Economy
Trump Could Bring Back “America First”. What Could Happen to Canada’s Natural Resource Exports?

From EnergyNow.ca
A second Trump presidency likely means more tariffs, and Canada’s energy and forestry sectors will feel the impact.
As the passing of former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney was reported, we thought back to his ratification of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States and Mexico.
The question now is: If Donald Trump becomes the next President of the U.S., what happens to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) of 2020? The USMCA came after Trump threatened to pull out of NAFTA in 2018.
On Monday, the Supreme Court of the United States recently overturned a ruling from the Colorado Supreme Court that barred Trump from appearing on the ballot during the 2024 presidential election, clearing a major obstacle in his goal of once again winning the presidency in November.
If Trump does win again in November, stand by for round two of the “America First” campaign of his first term.
“After decades of the status quo, President Trump has made it clear that Americans will no longer take back seat to the rest of the world,” said Ken Farnaso, who was a deputy national press secretary during Trump’s ultimately unsuccessful 2020 re-election campaign.
So prepare, for starters, for a 10 percent tariff on imports into the U.S. — and Canada is the second largest source of those imports.
Trump’s promised tariffs would hammer Canadian exports to the U.S. In 2021 (the latest figures we see), those exports were worth $355 billion, including oil ($78.8 billion), automobiles ($26.4 billion), and natural gas ($13.4 billion).
What would Trump do about increased exports of Canadian oil to the U.S. through the Trans Mountain Expansion Project? What about our natural-gas exports, which have helped the U.S. become the world’s biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG)?
And a Trump presidency would undoubtedly mean more trouble for Canada’s forestry sector. It has long been fighting “entirely unwarranted,” U.S. tariffs on our softwood lumber — and now has been told that America will soon boost the border-crossing charges to 13.86 percent, up from 8.05 percent.
(Under the U.S. Tariff Act, the Department of Commerce determines whether goods are being sold at less than fair value or if they’re benefiting from subsidies provided by foreign governments. U.S. producers insist that provincial stumpage fees are so low as to amount to an unfair subsidy.)
And on foreign affairs, note Trump’s tough promise for China: tariffs of 60 percent or higher on imported Chinese goods. And, he has added, “Maybe it’s going to be more than that.”
This comes after the trade war he triggered during his first term as president when he imposed $250 billion in China tariffs. That disrupted the global economy, hammered consumers, and hit stock markets.
U.S. stock-market watchers have shuddered at this new promise. Nikki Haley, who suspended her campaign for the Republican nomination on Wednesday morning, has said: “What Donald Trump’s about to do, is he’s going to raise every (American) household’s expenses by $2,600 a year.”
Trump has said nothing about current U.S.-Canada relations, but has in the past declared:
- “We lose with Canada — big-league. Tremendous, tremendous trade deficits with Canada.”
- “Canada has been very difficult to deal with. . . . They’re very spoiled.”
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“Canada, what they’ve done to our dairy farm workers, it’s a disgrace.”
Roland Paris, a Canada-based associate fellow of the U.S. and the Americas Program writes:
“ Canada is not the only country bracing for Donald Trump’s possible return to the White House – but few have more at stake.”
“Three-quarters of Canada’s goods exports, accounting for more than one-quarter of the country’s gross domestic product, go to the U.S. Given Trump’s impulsiveness and deeply protectionist instincts, Canada’s business and political leaders are understandably nervous.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told business leaders in Montreal: “It wasn’t easy the first time, and if there is a second time, it won’t be easy either.”
Indeed. If the second time begins with Trump being elected on November 5, and sworn in on January 20, 2025, it could be a nasty case of “Oh, Canada.”
2025 Federal Election
Fixing Canada’s immigration system should be next government’s top priority

From the Fraser Institute
Whichever party forms government after the April 28 election must put Canada’s broken immigration system at the top of the to-do list.
This country has one of the world’s lowest fertility rates. Were it not for immigration, our population would soon start to decline, just as it’s declining in dozens of other low-fertility countries around the world.
To avoid the social and economic tensions of an aging and declining population, the federal government should re-establish an immigration system that combines a high intake with strictly enforced regulations. Once Canadians see that program in place and working, public support for immigration should return.
Canada’s total fertility rate (the number of children, on average, a woman will have in her lifetime) has been declining, with the odd blip here and there, since the 1960s. In 1972, it fell below the replacement rate of 2.1.
According to Statistics Canada, the country’s fertility rate fell to a record low of 1.26 in 2023. That puts us in the company of other lowest-low fertility countries such as Italy (1.21), Japan (1.26) and South Korea (0.82).
Those three countries are all losing population. But Canada’s population continues to grow, with immigrants replacing the babies who aren’t born. The problem is that, in the years that followed the COVID-19 lockdowns, the population grew too much.
The Liberal government was unhappy that the pandemic had forced Canada to restrict immigration and concerned about post-pandemic labour shortages. To compensate, Ottawa set a target of 500,000 new permanent residents for 2025, double the already-high intake of about 250,000 a year that had served as a benchmark for the Conservative government of Stephen Harper and the Liberal governments of Paul Martin and Jean Chrétien.
Ottawa also loosened restrictions on temporary foreign worker permits and the admission of foreign students to colleges and universities. Both populations quickly exploded.
Employers preferred hiring workers from overseas rather than paying higher wages for native-born workers. Community colleges swelled their ranks with international students who were also issued work permits. Private colleges—Immigration Minister Marc Miller called them “puppy mills”—sprang up that offered no real education at all.
At the same time, the number of asylum claimants in Canada skyrocketed due to troubles overseas and relaxed entry procedures, reaching a total of 457,285 in 2024.
On January 1 of this year, Statistics Canada estimated that there were more than three million temporary residents in the country, pushing Canada’s population up above 41.5 million.
Their presence worsened housing shortages, suppressed wages and increased unemployment among younger workers. The public became alarmed at the huge influx of foreign residents.
For the first time in a quarter century, according to an Environics poll, a majority of Canadians believed there were too many immigrants coming into Canada.
Some may argue that the solution to Canada’s demographic challenges lie in adopting family-friendly policies that encourage couples to have children. But while governments improve parental supports and filter policies through a family-friendly lens—for example, houses with backyards are more family-friendly than high-rise towers—no government has been able to reverse declining fertility back up to the replacement rate of 2.1.
The steps to repairing Canada’s immigration mess lie in returning to first principles.
According to Statistics Canada, there were about 300,000 international students at postsecondary institutions when the Liberals came to power in 2015. Let’s return to those levels.
The temporary foreign worker program should be toughened up. The government recently implemented stricter Labour Market Impact Assessments, but even stricter rules may be needed to ensure that foreign workers are only brought in when local labour markets cannot meet employer needs, while paying workers a living wage.
New legislation should ensure that only asylum claimants who can demonstrate they are at risk of persecution or other harm in their home country are given refuge in Canada, and that the process for assessing claims is fair, swift and final. If necessary, the government should consider employing the Constitution’s notwithstanding clause to protect such legislation from court challenges.
Finally, the government should admit fewer permanent residents under the family reunification stream and more from the economic stream. And the total admitted should be kept to around 1 per cent of the total population. That would still permit an extremely robust intake of about 450,000 new Canadians each year.
Restoring public confidence in Canada’s immigration system will take much longer than it took to undermine that confidence. But there can be no higher priority for the federal government. The country’s demographic future is at stake.
2025 Federal Election
The High Cost Of Continued Western Canadian Alienation

From EnergyNow.Ca
By Jim Warren
Energy Issues Carney Must Commit to if He Truly Cares About National Cohesion and be Different From Trudeau
If the stars fail to align in the majority of Western Canada’s favour and voters from Central Canada and the Maritimes re-elect a Liberal government on April 28, it will stand as a tragic rejection of the aspirations of the oil producing provinces and a threat to national cohesion.
As of today Mark Carney has not clearly and unequivocally promised to tear down the Liberal policy wall blocking growth in oil and gas exports. Yes, he recently claimed to favour energy corridors, but just two weeks earlier he backtracked on a similar commitment.
There are some promises Carney hopefully won’t honour. He has pledged to impose punitive emissions taxes on Canadian industry. But that’s supposedly alright because Carney has liberally sprinkled that promise with pixie dust. This will magically ensure any associated increases in the cost of living will disappear. Liberal wizardry will similarly vaporize any harm Carbon Tax 2.0 might do to the competitive capacity of Canadian exporters.
Carney has as also promised to impose border taxes on imports from countries that lack the Liberals’ zeal for saving the planet. These are not supposed to raise Canadians’ cost of living by much, but if they do we can take pride in doing our part to save the planet. We can feel good about ourselves while shopping for groceries we can’t afford to buy.
There is ample bad news in what Carney has promised to do. No less disturbing is what he has not agreed to do. Oil and gas sector leaders have been telling Carney what needs to be done, but that doesn’t mean he’s been listening.
The Build Canada Now action plan announced last week by western energy industry leaders lays out a concise five-point plan for growing the oil and gas sector. If Mark Carney wants to convince his more skeptical detractors that he is truly concerned about Canadian prosperity, he should consider getting a tattoo that celebrates the five points.
Yet, if he got onside with the five points and could be trusted, would it not be a step in the right direction? Sure, but it would also be great if unicorns were real.
The purpose of the Build Canada Now action plan couldn’t be much more clearly and concisely stated. “For the oil and natural gas sector to expand and energy infrastructure to be built, Canada’s federal political leaders can create an environment that will:
1. Simplify regulation. The federal government’s Impact Assessment Act and West Coast tanker ban are impeding development and need to be overhauled and simplified. Regulatory processes need to be streamlined, and decisions need to withstand judicial challenges.
2. Commit to firm deadlines for project approvals. The federal government needs to reduce regulatory timelines so that major projects are approved within 6 months of application.
3. Grow production. The federal government’s unlegislated cap on emissions must be eliminated to allow the sector to reach its full potential.
4. Attract investment. The federal carbon levy on large emitters is not globally cost competitive and should be repealed to allow provincial governments to set more suitable carbon regulations.
5. Incent Indigenous co-investment opportunities. The federal government needs to provide Indigenous loan guarantees at scale so industry may create infrastructure ownership opportunities to increase prosperity for communities and to ensure that Indigenous communities benefit from development.”
As they say the devil is often in the details. But it would be an error to complicate the message with too much detail in the context of an election campaign. We want to avoid sacrificing the good on behalf of the perfect. The plan needs to be readily understandable to voters and the media. We live in the age of the ten second sound bite so the plan has to be something that can be communicated succinctly.
Nevertheless, there is much more to be done. If Carney hopes to feel welcome in large sections of the west he needs to back away from many of promises he’s already made. And there are many Liberal policies besides Bill C-69 and C-48 that need to be rescinded or significantly modified.
Liberal imposed limitations on free speech have to go. In a free society publicizing the improvements oil and gas companies are making on behalf of environmental protection should not be a crime.
There is a morass of emissions reduction regulations, mandates, targets and deadlines that need to be rethought and/or rescinded. These include measures like the emissions cap, the clean electricity standard, EV mandates and carbon taxes. Similarly, plans for imposing restrictions on industries besides oil and gas, such as agriculture, need to be dropped. These include mandatory reductions in the use of nitrogen fertilizer and attacks (thus far only rhetorical) on cattle ranching.
A good starting point for addressing these issues would be meaningful federal-provincial negotiations. But that won’t work if the Liberals allow Quebec to veto energy projects that are in the national interest. If Quebec insists on being obstructive, the producing provinces in the west will insist that its equalization welfare be reduced or cancelled.
Virtually all of the Liberal policy measures noted above are inflationary and reduce the profitability and competitive capacity of our exporters. Adding to Canada’s already high cost of living on behalf of overly zealous, unachievable emissions reduction goals is unnecessary as well as socially unacceptable.
We probably all have our own policy change preferences. One of my personal favourites would require the federal government to cease funding environmental organizations that disrupt energy projects with unlawful protests and file frivolous slap suits to block pipelines.
Admittedly, it is a rare thing to have all of one’s policy preferences satisfied in a democracy. And it is wise to stick to a short wish list during a federal election campaign. Putting some of the foregoing issues on the back burner is okay provided we don’t forget them there.
But what if few or any of the oil and gas producing provinces’ demands are accepted by Carney and he still manages to become prime minister?
We are currently confronted by a dangerous level of geopolitical uncertainty. The prospects of a global trade war and its effects on an export-reliant country like Canada are daunting to say the least.
Dividing the country further by once again stifling the legitimate aspirations of the majority of people in Alberta and Saskatchewan will not be helpful. (I could add voters from the northeast and interior of B.C., and southwestern Manitoba to the club of the seriously disgruntled.)
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