called on the prime minister to present “a plan to put Canada first on the economy and on security” that starts with halting the next carbon tax increase. He also said if he was prime minister he’d retaliate “if necessary.”
Trudeau talks ‘facts’ with Trump
Trudeau spoke directly to Trump on Monday night, describing it as “a good call.”
“We obviously talked about laying out the facts, talking about how the intense and effective connections between our two countries flow back and forth. We talked about some of the challenges that we can work on together,” Trudeau told reporters on Tuesday.
“This is something that we can do. Laying out the facts, moving forward in constructive ways. This is a relationship that we know takes a certain amount of working on and that’s what we’ll do,” the prime minister said.
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland and Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, echoed their Monday night statement about work already underway, but offered little additional information in a scrum with reporters Tuesday afternoon.
“President Trump’s comments last evening are an opportunity for us to say to Canadians that we absolutely share the Americans concern around the integrity of the border, the security of the border. In fact, this is work that we have been doing jointly with the United States for decades,” LeBlanc said.
When the chairs of the recently-revived Canada-U.S. relations cabinet committee were asked whether Canada would retaliate, Freeland did not directly answer.
Trudeau re-formed the special cabinet committee in response to Trump’s win and it has been meeting for a few weeks to navigate top issues as flagged by the incoming administration, such as trade and the border.
Ministers who make up this panel have also spoken about the need for a renewed “Team Canada” approach, in the face of what could be a fresh round of high-stakes trade talks, and the prospect of retaliatory tariffs, as seen during the Trump-sparked NAFTA renegotiation.
“I’ve had numerous conversations with key American leaders, and I’ll continue to operate diplomatically,” said Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly on Tuesday.
Industry Minister — and Team Canada co-lead — François-Philippe Champagne said Tuesday that there’s “no doubt” Trump’s threats need to be taken “seriously,” while noting there’s still two months before Trump is back in the Oval Office to “engage.”
“We’ll make sure that everything that we have said about the strategic nature of a relationship, about security, supply-chain resiliency, and making sure that they understand that this would have an impact on the U.S. economy, if you just think about the energy sector in particular,” he said.
Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson told reporters that he intends to focus “on mutual benefits,” in conversations with his incoming counterparts. Last year, according to the government, 60 per cent of American crude oil imports came from Canada.
“Canada has had an integrated energy market for a long time,” he said. “That’s not just oil and gas, that’s hydroelectricity that feeds New York and Boston, it’s potash that feeds people across the United States, it’s uranium that powers nuclear facilities,” Wilkinson said.
He later told reporters that he didn’t think Trump’s pledge is just bluster.
“I think President Trump wants to ensure that he’s effectively representing American interests. My job is to represent Canadian interests,” he said.
The looming tariff imposition was a leading issue raised in question period this afternoon. Later, the House of Commons will hold an emergency debate on the issue, after the Speaker granted both Poilievre and NDP Canada-U.S. border relations critic Brian Masse’s request for one.
Trump threat stems from border concerns
Trump posted on social media platform Truth Social Monday night that as of Jan. 20, “as one of my many first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States, and its ridiculous Open Borders.”
The president-elect said the tariffs would stay, until the two border countries address what he called the “long simmering problem” of drugs and illegal immigrants crossing into the United States.
“We hereby demand that they use this power, and until such time that they do, it is time for them to pay a very big price!” Trump said.
This comes after Trump’s pick for border czar called the northern border “an extreme national security vulnerability,” and after the top Republican campaigned on the threat of a blanket 10 per cent or more import tariff.
According to a senior government source, Trudeau noted on his calls with Trump that the number of migrants who cross from Canada to the U.S. is far smaller than those who come through Mexico, and the two leaders vowed to stay in touch.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection data indicates the Americans recorded 1,520,523 enforcement encounters on the U.S. border with Mexico, and 23,721 on the Canadian side, between October 2023 and September 2024.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller said Tuesday that Canada has a shared interest in ensuring the border is secure, and “there’s a number of measures that we are considering in any event, regardless of what the incoming administration would have been.”
Poilievre presses economic impact
As the Bank of Canada emphasized Tuesday, the tariffs would impact both economies. Seizing on this, Poilievre noted that the U.S. is responsible for $1.2 trillion of Canada’s trade.
“We trade almost twice as much with the Americans as we trade with the rest of the world, combined. Trade with the U.S. is 40 per cent of our economy,” he said.
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce had estimated based on the initial 10 per cent tariff prospect, that “if other countries retaliated with tariffs of their own, the ensuing trade war would result in roughly US$800 USD (C$1,100) in foregone income annually for people on both sides of the border.”
Author of that report University of Calgary economics professor Trevor Tombe posted on X Monday night that if Trump does impose a 25 per cent tariff next year, the Canadian economy could enter a recession.
“Being America’s “nice neighbour” won’t get us anywhere in this situation. President-elect Trump’s intention to impose 25 per cent tariffs signals that the U.S.-Canada trade relationship is no longer about mutual benefit. To him, it’s about winners and losers—with Canada on the losing end,” said Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s President and CEO Candace Laing in a statement on Tuesday.
“We’re facing a significant shift in the relationship between long-standing allies. Canada’s signature approach needs to evolve. We must be prepared to take a couple of punches if we’re going to stake out our position. It’s time to trade “sorry” for “sorry, not sorry.”
With files from CTV News' Vassy Kapelos, Brennan MacDonald, Mike Le Couteur, and Spencer Van Dyk