Canadians need US trade deal now, not more political games

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U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra had three messages this week: Don’t run those ads again, you will need to accept some tariffs and the F-35 contract is key to a deal. On all three elements, Canada’s Laurentian Elite lost their collectivist little minds.

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Let’s start with the F-35 issue, the one that the Carney government has put front and centre with the visit of the Swedish royal family this week and false claims that building Sweden’s Gripen fighter jet will result in 10,000 jobs in Canada.

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The idea that there would be 10,000 jobs created by building 100 or so Saab Gripen jets is laughable. Yet most of Canada’s media continues to repeat this public relations line without question, even though Brazil’s experience would show otherwise.

According to Saab’s website, the production of Gripen jets in Brazil has led to 60 direct jobs at the plant of their partner Embraer and 200 jobs in total that are “associated” with the project. Brazil is buying 36 Gripen jets, all being assembled in Brazil, and even if you triple that amount, you can’t get to the 10,000 jobs the Swedes are promising through direct or indirect jobs. It’s a fallacy.

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Claiming jobs at Tim Hortons are due to making this jet isn’t realistic.

Consequences for cancelling F-35 contract?

In the meantime, we have a signed agreement to buy 88 F-35 fighter jets from Lockheed-Martin that sees 2,500 to 3,000 direct jobs for parts suppliers and about $3.2 million in Canadian parts per plane. But we are now threatening to rip that up over a trade dispute with the U.S. That has seen Hoekstra say that cancelling the deal could lead to consequences, such as Canada not getting a broader trade deal with the Americans.

Some Canadians are reacting as if this is an ultimatum, a ransom demand. Let’s step back from that for a moment and realize that we are the ones who signed the contract that we’re now threatening to rip up — for the second time — over political considerations with the U.S.

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We are also doing this while in the middle of trade talks where we are asking for conditions that no other country is getting – tariff-free access to the U.S. market.

We’ve already retaliated and more for the tariffs the U.S. has put on Canadian goods. Beyond retaliatory tariffs, we’ve pulled American booze off the shelves of government-owned liquor stores across much of the country, we’ve engaged in programs to stop travel to the U.S. and government-led programs to stop the purchase of American goods and now we’re threatening to cancel a fighter jet purchase for a second time and getting testy that they may not take that well.

I love this country, but we are being far too precious in believing we have some magical right to unfettered access to the U.S. market.

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Trade deal without some tariffs unlikely

Since my trip to Washington in February, I have been warning that it’s doubtful under this new Trump administration that we would get a deal that didn’t have a minimum tariff in place. At the time, I spoke of widespread support in Washington for a 10% global tariff on all countries. That’s something Prime Minister Mark Carney alluded to in the summer when he said it was unlikely we’d get a deal without tariffs.

Now, Hoekstra is speaking openly that a deal for Canada without tariffs is unlikely.

“The president has made it very, very clear there will be a tariff structure between the U.S. and Canada,” Hoekstra told the Ottawa business crowd on Wednesday.

We can keep negotiating like it’s 1985 with Brian Mulroney and Ronald Reagan in place or we can accept reality that the new U.S. president doesn’t believe in what Reagan believed — not that I want to start a fight over an accurate ad.

The tide has turned in Washington; we either take the best deal we can get or we sit on the outside being punished with punitive tariffs that see real job losses and heartbreak for Canadian families. Right now we’re on the outside and being punished and it’s frontline workers feeling the brunt, not the politicians fighting this battle.

I’ll stand with the workers who need the support every single day.

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