A group of Canadian Prime Ministers seems to establish high expectations while pursuing negotiations with American governors to mitigate the impacts of the United States on their economies.
Ministers of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, Ontario, and the Economic Minister of Quebec should meet on Monday from the governors of New England in Boston.
New Brunswick Prime Minister Susan Holt said the Prime Ministers were turning to the governors of New England to find out how to face the White House and US President Donald Trump.
“I mean, ideally, what we would get is each governor … agreeing to articulate their objection to their administration in noisy and formal terms,” Holt told journalists on Thursday.
“If we can ensure that everyone accepts that the prices have a negative impact on the Americans and transmits this message to the White House, it would be a victory.”
Holt also said that it was planning to raise “critical” energy and infrastructure files.
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey said last month that leaders hoped to discuss how they can work together and maintain economic relations in the face of Trump prices.
“Canada is Massachusetts’s N ° 1 trading partner,” she said in a press release on May 5.
“For generations, we played a solid partnership and a healthy exchange of energy, wood, dairy products, cars and cars, seafood and more. Our companies and residents all benefit from this relationship. But the prices of President Trump undergo this partnership, which makes more difficult for companies to keep their doors open, and increase the cost of everything that New England and the Canadians have opened. ”.
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Joseph Steinberg, professor in the Department of Economy at the University of Toronto, said that American national pressure, in particular republican states, is more effective in influencing Trump’s tariff policies than international reprisals.
“I think what matters most is the decline that the president hears leaders in the United States,” said Steinberg. “The more there is this decline, the more he understands that American households and American companies suffer – it is the most effective thing to make it change its pricing policy.”
He added that it would be a good thing to keep the communication routes open between the Prime Ministers and the Governors.
“The United States is one of the biggest economies in the world, and that’s right. So, technologically and geographically, the United States will always be our largest trading partner. There is no way to get around this. ”
Holt said New Brunswick provides many energy products in New England.
“I think that 90% of Boston cars lead with gas from Irving and us refinery. They are eager to ensure that we will continue to be a reliable energy supplier for them, “she said.
“We consider the United States as a market to sell energy in a profitable and beneficial way for New Brunswick.”
Healey said that an analysis has shown that Canadian energy prices would increase gas and heating prices by more than 30 cents the gallon and could cost nearly $ 1.4 billion per year for the inhabitants of Massachusetts and $ 3.4 billion for those in the New England region.
Ontario is also looking to discuss energy and minerals with the United States, said Grace Lee, spokesperson Doug Ford.
“Ontario is proud to have one of the cleanest and reliable energy networks, alongside areas rich in minerals ready for development and a highly skilled workforce on which the United States needs and relying,” she said in a press release.
“Prime Minister Ford will plead for his vision of the AM-CAN fortress, a renewed strategic alliance that makes Canada and the United States the two richest, most prosperous, safest and secure countries on the planet.”
Prime Minister of Prince Edward’s office Rob Lantz did not respond to a comment request.
Léa Fortin, spokesperson for the Quebec Economic Minister, Christopher Skeete, said that the meeting was a chance to repeat the links between Quebec and the United States, as well as the Atlantic provinces.
Sonja Pomroy, spokesperson for Prime Minister John Hogan, said Land Newfoundland and Labrador had exported approximately $ 4.5 billion in the United States in 2023, representing 37% of the province’s total exports.
For example, she said that during a given year, 60 to 80% of seafood and Labrador seafood exports go to the United States.
Reunion is therefore an opportunity to strengthen the social and economic value of Canada’s long relations with the United States, she explained.
“Obstacles to trade are bad for both national economies,” said Pomeroy.
Maine Governor Janet Mills said the Canadian provinces and his state have experienced solid relations during generations due to shared economies and cultures. But these are now stretched out of the “random rates of Trump and harmful rhetoric targeting our neighbors in the North,” she said in the May 5 press release.
Nova Scotia Prime Minister Tim Houston acknowledged that the Canadian provinces do not have the power to solve trade problems for themselves.
“But that does not mean that we cannot have a positive relationship with governors and Americans in general,” said Houston. “I think that’s the goal.”
& Copy 2025 the Canadian press