Canada is ready to “protect its workers” and “fight back” against Donald Trump’s bully-boy tactics.
Mark Carney, who only became Prime Minister in March, has set a goal of free trade within the country’s 10 provinces and three territories by July 1. It has been threatened by Donald Trump’s vow to eliminate trade barriers within Canada but defiant Mr Carney insists his plans will only benefit Canadians.
“We can give ourselves far more than Donald Trump can ever take away. We can have one economy. This is within our grasp,” Mr Carney said, speaking in the country which has long had interprovincial trade barriers. Mr Trump, though, has threated to double tariffs on Canada and make the border between it and the US “disappear”.
And Mr Trump’s tariffs has fundamentally changed the relationship Canada has had with the US for the past 40 years, Mr Carney continued in an address in Toronto on Thursday.
Mr Carney, who was governor of the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020, said: “We are facing the biggest crisis of our lifetimes. Donald Trump is trying to fundamentally change the world economy, the trading system, but really is he’s trying to break us so the US can own us. They want our land, they want our resources, they our water, they want our country. I am ready and I have managed crisis over the years… We will fight back with counter tariffs and we will protect our workers.”
Mr Trump’s trade war and threats to make Canada the 51st state have infuriated Canadians and led to a surge in Canadian nationalism that has bolstered Liberal Party poll numbers. Opposition Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is imploring Canadians not to give the Liberals a fourth term. He hoped to make the election a referendum on Justin Trudeau, whose popularity declined toward the end of his decade in power as food and housing prices rose and immigration surged.
But Mr Carney, 60, became Liberal party leader and prime minister last month after a party leadership race. Since then, he has challenged 78-year-old Mr Trump, who in recent weeks has repeated his call for Canada to become part of the United States as a solution to the current tariff war.
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Speaking in Toronto, Mr Carney added: “Mr Poilievre, you spent years running against Justin Trudeau and the carbon tax and they are both gone. I am a very different person than Justin Trudeau.”
Mr Poilievre had accused Mr Carney’s Liberals of being hostile toward Canada’s energy sector and pipelines. The 45-year-old politician accused the Liberals of weakening the economy and vowed that a Conservative government would repeal “anti-energy laws, red tape and high taxes.”
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