Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the country’s premiers will hold an emergency meeting on Wednesday to discuss the threat of steep new U.S. tariffs.
The meeting will be held virtually at 5 p.m., the Prime Minister’s Office said.
On Monday night, U.S. president-elect Donald Trump threatened to impose a 25 per cent import tariff on goods coming from Canada and Mexico the day he takes office in January.
Trump made the comments on Truth Social, saying the tariffs would remain in effect until Canada and Mexico stop illegal border crossings and prevent drugs like fentanyl from entering the U.S.
Trudeau said he had a good call with Trump Monday evening.
“We obviously talked about laying out the facts, talking about how the intense and effective connections between our two countries flow back and forth. We talked about some of the challenges that we can work on together,” Trudeau said on his way into the weekly cabinet meeting Tuesday morning.
“It was a good call. This is something we can do, laying out the facts in constructive ways. This is a relationship we know takes a certain amount of working on and that’s what we’ll do.”
Before Trump’s post on Monday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford had asked for an urgent meeting between the premiers and Trudeau to prepare for the new administration.
That request took on new urgency following Trump’s post.
Trudeau spoke by phone on Monday with Ford, who chairs the Council of the Federation, and other premiers including Quebec Premier François Legault.
At a press conference on Tuesday, Ford called the tariff threats serious and unfounded.
But if Trump follows through on the threat, Canada would have no choice but to retaliate, Ford said.
“I found his comments unfair. I found them insulting. It’s like a family member stabbing you right in the heart,” he said in Toronto.
“To compare us to Mexico is the most insulting thing I’ve ever heard from our friends and closest allies, the United States of America.”
Trudeau needs to do better on border security, and give more resources to the Canada Border Services Agency to secure the borders and address the flow of drugs, Ford said.
“One ounce of any illegal drug is one ounce too many going back and forth across the border,” he said.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller suggested Tuesday the government is looking at what additional resources are needed at the border.
The Trudeau government has been preparing for the possibility of another Trump presidency for nearly a year, reigniting their previous effort.
“One of the really important things is that we be all pulling together on this. The Team Canada approach is what works,” Trudeau said.
Cabinet ministers and provincial officials have been dispatched south of the border to meet with people around Trump who could influence U.S. policy.
That included governors, business leaders, unions and members of Congress.
The week Trump was re-elected, Trudeau also restored the Canada-U. S. relations cabinet committee that had been dormant since Joe Biden won the 2020 election.
That committee has met several times already and was in the midst of a meeting Monday night when Trump posted his tariff threat on Truth Social.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said in a statement Monday night that Canada places “the highest priority on border security and the integrity of our shared border.”
She also stressed that cross-border trade between the two countries is significant, noting in particular that 60 per cent of U.S. crude oil imports came from Canada last year.
A 25 per cent tariff on those imports is expected to immediately jack up gas prices for American consumers.
