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CBC
17-05-2025
- Business
- CBC
University of Calgary launches initiative to study new relationship with the U.S.
Alberta is putting $6.5 million toward a new initiative at the University of Calgary to study how Canada's relationship with the United States is changing with U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House. "It's no secret that our relationship has hit a rocky patch these past few months," said Premier Danielle Smith on Friday. "And while tensions have ridden high, let us be clear — this relationship is far from over." The funds, to be provided over three years, will establish the New North America Initiative based in the university's School of Public Policy. Researchers will be tasked with developing a vision of what the continental relationship could become at a time of increasing trade uncertainty and geopolitical turmoil. "I think it's clear to everyone that we aren't going back to where we were a few years ago, or even during the first Trump administration," said Carlo Dade, the School of Public Policy's international policy director. Trump's first administration turned into a stress test for the federal government when he hit Canada with steel and aluminum tariffs and ripped up the North American Free Trade Agreement. Negotiations on the deal that replaced NAFTA — the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade, or CUSMA — were tense, and former prime minister Justin Trudeau had a notoriously rocky relationship with Trump. The continental trade pact was still hailed a success. Canadians who expected to see the friendly bilateral relationship with the U.S. restored with the passage of CUSMA were taken aback by the unprecedented tariffs and annexation threats that accompanied Trump's return to the White House. Many were appalled when Canada became an early target of the president's insults — but many never expected Trump to follow through on his tariff threats. "We have consistently misjudged what a Trump administration will do," Dade said. Trump hit Canada with economy-wide duties in March, then partially walked them back a few days later for imports compliant with CUSMA. Canada is also being hit with levies on steel, aluminum and automobiles. Canada can no longer continue "driving forward by looking in the rear-view mirror instead of looking clearly at what lies ahead and what's coming," Dade said. Canadians must abandon their nostalgic attachment to the old relationship, he said, and imagine instead what it could become. The university's initiative will have interrelated parts. It will conduct research on immediate challenges facing Albertans due to the deterioration of relations with the United States. It also will set up collaboration between Albertans and researchers at American universities to help them better understand each other. 'We need new thinking' Martha Hall Findlay, director of the School of Public Policy, said in a media statement that "we need new thinking and new ways of engaging, and we need the work behind this to come from new places and new voices on both sides of the border." Dade said the fact that the work will be done outside both Ottawa and Washington will help it break away from traditional thinking and come up with ideas to solve problems facing both countries. Cabinet minister Rajan Sawhney, who was moved from advanced education to the Indigenous relations portfolio on Friday, said there is very little research dedicated to the study of Canada-U.S. relations at Canadian universities. She said it too often "fails to reflect the priorities or even the realities of Western Canada." The new Alberta initiative comes after Trump signed an executive order to essentially shut down an influential think tank Canadians have used for many years to get their messages out in Washington, D.C. The March order shuttered nearly all operations at the Wilson Center and terminated its Canada Institute. Christopher Sands, who was the Canada Institute's director, said it's essential that Canadians continue to have meaningful conversations with Americans as the relationship between the two countries changes. "We've come to the end of what we will look back on as being a very special period in the relationship," said Sands, director of Johns Hopkins University's Center for Canadian Studies. Canadians were "lulled into a sense of false complacency," Sands said, but Trump's tariffs have shown the need for urgent action. Canada can no longer assume that everything will go back to normal, he said. Shifting American views on Canada and trade suggest that think tanks also need to adapt, Sands said. The New North America Initiative could meet the moment, he added. Dade said the initiative will also listen to voices in what he calls the "New Right" and "New Left" to understand what could come after the current Trump administration.
Calgary Herald
16-05-2025
- Business
- Calgary Herald
Varcoe: Alberta-led initiative to delve into complex cross-border relationship – from a Western Canadian vantage point
Article content The initiative will hold a roundtable meeting Friday with researchers from both sides of the 49th parallel. Experts from Rice University, the University of Colorado, Arizona State University and the University of Nebraska will participate, along with Canadian researchers. Article content 'There is a realization we need something new, and there's a realization that is not coming out of Ottawa,' said Carlo Dade, director of international policy at the U of C's School of Public Policy. Article content 'Why not have it come out of the West? Why does work on North America have to be confined to capitals? Others across the continent deal with the impacts of these changes. Maybe we are in a better position to understand the new U.S., than folks who were so deeply, deeply grounded in the old way of thinking.' Article content Article content The importance of the Canada-U.S. relationship can't be overstated for this country's economy. Last year, about three-quarters of all Canadian exports headed to the United States, while 62 per cent of our imports came from our southern neighbour. Article content Article content Driven by increasing energy exports, Canada's merchandise trade surplus with the U.S. topped $102 billion. Article content The north-south trade links run deep, and access to the massive U.S. markets has previously come at relatively low or no cost for many businesses. Article content In Alberta, 89 per cent of the province's exports last year were destined for American customers, led by $134 billion of energy and minerals trade. Article content More than $9 billion of food and agricultural products, and almost $5 billion of machinery, also moved south. Article content 'Alberta is the economic engine of this country in so many different ways, and we have never really had a dedicated effort in understanding what this relationship has been, what it is now, and what it could be in the future,' said Sawhney, who studied economics at the University of Calgary. Article content 'How can we be more prepared for any other shocks that might be heading our way.' Article content The new initiative will conduct CUSMA analysis and modelling on the impact of tariffs, and work with municipalities to help them better prepare for the fallout of trade uncertainty. Article content Article content Dade said the research will involve students, and there's a realization that Canada needs to start training a new generation of experts on U.S. trade and the complex continental relationships. Article content The group also wants to conduct polling and focus groups with U.S. partners. Article content 'Had (Canada) been prepared for tariffs, we would have done more economic modelling, we'd have systems in place to help the small businesses deal with the tariff shocks. We would have had all of this work done and ready to go,' Dade said. Article content 'It's coast to coast to coast in Canada — no one was really prepared for this, and we can't repeat that mistake going forward.' Article content Following Mark Carney's meeting with Trump in the White House last week, the prime minister talked about Canada's willingness to start a broader discussion on the economic and security relationship between the countries. Article content The two leaders will meet in June at the G7 summit in Kananaskis. Article content Gitane De Silva, who served as Alberta's senior representative to the U.S. during Trump's first term, said the two countries needed to reset the relationship, which she believes began with Carney's trip to Washington. Article content She said the pace at which Trump's administration is moving has caught people by surprise on both sides of the border. Article content
Winnipeg Free Press
30-04-2025
- Business
- Winnipeg Free Press
Productivity, competition keys to prosperity
Carlo Dade brought a piece of advice on his trip to Winnipeg: rethink the future. Mega regions — or clusters of cities combining resources — are investment boons and a threat to Manitoba's economic prospects, he warned. Meantime, the rules-based global trade Canadians have come to expect is disrupted. 'It's not about surviving (U.S. President Donald) Trump, it's about surviving generational change in the U.S.,' Dade told the Free Press ahead of his lecture to Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce members. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Carlo Dade, director of public policy at the University of Calgary's School of Public Policy, speaks Tuesday at ECONx at the RBC Convention Centre in Winnipeg. The chamber held its first economic summit Tuesday in partnership with the City of Winnipeg. The daylong event, called ECONx, was pushed back from November; organizers postponed once Trump was elected, hoping uncertainty would subside. Lagging productivity, Winnipeg's economic future and the areas within private-sector control were explored during speeches and sessions. 'When I see Manitoba and Winnipeg abroad, and I see Calgary abroad, I see them talking about city-to-city comparisons,' said Dade, a senior fellow with the Canada West Foundation, an Alberta-based think tank. '(But) the complexity and risk, the level of competition (for investment) has gone up.' Winnipeg doesn't just compete with Minneapolis; it competes with Minneapolis-St. Paul, which draws US$878 million of venture capital annually, per the region's economic development partnership website. Calgary contends with an economic hub including Denver, Fort Collins and Colorado Springs in Colorado and Cheyenne, Wyo., Dade outlined. He highlighted cross-border partnerships like Vancouver, Seattle and Portland, Ore. Trade with the United States will continue to be uncertain post-Trump, Dade forecast: 'I don't see (Manitoba) having understood the severity, the duration and the intensity of the change that's coming to the U.S.' In 2023, $37.4 billion worth of goods crossed the Manitoba-U.S. border, by Canadian Chamber of Commerce numbers. Dade hoped his speech would be a 'come to Jesus moment' for the roughly 250 chamber members in the crowd. He didn't have solutions, Dade added; he wanted to spotlight the issues he foresaw. Meanwhile, Manitoba's productivity scores below the national average, a University of Calgary report shows. The province's GDP has fallen behind mid-sized cities 'we should be outperforming,' said Kevin Selch, chamber board chair and founder of Little Brown Jug Brewing Co. 'It's not the absence of talent, ideas or funding. It's the absence of a unified, co-ordinated push forward,' Selch said in a speech Tuesday. ECONx was created to be a platform for executives to learn 'tangible steps' they could take to advance economic growth, said Loren Remillard, president of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce. 'We're not looking, necessarily, for government to always lead the way and have the answers,' Remillard said. 'There's still uncertainty (in the economy), but there's certainty that chaos seems to be the one thing that you can bank on.' Booking a Google Cloud manager as the morning keynote speaker was intentional. Artificial intelligence is under-utilized among Winnipeg's small- and medium-sized businesses, Remillard stated. 'This is how we're going to address the productivity issue,' he said of AI. 'That's how we're going to be able to really offset some of the challenges from the United States.' Sam Sebastian, vice-president and Canada country manager for Google Cloud, appealed to Winnipeg's business crowd. One of the biggest hurdles to AI adoption is company culture and an unwillingness to change, he said. Canada has led G7 countries in AI-related scholarly output per capita since 2019, a government of Canada report reads. 'We stand at the cusp of a transformation unlike what we've ever seen before,' Sebastian said. 'We need to embrace adoption to secure future competitiveness.' Using AI as a work assistant, including for finding information and synthesizing data, will make employees more productive, Sebastian said. Mayor Scott Gillingham attended Sebastian's talk. In his 2024 state of the city address, he challenged Winnipeg's chamber to lead a conversation about the capital's economic future; the speech sparked ECONx. 'We cannot afford, as a city, to coast,' Gillingham told the crowd Tuesday. 'We must innovate and we must be productive.' His message comes amid a broad investment pause. Tariffs and U.S.-created uncertainty have led Manitoba businesses to put plans on ice. During Elections Get campaign news, insight, analysis and commentary delivered to your inbox during Canada's 2025 election. 'There's an old saying: never waste a crisis. A crisis is also a time for an opportunity,' Gillingham told reporters Tuesday. The City of Winnipeg must do its part to create a business-friendly environment, he added. KPMG is working on a review of the city's permitting and development process and an artificial intelligence 311 chatbot is in its testing phase. Gillingham didn't have timelines for either project's completion. The future of work, equitable economic growth and sustainable growth were among the topics covered Tuesday. ECONx might run again in two years, Remillard said. The chamber plans to assess event outcomes before launching another summit. Gabrielle PichéReporter Gabrielle Piché reports on business for the Free Press. She interned at the Free Press and worked for its sister outlet, Canstar Community News, before entering the business beat in 2021. Read more about Gabrielle. Every piece of reporting Gabrielle produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
