Saskatchewan’s premier urged de-escalation in the looming trade war with the United States, one day before a sweeping 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods was set to take effect.
However, later in the day Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the tariff on all Canadian goods was going to be delayed for 30 days, after multiple conversations with U.S. President Donald Trump. According to Trudeau, it was the two leaders' first time speaking since Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20.
In a press conference Monday morning, Premier Scott Moe expressed dismay at seeing the decades of relatively free trade on the continent come under threat, and a willingness to placate the American President with a proposal to beef up security at the border by placing Canadian Forces troops along the 49th parallel.
“What do we need to do as we move forward,” Moe asked, saying he’s called on Canada’s intergovernmental affairs minister Dominic Leblanc to reconsider the retaliatory tariffs.
“If we find ourselves in a broad tariff war, or trade war, where everything that is flowing north and south is subject to tariffs, Canadians will lose,” he said. “We are an exporting province, and we are an exporting nation, and we should not be heading that direction.”
Moe says he’s heading to Washington this week, and he hoped to see Canada negotiate an extension on the imposition of tariffs like the one announced for Mexico earlier in the day.
“We have to implore on one individual; one individual — President Trump — that seems bent on using these tariffs in some way, shape or form, to destabilize the investment environment that we have in North America, to destabilize the energy and food security that we have been able to acquire in North America over the course of the last number of decades and maybe even the century, and the significant role that Saskatchewan plays in this,” said Moe.
“The North American integrated economy across that 49th parallel is no accident,” he said.
While he lamented the use of tariffs as a political tool, Moe seemed to agree with Trump on the issue of border security.
The premier suggested pulling the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) under the umbrella of the military so troops can be placed along the border and allowing the CBSA’s current budget to be counted toward the country’s military funding commitments.
“It’s not about obeying … But changing the mind of one individual,” said Moe.
“This is a beneficial relationship, and has proven to be, for many, many decades.”
Sask. NDP seeks retaliation to U.S. tariffs
Most Saskatchewan NDP MLAs convened at the legislature Monday morning for an emergency caucus meeting as the party said it was “ready to do the work and mount a united front against U.S. President Donald Trump’s 25 per cent tariff on Canadian exports.”
NDP leader Carla Beck spoke about the importance of a unified response and called on Premier Scott Moe to recall the Legislature.
Beck says she sent a letter to Moe on Sunday that outlined the importance of a response to what she called an “unprecedented attack” by the Trump administration.
“We are asking for all measures to be on the table to mount a response to a fight that frankly we didn’t pick but we are not going to back away from,” Beck said.
Beck said her party has heard from Saskatchewan people who say they are scared and angry and hoping to see a response from the provincial and federal governments.
“Our MLAs are here today, they are ready to continue to do this work, continue to reach out to their contacts on both sides of the border and prepared to start putting forward ideas that are going to show that we are serious [and] we won’t take this attack lying down,” Beck said.
Beck pointed to pulling American liquor off the shelves in Saskatchewan, something that numerous other provinces have already committed to, as well as reviewing procurement and contracts with American companies.
“They want to see livelihoods, they want to see jobs protected here in Saskatchewan and that is exactly what we are prepared to do.”
Beck also said that it is important American’s realize that a trade war between Canada and the U.S. cuts both ways.
“We’ve heard some American groups and leaders speaking out on this fact [and] we need to continue to work with them to make sure that consumers on both sides that these measures taken by the U.S. are going to have deep and grave consequences for people on both sides of the border.”
