Why Doesn't Canada Have a U.S. Trade Deal Yet? | Brian Lilley

Who's to blame for Canada not getting a deal with the United States on trade just yet?Well, Toronto Sun political columnist Brian Lilly says it's more of Mark Carney's fault than Trump's.Here he is, Sun columnist and regular BCN contributor Brian Lilly.Hello.Welcome back.

Thanks for having me.

Thank you.So, Brian, you've put much of the blame for Canada not getting a deal on the prime minister and say that he's been trying to wait out Trump.So what's his strategy, in your opinion?

His strategy until last week's announcement that Trump was gonna put more tariffs on Canada on August 19th Unless there's some sort of deal Carney strategy seemed to be okay.Let's wait Trump out.Let's wait until the midterms.Let's not engage So as much as he claims that he's been putting forward concrete detailed proposals comprehensive proposals Nobody believes that except him and his press secretary who, you know, will put out the statement.It's not happening.And I hear that from Canadians who are close to the talks, Americans who are close to the talks, people who know what's going on.

I mean, there's a headline today that says Dominic LeBlanc, who is, you know, Carney's point man on this issue, his minister of everything important at the moment, is heading down to Washington later this week.I'm sorry, if it was that important and you were really engaged, Dominic LeBlanc would have a permanent residence at the Mayflower Hotel, steps from the White House.Instead, he goes down there occasionally, and apparently the proposals that we put forward are for more talks, not for finding solutions to either the trade irritants that the Americans have with us, or the trade irritants th So it's saying, let's tal saying, let's get togeth Jeanette and then I neveryou a date.

Yeah, exactly.So they should be camping out outside the White House.

Yeah.Well, I think so.I think that would actually help.

Yeah, yeah.It would give them more of a presence for sure.So a week after Donald Trump threatened new tariffs on Canada to take effect in August, he tells Fox News that he doesn't care about getting a new trade deal with Canada because they don't need us anyway.So how do you react to that?

Well, I mean, they do and they don't.I mean, you will know that Donald Trump has not tariffed energy coming from Canada, in particular oil, natural gas.He has not tariffed potash coming out of Canada.You know, the things that he actually definitely needs and doesn't have competition on, he hasn't put tariffs on.The things he has competition on, like autos here in Ontario, he's put tariffs on.tariffs on.

Um, so look, the Americans don't need us as much as we need them.That is true.And that's part of why I say we should be looking to get a deal.That doesn't mean surrendering.That doesn't mean giving into everything that Trump wants.But you know, we are more trade dependent than they are.

I'll give you one quick stat.The, uh, our exports to the United States are the equivalent of 19 .9 % so 20 % of our total gross domestic product.So 20 % of our GDP is tied to selling goods and services to the Americans.The opposite, their exports to us amount to 1 .4 % of their GDP.So the dollar values are actually very similar.We have very balanced trade.

But for us, it's 20 % of our economy.For them, it's 1 .4%.Who needs this trade deal?more than we do?So on that, Trump is right.When he says we couldn't survive without them, that's not true.

It's definitely an exaggeration, but we do need them on trade more than they need us, which is part of why I keep saying get the best deal that we can.Negotiate.and wait out Donald Trump until after the midterms, like Mark Carney's been doing, try and get in there.The idea that Carney has is, well, wait until after the midterms, and then the Republicans will lose the House and maybe the Senate.Well, that's just going to make an angry Donald Trump.But he's still going to be president for two more years, and he's still going to be in charge of the negotiations.

Yeah.And aren't they our biggest trade partner?

Yeah, by orders of magnitude.The, I think the next biggest is China.And that is mostly, you know, so our next biggest trading partners are China, Britain, Japan, and Mexico.And with the exception of Britain and Japan with China and Mexico, that's mostly them selling things to us.I can't remember, remember the Chinese numbers exactly, but roughly speaking, uh, our trade with Mexico amounts to about $50 billion, just over one 10th of what the American trade deal is worth.Actually, when you combine Canada, US, it's a fraction of that.

And most of that, we sell about $6 billion worth of goods to the Mexicans, and they sell us the remainder of that $50 billion in autos and agriculture and different things like that.It is a one -sided trading deal.We're not selling to many places outside of the US.

Right.Okay, so this past week, or last week rather, Canada's premiers were meeting in Charlottetown.Prince Edward Island.And Brian, normally when premiers gather together, healthcare is a huge topic.But this was overshadowed, obviously, by trade.But that was mainly on the agenda.

But your view is that Mark Carney is taking a different view than past prime ministers, and Alberta's changes to self -referral is an example of that.So what do you mean exactly?

Well, in the past, you might have heard prime ministers say, oh, you can't self -refer, that goes outside of the Canada Health Act, you know, for a private sector MRI, let's say, which you're going to be able to do in Alberta.And so it started under Justin Trudeau, to be honest, but it's accelerating under Mark Carney.The provinces are experimenting because budgets are being stretched.They've been stretched for a long time.Healthcare makes up almost half of provincial budgets in most jurisdictions.Yes, the premiers all had a message for the prime minister that they need more money, that they can't change the annual escalator on health transfers, that it needs to actually go up.

So that message was there, but as you say, overshadowed by trade.But because the government doesn't want to give more money, they're allowing more leeway.in how health care is delivered, such as the self -referral in Alberta or here in Ontario.They have deemed a whole bunch of surgical procedures that are, you know, considered elective.Elective means you can schedule it for another day.It doesn't mean that you don't need the surgery.

You're not going in for a nose job or something like that.So, so -called elective surgeries like cataracts getting your eyes fixed.I mean, when people lose their sight, they lose their independence.I talked to one doctor who said that he had a patient, a couple in their 80s, that they both started to lose their eyesight.they just needed a cataract surgery, they couldn't get it done because of delays, and they weren't able to move around because they couldn't drive anymore.They got the surgery, they got their independence back.

Ontario has moved cataracts, hip and knee, they're moving diagnostics into private community health centers, but it's paid for with your provincial health card.You're not paying out of pocket, but it speeds up the process.That sort of thing years ago would have been, the feds would have been trying to shut it down, especially with the liberal government.Now they're saying, well, you know, as long as people are paying with their health card, we don't care.Just get people the care they need.So in lieu of money, provinces like Alberta and Ontario are getting flexibility.

which they want the money, but they also do appreciate.I know Premier Smith, Premier Ford, and others appreciate the flexibility in how healthcare is delivered.

So while the premiers were meeting in PEI, you know, there was a lot of show of unity on certain topics and claims that they're all on the same page, but you're also saying that there was clearly some division, especially after Ontario Premier Doug Ford threatened to stop major exports from Western Canada.So how did that go over?

I mean, did you see the eyebrow raise?I'm joking, I didn't see the eyebrow raise, but I can just imagine it from Premier Danielle Smith, when Doug Ford talks about everything's on the table and we can stop exports, we could shut them down if we stopped our oil and potash exports.Excuse me, Ontario doesn't produce any of that.We produce a very small, limited amount of oil.It's not even really a commercial scale and we're not exporting.have any potash to my knowledge on a commercial scale.

That's all Saskatchewan.I was on a radio show in Saskatchewan last week shortly after Premier Mo was on.And the host told me that at the end of the interview, where they were talking about this very issue, Premier Mo said, hold on, aren't you going to ask me about the fisheries?Mo making the point that Saskatchewan doesn't really have a commercial fishery, so why should he be the one that's going to have a say on it?Premiers Mo and Smith did not take kindly.to Doug Ford implying that we should block exports to the United States of these products.

Now, there is a way that that could be done.And I remember asking Premier Smith about this, and that is that if we wanted to say, no, we're going to stop oil exports, let's say, to the United States, or we're going to put an export tariff on them, that you would You know, still, so the export tariff model, you still continue to ship oil, but you charge a higher price for it.You put an export tax on it, but then you turn around, the feds turn around and give that money to Alberta.When this was being discussed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, when he was still in office, I asked Premier Smith, did Trudeau even offered to do that?And she said, no, that's the only way that it could be palatable to Alberta.I still don't think it would be popular in your province.

But if they did that, but Doug Ford's, he's not the prime minister.He does not represent a province with these products.And, you know, the other part of unity is they claim unity, but Doug Ford and David Eby in British Columbia want to fight Donald Trump, just like Mark Carney.They want to fight Donald Trump.It helps them politically.Their voter base says, yeah, rah, rah.

Scott Moe and Daniel Smith are on the other side.They want to negotiate.Which is interesting because they're the provinces actually least hit by the tariffs.Ontario, BC, Quebec, they're the most hit.Alberta and Saskatchewan, not so much, but they are the most hit.making the sensible case of sit down at the negotiating table and find a deal.

Maybe they're the ones that should camp out outside the White House.Yeah.Okay.So speaking of Alberta and the prime minister, so Carney, when he was at Stampede a couple of weeks ago, wearing his cowboy hat, he's admitting now that he could have done a better job explaining the deal to open the Gordie Howe bridge between Windsor and Detroit than when he did while he was at the Stampede.So has he explained himself more properly yet?

Not fully, and it was kind of a weird comment at the end.He tried to talk around the deal, tried to explain it better.I still don't think he's being forthright.And then at the end, he said, could I have explained it better on a Sunday morning at Stampede, wearing my cowboy hat?

With a pancake in my face.

OK, making jokes about it.But look, this is a deal where Mark Carney caved Donald Trump and we're seeing Carney cave on all kinds of things just this past week I mean it's more of a local story for us than for you but there's an airport in Toronto down on the lakefront called Billy Bishop Airport it's I think Canada's 10th largest airport or 11th it wants to expand he is caving on to pressure from left -wing liberals in Toronto who don't want it because he's got a by -election in the riding of Beaches East York.He caved on the Gordie Howe Bridge because Donald Trump told him, you're going to give me half the money.And then what did Carney do?He gave him everything Trump wanted, then tried to play word game.So, you know, the bottom line is, no, the Americans aren't getting the toll money because we're going to keep all the toll money.

That's the original deal.We keep all the toll money.but they're going to get the equivalent of half the toll money out of general revenues.So, you know, oh, no, I'm not paying you out of my right pocket, Jeanette.I'm paying you out of my left pocket.And that's completely different.

You know, he rolled over for Trump on this one, and he wasn't honest with Canadians.I think if he had been, people would have shrugged and said, well, you know, what can you do now?I think this has potential to hurt him.

Awesome.Brian Lilly, Toronto Sun columnist and BCN contributor, thanks so much for joining us once again today.

Thank you.