An Ottawa city councillor headed to Washington D.C. last week as part of a Canadian delegation invited to participate in a municipal conference amid deepening strains in the U.S.-Canada relationship.
Beacon Hill-Cyrville Coun. Tim Tierney, who serves as the vice-president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, says he’s optimistic in the “productive” and “positive” conversations he had with municipal counterparts in the United States and says cities will play a major role in resolving the growing tariff war between the two counties.
“This is the first time in 15 years I’ve been on council that we’ve had to send delegations and work with our American partners directly to make sure that the cooler heads in these conversations prevail and try to get a resolution,” he said in an interview after returning to Ottawa.
The annual National League of Cities Congressional City Conference brought more than 2,800 local American leaders to speak on policy and build partnerships that impact municipalities. As part of a three-person Canadian delegation, Tierney says they spoke to leaders in both parties on the negative impact the tariffs will have on the U.S. economy.
“Our goal was to listen, observe, and then also do our presentations and speak individually with everybody we could, and I’ve met some amazing tremendous people, and they do have Republicans and Democrats,”
This year’s keynote speaker, Vice President JD Vance, brought a different tone to the conference.
The speech was met with several interruptions from hecklers and booing as Vance urged local leaders to cooperate with President Donald Trump’s policies and taunted certain members of the audience.
“I did have the opportunity also to listen in and be part of the conversation from the Vice President of the United States, JD Vance, to hear where the president’s head may be, but at the same token, it was a very confusing conversation that took place there at the convention,” he said.
The conference came as the two countries have engaged in a back-and-forth trade war after Trump imposed – then paused – 25 per cent tariffs on all goods coming from Canada. On Tuesday, Trump said he would impose double tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum but walked it back after Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he would halt a retaliatory electricity surcharge.
Tierney says the tariffs will have a deep impact for cities on both side of the border, including Ottawa. He cites breweries as an example of the businesses that will feel the impact of steel and aluminum costs increasing.
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Another business in his ward produces sensors for F-35 fighter jets – all will be tariffed by the U.S.
“We presented prime examples, whether it’s potash for farming and fertilizers, whether it’s lumber and timber… whether it’s talking about the costs of the impacts on cars going back and forth between the borders for manufacturing, all the way down to tourism,” he said.
Tierney says he even had some members at the conference “apologize for the rhetoric” from U.S. leaders.
“Cooler heads must prevail, but I did make it very clear that we are an independent nation which is very well respected, just like we respect them, but as we say, elbows up, we are willing to fight. But we don’t want to do that, we want to sit down and get this resolved,” he said.
Tierney says the municipalities will be part of the solution in pressuring the U.S. federal government to reverse the tariffs, but says many have been afraid to speak out.
“These new relationships that we have formed doing this is going to lead to us getting the message to the people that hold the purse strings,” he said.
