"Canadians will be our own best customer": PM Mark Carney on building economic self-reliance amid US tariff hike
Stressing a shift towards economic self-reliance, Carney said the government is focused on domestic strength and long-term national resilience.
'Canadians will be our own best customer, creating more well-paying careers at home,' Carney said. 'We can give ourselves more than any foreign government can ever take away by building with Canadian workers and by using Canadian resources to benefit all Canadians.'
'While the Canadian government is disappointed by this action, we remain committed to CUSMA, which is the world's second-largest free trade agreement by trading volume,' Carney said in an official statement on Thursday.
The Canadian Prime Minister emphasized that while the US application of CUSMA keeps the average tariff rate on Canadian goods among the lowest of any US trading partner, key sectors such as 'lumber, steel, aluminum, and automobiles' continue to face heavy duties and tariffs.
'For such sectors, the Canadian government will act to protect Canadian jobs, invest in our industrial competitiveness, buy Canadian, and diversify our export markets,' the statement added.
Carney also rejected the US justification for the tariffs, which cited the cross-border flow of fentanyl. 'Canada accounts for only 1% of U.S. fentanyl imports and has been working intensively to further reduce these volumes,' he noted.
Highlighting Canada's investments to combat drug trafficking and transnational crime, Carney stated that the government is supporting law enforcement and border security with 'thousands of new law enforcement and border security officers, aerial surveillance, intelligence and security operations, and the strongest border legislation in our history.'
'We will continue working with the United States to stop the scourge of fentanyl and save lives in both our countries,' he said.
While confirming continued negotiations with the US, Carney said the Canadian government is 'laser focused' on domestic priorities. 'The federal government, provinces and territories are working together to cut down trade barriers to build one Canadian economy.'
He added that Canada is pursuing 'major nation-building projects' with provincial, territorial, and Indigenous partners that could catalyze over half a trillion dollars in new investments. (ANI)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Toronto Sun
14 minutes ago
- Toronto Sun
Canada weighs retaliation cost against Trump tariffs as analysts warn hitting back isn't worth it
Published Aug 02, 2025 • Last updated 10 minutes ago • 4 minute read Tractor trailers entering the U.S. from Canada at the Pacific Highway Border Crossing in Blaine, Washington, on Monday, March 3, 2025. Photo by David Ryder / Bloomberg Canada's decision to retaliate against U.S. tariffs earlier this year appears to be driving a divergence in how President Donald Trump is dealing with America's neighbours. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account Until this week, Canada and Mexico received similar treatment in White House trade actions. Each was subject to a 25% base tariff, with a large exemption for goods shipped under the North American free trade pact known as CUSMA (or USMCA). That changed on Thursday, when Trump granted Mexico a 90-day pause on tariff hikes while jacking up its tax on Canadian products to 35%. The administration said Canada's higher rate was a response to fentanyl trafficking and its moves to hit back with counter-tariffs. The situation leaves Prime Minister Mark Carney with a political dilemma. On one hand, he won an election by promising a muscular approach to the trade war, saying the government would use tariffs to cause 'maximum pain' in the US. His voters remember that, and some want him to punch back. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Yet the retaliatory measures already undertaken failed to prevent further escalations. Instead, they appear to have emboldened Trump's team to hit even harder. U.S. administration officials including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick frequently talk about how only two countries retaliated against Trump's tariffs — the other was China. 'Canada's retaliatory trade measures against the United States further complicate bilateral efforts to address this escalating drug crisis,' the White House said in a fact sheet, referencing fentanyl. But Mexico is a much larger source of shipments of the drug into the U.S., according to Customs and Border Protection data. Carney, an economist and former central banker, has also made it plain he believes retaliation can only go so far. In fact, his government has watered down Canada's counter-tariffs with a number of exemptions, declined to increase them when the U.S. lifted steel and aluminum tariffs to 50% and scrapped a tax on technology services at Trump's request. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Dominic LeBlanc, the minister in charge of trade talks, told Radio-Canada on Friday the government hasn't made any decisions about further retaliation. But Carney is clearly reluctant to do so — which 'reflects the reality that counter-tariffs are understood to be economically harmful to the country which imposes them,' said David Collins, a professor specializing in international trade at City St George's, University of London. The government's priority is to keep the CUSMA carve-out that dramatically lowers the real tax on Canadian goods. The effective U.S. tariff rate on Canada is about 6.3%, according to Bank of Nova Scotia economists. 'A more diplomatic approach is likely to bear more fruit with the Americans,' Collins said. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Canada imposed two rounds of counter-tariffs in March, when Justin Trudeau was in his final days as prime minister. The first placed 25% levies on about $30 billion of imports from the U.S. that included food items, clothing and motorcycles. The second came when Trump put tariffs on steel and aluminum. Then, when Trump added tariffs to foreign automobiles, Carney essentially matched that move, imposing similar fees on U.S. cars and trucks. But in mid-April, the government unveiled a series of exemptions for business inputs — goods imported for use in manufacturing and food packaging, as well as things needed for health care, public safety and security. Automakers such as General Motors Co. and Honda Motor Co. that make vehicles at Canadian plants were also made eligible for relief from import taxes. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The large majority of U.S. products can still enter Canada tariff-free. U.S. companies and other entities exported about $440 billion of goods and services to Canada last year — more than to any other nation. For Canada, 'the logic for escalation over cooperation is just weak,' said Oliver Lavelle, global macro strategist at Thiel Macro LLC. Mexico's Way Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, in contrast, has never imposed counter-tariffs on the U.S. Sheinbaum's position is also supported by her high approval ratings, which have remained above 75% in most polls. 'It's worth saying: President Trump treats us with respect in all the calls we've had, and we do too,' she said during a new conference. 'We may not agree, but the treatment is respectful.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. A statement issued late Thursday night by Carney's office expressed disappointment in Trump's tariff hike on Canada, but made no mention of retaliation. A spokesperson for Carney declined to comment further. LeBlanc said he met with Lutnick on Tuesday night, and that Canadian officials held other meetings throughout the week, but a deal acceptable to both sides 'was not yet visible.' In his statement, Carney acknowledged that lumber, steel, aluminum and autos are still subject to U.S. levies, and said his government 'will act to protect Canadian jobs, invest in our industrial competitiveness, buy Canadian, and diversify its export markets.' 'Jitters' But while the CUSMA exemption gives Canada some breathing room, the sectoral tariffs on steel and aluminum are still harmful and will affect economic growth if they're in place for long, Collins said. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Avery Shenfeld, chief economist at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, said the idea that Canada is getting off lightly is 'both overstated and potentially premature.' Canadian industries are more reliant on U.S. exports than their overseas competitors, and Trump could also chose to weaken the CUSMA exemption at any time, he said in a note to investors. 'We are still hopeful for a deal that relieves at least some of the pressure on base metal exporters,' Shenfeld said. 'But whether any of this lasts will depend on Trump's word, and we've seen how shaky that foundation can be, leaving jitters that could impact business capital spending and confidence ahead.' —With assistance from Mario Baker Ramirez and Carolina Millan. Read More Toronto Blue Jays Columnists Columnists Toronto & GTA Canada
Toronto Sun
44 minutes ago
- Toronto Sun
KINSELLA: Mark Carney's words can have real-life impacts for Jews
And sometimes pronouncements from world leaders, such as Canada's Prime Minister, can have deadly consequences Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney (R), flanked by Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand, speaks during a press conference after a Cabinet meeting to discuss both trade negotiations with the US and the situation in the Middle East, at the National Press Theatre in Ottawa on July 30, 2025. Photo by DAVE CHAN / AFP via Getty Images Canada, France and the United Kingdom recognize a 'state' run by terrorists. Canada's Prime Minister accuses Israel of violating international law. The International Criminal Court issues warrants for the arrest of Israel's Prime Minister. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account Sometimes, such pronouncements made by governments seem completely detached from reality. None of those countries have yet set up an embassy in Gaza City, for example. Nor has Canada commenced a court action against Israel. No country, as far as we know, has attempted to place Benjamin Netanyahu under arrest. But it would be a mistake to shrug about the pronouncements of world leaders, or to dismiss their words as meaningless symbols. For Jews, these dark days, words can have real-life impacts. Sometimes, the consequences can be deadly. CyberWell is an Internet watchdog that closely tracks antisemitism on social media. When the Israel-based non-profit finds hate online, it notifies the social media platforms, and urges them to take it down. And two recent reports by CyberWell show that the words and actions of governments can, and do, result in shocking eruptions in cyber-hate. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. A recent example: the twelve-day war between Israel, the United States and Iran took place in June 2025. That conflict saw Israel launch hundreds of airstrikes against the Islamic republic – and Iran firing thousands of ballistic missiles and suicide drones at Israeli military and civilian targets. Israel was largely seen as the victor. Read More Online, the abbreviated Iran-Israel war had a very different outcome. Online, Iran was the hands-down victor. During and after the conflict, CyberWell found, and 'across platforms like TikTok, Facebook, and X, users once again used digital spaces to post antisemitic rhetoric, incitement to violence, and coded hate speech – at times under the guise of political commentary or religious solidarity.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. It's not a new phenomenon, CyberWell notes, and it's getting worse all the time: 'Each new flashpoint acts as a trigger for dangerous digital discourse that can quickly spill into real-world harm.' For example: during the Iran-Israel war, the words 'Khaybar, Khaybar, O Jews' were all over social media, in the Farsi and Arabic languages. The phrase refers to a long-ago battle in Khaybar, which was a Jewish town in what is now Saudi Arabia – and where Muslim forces massacred the Jewish population. The 'Khaybar, Khaybar, O Jews' slogan has been used, for centuries, to call for pogroms against Jews. On X, as the war commenced, that hateful phrase grew by more than 3,000% over the previous months. Midway through the conflict, it increased by nearly 7,000% over before. By the end of the war, those words had reached three million individual accounts. The Farsi version of the chant far outpaced the Arabic one, too. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Some of the posters were very specific. After activist Eyal Yakoby simply posted a photo of an Israeli apartment building destroyed by an Iranian missile, '@pratynachiyar' wrote: 'Kill everyone from Israel, Iran, good job buddy…let these Jew f**kers leave Earth permanently.' A June 14, 2025, post by activist Eyal Yakoby on X that included a photo of an Israeli apartment building destroyed by an Iranian missile led to a hateful post against Jews by @pratynachiyar. Photo by Posted on X And, tragically, killings were indeed happening. As the Jew hatred was growing dramatically online – as more and more governments were showing a willingness to isolate and attack the Jewish state – actual murders happened. So, just days before the war started, two young Israeli embassy staffers were assassinated outside the Capital Jewish Museum – and the alleged shooter yelled 'Free Palestine' as he was arrested by police. Days later, an elderly Jewish woman died after being set ablaze in Boulder, Colorado – again, by an alleged killer who reportedly yelled 'Free Palestine' – a phrase that was, and is, ubiquitous online. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. As CyberWell puts it: 'These are not isolated incidents. They are part of a dangerous, recurring cycle that CyberWell has repeatedly warned about: inflammatory content spreads online, fuelling real-world hate and violence. Each act of violence or hate speech online reinforces the next, creating a self-perpetuating loop.' The 'loop,' as CyberWell puts it, has recently gone like this: witless Western governments demonize Israel, which leads to antisemitic propagandists doing likewise online, which then legitimizes – and leads to – actual antisemitic crime and violence. It needs to stop. Police and prosecutors need to get better at fighting antisemitic crime. Social media platforms need to do a better job of moderating what's being posted online. And governments, like Canada's, need to recognize that what they say can sometimes result in real-life harm. Sometimes, in fact, it can result in death. Toronto Blue Jays Columnists Canada Sunshine Girls Toronto & GTA
Globe and Mail
an hour ago
- Globe and Mail
Canada Post is a case study in Canadian dysfunctionality
Les Viner was managing partner at Torys LLP for 22 years and was seconded to Canada Post as interim general counsel from October, 2022, to June, 2023. He is a senior fellow with the C.D. Howe Institute. Canada Post, which predates Confederation, is a vital national institution, playing a particularly important role in serving rural, Northern and Indigenous communities across our vast country. But today, Canada Post is effectively insolvent. Indeed, it would have run out of cash had the government not recently extended a billion-dollar lifeline. This situation is no surprise, and it has been developing for a long time. Canada Post has been impeded from adapting to modern business realities because of long-standing labour inflexibility as well as oscillation by prior governments between political indifference and political interference. However Canada Post and its main union, CUPW, resolve their current impasse, a much bigger problem looms for the Crown corporation and the federal government. Explainer: What you need to know about the Canada Post contract dispute William Kaplan, a highly respected mediator and arbitrator, recently examined this stalemate as a commissioner appointed under the Canada Labour Code. In his report this month he described Canada Post as facing an 'existential crisis.' He recommended drastic changes to its operations. And these changes must be made. Our new government said that it will do things differently, promising to act decisively and urgently in charting a new path for our country. It now has a golden opportunity to meet the moment by accepting all of Mr. Kaplan's recommendations and if there is any pushback from any of the parties, by appointing him to do it for them. As letter-mail business continues to erode, the future of Canada Post lies in parcel delivery, which is intensely competitive. Customers expect and demand seven-day-a-week service at competitive prices without undue risk of disruption. Paradoxically, the stakeholders who would be expected to have the keenest interest in ensuring the corporation's viability are blocking the company's ability to succeed. CUPW refuses to allow Canada Post to hire a dedicated force of flexible weekend workers. Meanwhile, workers, who get overtime pay for weekend work, earn more – roughly $30 per hour to start – than their counterparts at unionized competitors and vastly more than their counterparts at non-unionized competitors. As the Kaplan report outlined, those workers with tenure have job security for life, a defined-benefit pension plan, and postretirement benefits indexed to inflation, a multitude of generous leave entitlements, and are paid for eight hours of work whether or not it takes eight hours to complete a route. All these factors make seven-day-a-week parcel delivery impossible to achieve at competitive prices, which means that parcel delivery competitors are taking over most of the market share. Indifference of and interference by prior governments have exacerbated the situation. For example, even though 30 per cent of the thousands of corporate postal outlets classified as rural are now urban or suburban, Canada Post is directed not to close or consolidate any of them. Further, although door-to-door delivery costs 75 per cent more than delivery to community mailboxes, Justin Trudeau's incoming government imposed a moratorium on community mailbox conversions in 2015. The Kaplan report threads the needle. His recommendations include ending the moratoriums on rural post office closings and community mailbox conversions, changing collective agreements to allow for the flexible use of well-paid part-time employees, requiring employees to work the hours for which they are paid, and introducing dynamic routing to adapt routes to daily volumes. His well-reasoned report lays out the path for a future that sustainably preserves the institution of Canada Post and respects labour and other key stakeholders in a fair and balanced approach. Absent urgent structural change, the future of Canada Post will be doomed by private competition, unsustainable demands of labour combined, and no clear directional oversight by the sole shareholder as represented by prior governments. As the world evolved from paper to digital, from letter mail to parcels, and from a relatively benign competitive landscape to an intensively competitive one, politicization of key issues impeded necessary reform, perpetuating a cycle of waste, inefficiency and financial recklessness. Canada Post now loses a billion dollars of taxpayer money each year, and the prognosis is materially worse, absent major change. The operational straitjacket imposed by the union, together with past governments' failure to address the underlying structural issues, mean that Canada Post has effectively been disabled from running an operation that is even remotely commercially sensible. The math simply doesn't work.
