“It was an absolute shock,“ Matthew Holmes, vice president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, told AFP. “There’s an incredible anxiety that comes from the unpredictability and the uncertainty.”
Earlier this month US President Trump announced 25 percent tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports, then granted a 30-day reprieve.
Canada must prepare for the tariffs by removing barriers to trade between provinces and diversify its export markets, Holmes said. “We need to be ready and have the infrastructure and relationships and start building those out now.”
- 'No quick fix' -
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently hosted a summit in Toronto that brought business leaders together to discuss ways of growing the Canadian economy, including removing internal trade barriers, diversifying export markets and boosting productivity.
But that may be easier said than done, according to Robert Gillezeau, an economics professor at the University of Toronto.
“For some sectors, it’ll be a little bit easier” to disentangle from the United States, Gillezeau said.
The food industry is a case in point.
But it is not possible for the company -- which is one of the largest distributors of fruits and vegetables in Quebec and Ontario with nearly 3,000 customers including restaurants and hotels -- to find substitutes for all of its American offerings.
The removal of interprovincial trade barriers was flagged in a report as a way to boost Canada's economy as far back as 1940.
Removing these barriers would improve productivity and increase Canadian GDP, but “would take a level of effort and coordination that we rarely see in the federation,“ Gillezeau said.
She explained that removing the barriers -- such as alcohol sales restrictions, different labelling rules, varying professional licensing certifications, and independent dairy marketing boards in each province -- could lower prices by 15 percent, boost productivity and inject up to Can$200 billion into the economy.
Some are also calling for east-west oil and gas pipeline projects to be revived in order to lessen dependency on US infrastructure. Oil from western Alberta, for example, is currently shipped via a pipeline that dips into the United States before emerging in Ontario.
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