Canada’s premiers are in Ottawa for two days of meetings, including a first ministers’ session with Prime Minister Mark Carney on Thursday, as they try to present a united “Team Canada” front ahead of this summer’s CUSMA review and U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest 100 per cent tariff threat.
Two days in the capital
Canada’s premiers are set for two days of huddling in the nation’s capital, with the economy, affordability and trade high on the agenda. They meet among themselves as the Council of the Federation on Wednesday, then sit down with Prime Minister Mark Carney on Thursday.
The meetings come a year after U.S. President Donald Trump returned to office and hit Canada with sweeping tariffs, and just ahead of the first formal review of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), due this summer.
In recent days, Trump has threatened Canada with 100 per cent across-the-board tariffs on its exports — a threat tied to Ottawa’s new trade arrangement with China. Those duties would land on top of the sector tariffs already biting steel, softwood lumber and vehicles.
‘Team Canada, 100 per cent’
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, whose province’s auto sector sits in the tariff crosshairs, said the premiers will show they stand united while the Canadian economy is under attack. “We’re going to speak from one song sheet, because we’re under attack now by President Trump, and I’ll fight tooth and nail to make sure that we protect everyone,” Ford said Tuesday in Brantford, Ont.
“We’re going to agree to disagree on a lot of things but we’re a big family, so make no mistake about it, it’s Team Canada 100 per cent,” he added. “You have squabbles with your family, but we come out united.”
The squabbles are real. Ford has publicly fumed at Carney’s trade deal with Beijing, which created a new quota for Chinese electric vehicles in exchange for lower tariffs on Canadian agricultural exports — a trade that benefits Prairie canola growers, including Saskatchewan, more than Ontario autoworkers. B.C. and Alberta have been at odds over Carney’s signals of support for a new coastal pipeline, which delight Premier Danielle Smith and anger B.C. Premier David Eby. Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew has clashed with Ford over Ontario pulling Crown Royal whisky — bottled in Gimli, Man. — from provincial liquor store shelves, and wants Carney to produce an “off ramp” for Chinese tariffs on Manitoba pork.
What the review actually is
This summer’s CUSMA exercise is a joint review, not an automatic renegotiation. Under the agreement, the three countries must confirm by July 1, 2026 whether they want to extend the pact’s 16-year term. If they do, CUSMA runs to 2042. If any country declines, the deal enters annual reviews and can expire in 2036 — a decade of rolling uncertainty that business groups on both sides of the border say would chill investment. U.S. trade representative Jamieson Greer has already listed American irritants, from Canada’s dairy quotas and online streaming law to provincial boycotts of U.S. alcohol.
That is why the Ottawa meetings matter less for what the premiers decide — trade is federal jurisdiction — than for the single message they send Washington.
How it played out
Thursday’s first ministers’ meeting ended, as these gatherings tend to, in smiles and unity talk. Carney announced the launch of a Team Canada Trade Hub to co-ordinate trade diversification as individual premiers pursue their own trade missions abroad, and the group set timelines for work on internal barriers such as credential recognition and harmonized health and safety requirements. The public front held — which was the point.
