OTTAWA – As Canada prepares for the implementation of reciprocal tariffs on Wednesday, a prominent Canadian political figure suggests this could be the beginning of a new era in Canada-U.S. relations, one without cross-border taxes.
Maxime Bernier, former foreign affairs minister under Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper and current leader of the People’s Party of Canada (PPC), stated in an interview from Halifax that it is “absolutely” the right time for Canada to eliminate all tariffs on goods from the U.S.
He argued that the tariffs imposed on the U.S. earlier this year under the previous Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as a response to Trump’s 25% tariffs on Canada, “won’t hurt the Americans – it is hurting Canadians.”
Canada’s new Prime Minister Mark Carney, in a statement following his March 28 conversation with the U.S. President – their first since Carney’s election as Liberal leader nearly three weeks prior – indicated that Canada would introduce retaliatory tariffs in response to the U.S. “trade actions” scheduled for Wednesday.
The PPC leader proposed that Trump should be told that “the real reciprocal response” to tariffs is “zero on our side, zero on your side.”
Bernier criticized Carney and Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre for being “fake patriots using a dollar-for-dollar trade war against Trump” and telling Canadians: “That’s the best thing to do.”
“We cannot impose counter-tariffs,” Bernier said, emphasizing his experience as industry minister under Harper.
He warned that “The Americans are 10 times bigger than us. We won’t win a trade war,” predicting that retaliation will cause a recession in Canada.
Tony Clement, a former Conservative politician who served with Bernier in Harper’s Cabinet, commented that “from an economic point of view,” removing Canadian tariffs “makes a lot of sense” and “may come to that at some point, but the public isn’t there right now.”
“From a point of view of the emotional wounds of Canadians created by Trump and his annexation talk and tariffs, I’m not sure that a political voice would survive if it went down that public-policy route,” Clement stated, noting he is currently campaigning in the Toronto area for Poilievre’s Conservative Party before the April 28 general election. “There is complete distrust of whatever Trump says because it can change within 24 hours.”
He added that both he and have stressed the need to remove “the specter of tariffs for a long period of time – if you can trust Trump to be a bona fide negotiator.”
Clement cautioned that eliminating Canadian tariffs without a corresponding commitment from Trump could “show weakness to a bully.” Before entering federal politics in 2006, Clement was a Cabinet minister in former Ontario Premier Mike Harris’ Progressive Conservative government.
In his post-conversation statement with Trump, Carney mentioned that both leaders “agreed to begin comprehensive negotiations about a new economic and security relationship immediately following the election.”
Conservative strategist Yaroslav Baran, who managed communications for Harper’s successful 2004 leadership campaign and served as war room communications director for the Harper-led Tories during the 2004, 2006, and 2008 federal elections, explained that under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), “trade in goods and services ought to be tariff-free” between Canada and the U.S., with some exceptions for Canadian dairy, eggs, poultry, and softwood lumber.
However, Baran added that he “can’t see the removal of all Canadian tariffs on U.S. products as long as the U.S. has tariffs on Canadian products.”
Bernier admitted that while Trump’s tariffs would harm Canadian exporters, “the solution is to have a more productive economy with real free-market reforms” in Canada, such as lowering corporate taxes, promoting internal trade, and encouraging growth in the oil and gas sector. These measures are part of the PPC’s that includes creating a “Department of Government Downsizing” to eliminate “ideologically motivated programs that promote wokeism,” similar to Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
The PPC leader also suggested that Canada should be prepared to “put everything on the table” under “right now” before the trilateral trade deal undergoes a joint review next year.
According to Bernier, this should include ending the “cartel” of supply management, which sets quotas and prices and protects Canada’s dairy, poultry, and egg sectors from foreign competition. He described it as “a communist system” that results in Canadians paying twice as much for these agricultural products as Americans, and which also imposes duties – ranging from 150% to 300% — on U.S. imports of the same products beyond the limits agreed to but not yet reached under the USMCA.
During the 2018 renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement that led to the USMCA, the first Trump administration sought to eliminate Canada’s supply management system.