Canada open to deeper integration with U.S. in some sectors, Carney says

Canada open to deeper integration with U.S. in some sectors, Carney says

Speaking to a room of progressive policy experts in Toronto Saturday, Prime Minister Mark Carney offered some insight into what Canada has offered up ahead of an official review of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) this summer.

“Canada remains open to deeper integration,” said Carney, whose government has so far signaled it is in no rush to negotiate a new deal.

“Like Mexico, Canada remains open to deeper integration, including options for fortress North America in (certain) sectors. And to be clear, those offers are on the table,” said the prime minister.


Pretty sure he can’t remember all his lies anymore.

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’I’m not going back’: Canadians stand firm on boycotts of U.S. travel and liquor as trade talks continue

’I’m not going back’: Canadians stand firm on boycotts of U.S. travel and liquor as trade talks continue

A vast majority of Canadians, eight out of 10, still believe boycotting American goods and travel to the U.S. is helpful in strengthening Canada’s bargaining position, according to a new survey by Nanos for CTV News.

Fifty-three per cent of respondents believe a boycott is helpful, while 29 per cent believe it’s somewhat helpful.

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Canadians don’t trust Donald Trump to abide by a new trade deal, poll suggests

Canadians don’t trust Donald Trump to abide by a new trade deal, poll suggests

OTTAWA — Canadians are split on the importance of a new trade deal with the U.S. and a majority don’t trust Donald Trump to abide by one anyway, a new survey suggests.

The Abacus Data poll shared exclusively with the Star also shows most Canadians don’t want Prime Minister Mark Carney to rush into a trade deal, even if it means a longer period of uncertainty and short-term economic pain.

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LILLEY: Tariffs not to blame for Honda’s decision to axe EV plant in Alliston

LILLEY: Tariffs not to blame for Honda’s decision to axe EV plant in Alliston

The bad news is that Honda isn’t expanding its operations in Alliston to build an electric vehicle plant. The good news is that no government money has been handed over despite a promise of up to $5 billion when the project was announced two years ago.

The announcement on April 25, 2024, promised a $15-billion investment from Honda for a new EV assembly line and a battery plant. The federal government promised up to $2.5 billion in production tax credits and the provincial government promised up to another $2.5 billion in support.

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Carney Pulls Canada Closer to Europe as Both Struggle With Trump

Carney Pulls Canada Closer to Europe as Both Struggle With Trump

Canada and the European Union are turning commiseration and anxiety over their turbulent relationships with the United States under President Trump into a deepening bond.

On Monday, Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada joined a summit of European leaders in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, putting his country at the heart of some of Europe’s biggest priorities. He was the first non-European head of government to be invited to the gathering, known as the European Political Community summit.

Mr. Carney’s relentless pursuit of new, expanded alliances to lessen Canada’s dependence on the United States coming as Mr. Trump threatens to unravel decades of economic integration, has effectively led Canada to be welcomed as something of an honorary European Union member.

Article from the tweet above … This is swell! Canada and the EU can kick Mississippi’s but together! Well Sorta.

What Happens When Europeans Find Out How Poor They Are?

Do Europeans understand how poor they are? And what will happen when they find out? Those are the Continent’s big political-economy questions for the next few years—perhaps decades.

The widening gap between American and European prosperity is among the most important facts of the global economy. The clearest manifestation is the chasm in per capita gross domestic product: $94,400 in the U.S., according to the International Monetary Fund, compared with $65,300 in Germany, $61,000 in the U.K. and $52,000 in France.

While America’s prosperity advantage isn’t new, today’s scale is. From a fairly narrow edge throughout the 1980s, the gap widened a bit in the 1990s. Since 2007, however, European per capita incomes have more or less stagnated while the U.S. has enjoyed another growth spurt.

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Ottawa gives billion-dollar lifeline to steel and aluminum sectors as Trump tightens tariffs

Ottawa gives billion-dollar lifeline to steel and aluminum sectors as Trump tightens tariffs

The federal government announced on Monday another package to prop up the hard-hit steel, aluminum and copper sectors after U.S. President Donald Trump tightened his tariff regime to apply to more products, hammering Canadian industry.

At a plant in Vars, Ont., Industry Minister Melanie Joly said the government will establish a $1-billion loan program through the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) so companies most affected by the Trump scheme can get the money they need to stay in business.

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Buy Canadian has caused pain in parts of the U.S., but America will be just fine

Buy Canadian has caused pain in parts of the U.S., but America will be just fine

There were the star-spangled boos, the shelves emptied of California pinot noir and Kentucky bourbon. There were the cancelled trips and the conferences relocated closer to home. There were counter-tariffs and government promises to find new markets. And there were decisions at the grocery store about which ketchup to buy and which dog food to leave on the shelf.

For more than a year now, Canadians − at least, some of them − have fulminated against their closest international neighbour, eschewing U.S. goods and avoiding American vacation destinations.

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Auto giants warn China EV quota will gut Canadian industry and jobs

Auto giants warn China EV quota will gut Canadian industry and jobs

Canada’s auto sector is raising alarm bells over Ottawa’s decision to open the door to Chinese electric vehicles, warning the move could undercut domestic manufacturing and cost jobs.

Blacklock’s Reporter says executives from General Motors Canada told MPs that new federal concessions allowing thousands of low-tariff Chinese electric vehicles into the country risk weakening Canada’s industrial base and “hollowing out” its skilled workforce.


We were likely to lost auto manufacturing anyway, this will accelerate it.

They certainly didn’t waste any time …

Chinese EVs were spotted in Toronto, here’s what you need to know ahead of their Canadian release

h/t Mauser (Incognito)

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Trump’s trade czar tells Canadians that ‘America First’ is policy, not a slogan: sources

Trump’s trade czar tells Canadians that ‘America First’ is policy, not a slogan: sources

United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told Canadians looking for insights into the future of bilateral trade this week that “America First” is policy, not a slogan, and they should not expect a return to the way things were.

Sources who attended a roundtable with U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade czar in Washington on Wednesday told The Canadian Press that Greer was measured and pragmatic as he laid out the administration’s policy goals ahead of the coming review of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico-Agreement on trade, better known as CUSMA.

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Canada won’t ‘leverage’ energy, critical minerals in trade talks: PM

Canada won’t ‘leverage’ energy, critical minerals in trade talks: PM

OTTAWA – Prime Minister Mark Carney is rejecting the notion that Canada might use energy or critical minerals as “leverage” in upcoming trade talks with U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.

The prime minister made the remarks in an interview with The Canadian Press, his first since declaring he would enter federal politics more than a year ago.

Carney said he wouldn’t describe those sectors as “leverage” since Canada is not talking about stopping any sort of existing trade.

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Can Carney reduce Canada’s U.S. trade dependence? 50 years of history says ‘no’

Can Carney reduce Canada’s U.S. trade dependence? 50 years of history says ‘no’

Federal governments have for decades failed to reduce Canada’s dependence on U.S. trade, according to a new report, suggesting that Prime Minister Mark Carney faces an overwhelmingly steep climb in his effort to pivot the country away from its southern neighbour.

In a new report, the Fraser Institute studied the last 50 years of Canada’s trade diversification efforts, which included the signing of 16 free trade agreements with non-U.S. countries between 1988 and 2020. For all that work, however, Canada hardly increased its exports to non-U.S. trade partners, particularly in the last 25 years. Meanwhile, China — seemingly the sole benefactor from Canada’s diversification push — has gobbled up virtually all of what was diverted away from the U.S. in recent decades, the report found.

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WHISSELL: What if Carney wants the USMCA to expire?

WHISSELL: What if Carney wants the USMCA to expire?

The deadline of July 1 for the mandatory joint review of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) is fast approaching. United States (US) protectionism is leading the Western world down a more transactional path, one where old economic partnerships are being redefined. This shift is causing a great deal of anxiety for Canadians as the future of trade remains uncertain.

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Howard Lutnick’s right. Canada needs to limit EV trade with China

Howard Lutnick’s right. Canada needs to limit EV trade with China

Was Prime Minister Mark Carney “nuts” to make a deal to import electric vehicles from China? That’s what Howard Lutnick says. “Carney has a problem with us,” the U.S. Commerce Secretary told a conference audience April 17. “He gets on a plane and he goes to China. Does he think the Chinese economy’s gonna buy his stuff? China is entirely an export-driven economy!”

Lutnick’s style was crude, his attitude abrasive. The deal he trashed was arguably a rational tactic to buy Canada’s canola sector some short-term breathing space. But on the challenges of trading with China, he wasn’t wrong.

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Why Canada’s supply management system is going to disappear

Why Canada’s supply management system is going to disappear

Asked about how he went bankrupt, one of the characters in Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises replies, “gradually, then suddenly.” That’s what’s in store for Canada’s supply management system, an outdated, regressive policy from the 1970s that protects the dairy and poultry sectors by artificially raising consumer prices and drastically restricting imports. It will disappear, gradually then suddenly, for many reasons.

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Pacific Mall in Markham is a ‘trade barrier,’ says the U.S. Here’s why — and why that may be changing

Pacific Mall in Markham is a ‘trade barrier,’ says the U.S. Here’s why — and why that may be changing

Andrew Carandang and Jonathan Pan have been coming to Markham’s Pacific Mall for as long as they can remember — but there are still surprises to be had.

“They sell tools here?” Pan said, walking through the mall’s glass-box maze of more than 350 stores and stalls.

Three years ago the lifelong friends brought their online vintage clothing business Legacy Toronto into a physical store here, in what a sign inside brags is the largest indoor Asian mall in North America: “You must see it.”


The Star celebrates counterfeit goods.

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