We need more than ‘Elbows Up’ Part II

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Prime Minister Mark Carney has told Canadians, “I’m most useful in a crisis” and now is the time to prove it.

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Refusing to sign a trade deal with U.S. President Donald Trump he said endangered Canadian sovereignty and was filled with last-minute demands by an unreliable partner, we are now in an all-out trade war with our largest trading partner.

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Carney has appealed to the patriotism of Canadians to steel themselves for what’s coming – just as he did in his successful election campaign last year.

No doubt most Canadians, fed up with Trump’s insults, will rally to the cause – for now.

So will the premiers, especially in the provinces hardest hit by Trump’s tariffs such as Doug Ford in Ontario.

But a repeat of Carney’s “Elbows Up” rhetoric from the last election campaign is a slogan, not a strategy for dealing with this crisis.

The reality is that a protracted tariff war with the U.S. will put hundreds of thousands of Canadian jobs at risk and increase our cost of living, while continuing uncertainty about trade with the U.S. will put an ongoing damper on our economy.

Carney’s first response is a pledge to match the latest barrage of U.S. tariffs with dollar-for-dollar counter-tariffs, which he will reveal Sept. 8.

But he knows that’s not a long-term answer because we cannot win a protracted trade war against a $32.38 trillion American economy, compared to $2.51 trillion for our own.

Carney himself said this a year ago.

It was why he removed many of the counter-tariffs the Canadian government initially levelled against the U.S. in response to Trump’s tariffs.

The reason was that Canadian counter-tariffs are paid for by Canadians in higher prices for imported goods from the U.S., which applies as much today as it did then.

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Carney is also promising to unveil on Sept. 8 more support programs for Canadian industries and workers hit hard by the ongoing tariff war, beyond the $25 billion he has already earmarked for that fight.

But these are stop-gap measures.

The only long-term solution is the restoration of a reliable trading relationship with the Americans because diversifying our economy will take time.

Carney needs a strategy, beyond chest-thumping, to gets us there eventually.

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