Ottawa, ON – Today, Shuvaloy Majumdar, Conservative Shadow Minister for Canada-United States Relations, sent the following letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney calling on him to release a plan to get tariffs removed and negotiate a win for Canadians:
Prime Minister,
This week, President Donald Trump issued yet another round of unjustified tariffs on Canadian workers and industries. Canadians are sick and tired of the constant threats, illegal tariffs and duties on our goods and attempts to hold our relationship for ransom.
We deserve better treatment from our neighbours, and Conservatives are here to fight against these tariffs, to fight for Canadians, and work together to make our country strong at home to give us unbreakable leverage abroad.
We need a plan to fight against these tariffs before they take effect, and our people deserve to see your plan to get these tariffs removed, return Canada to the negotiating table and restore tariff-free trade.
Canadians have given you unprecedented leeway to confront U.S. tariffs. Premiers, business and union leaders, and even the opposition, under my leadership, have taken a Team Canada approach and offered to help you remove these tariffs and secure a deal in any way we can.
Fourteen months ago, you were elected on a promise to “handle Trump” and negotiate “a win.” After your first phone call with the President, you promised to “begin comprehensive negotiations about a new economic and security relationship immediately following the election.”
We all assumed you had a plan. That is because, two months later at the G7 summit in Kananaskis, you repeated your promise to “handle Trump”, “negotiate a win” and get a deal by July 21, 2025.
That deadline was over a year ago. There is still no deal. Instead, the situation has only gotten worse. In return, you have told Canadians nothing for over a year about negotiations. When journalists ask you fair questions about the tariffs, you respond with flippancy like “who cares?” or “I’ll keep you posted”.
You left people to assume that you had an internal and confidential strategy that you were just not sharing to avoid tipping off your American counterparts. But if you have one, you’ve certainly not shared it with Premiers, Opposition members, or most importantly, Canadians.
Since you became Prime Minister promising wins, US tariffs on our steel and aluminum have doubled and broadened to include almost all products that contain Canadian steel. Tariffs and duties on Canadian softwood have tripled to 45 per cent. Lumber mills have closed, auto workers have lost shifts, and 37,800 manufacturing workers have lost their jobs this year.
At every stage, President Trump has demanded more and more concessions while our country gets nothing except more attacks on our workers, our industries and the livelihoods of Canadians. In response, you conceded to every one of President Trump’s demands: from dropping the Digital Service Tax and the Netflix Tax, reversing our retaliatory tariffs and promising to hit his military spending target.
Recently, you made the outrageous concession of offering the United States half the net revenues from the Gordie Howe International Bridge, even though it was built entirely with Canadian tax dollars under a prior deal guaranteeing our government all the toll revenues until the construction debt was repaid.
What have you secured in return for this endless series of capitulations? Nothing.
At the same time, your government refused to show up at the bargaining table, while the Mexicans and Americans hammer out important issues without Canada. Your government did not even bother sending a representative to critical hearings to oppose the new Section 301 tariffs that were imposed this week.
To be clear, your absence at the table cannot be part of a hard-line negotiating strategy, because it has coincided with concession after concession. As you said, “if you are not at the table, you are on the menu.” Under your direction, Canada is on the menu. All of this is part of a long track record of creating the illusion that you will stand up to President Trump, but when push comes to shove, you’ve conceded our leverage to placate the President and then mislead Canadians about what really happened.
In January, you declared that Canada was “in the midst of a rupture, not a transition” in our relationship with the United States. You said Canada could not “live within the lie” that deeper integration always brought mutual benefit when “integration becomes the source of your subordination.”
You warned against “a world of fortresses,” saying it would be “poorer, more fragile, and less sustainable,” seeming to rule out a Fortress North America.
Then, in May, you told an audience in Toronto that “Canada remains open to deeper integration, including options for Fortress North America.” You went even further during your speech in New York, saying that “Canada Strong will help make America great again.”
Are we in a rupture with the United States and building strength to resist our subordination, or are we pursuing deeper integration to “make America great again”? Is “Fortress North America” a dangerous idea that would make us poorer and weaker, or is it now your policy?
Meanwhile, when your Energy Minister suggested Canada should use its resources as leverage, telling Canadians, “I want our energy and natural resources sectors to play the strategically important role it should be playing, as Canada’s strongest cards in the CUSMA renegotiation.”
One week later, you rejected your minister’s approach, saying: “I reject that characterization of ‘It’s leverage.’” So, are Canadian energy and natural resources our strongest cards in negotiations, or are they not leverage at all?
The 2.6 million Canadians who rely on trade with the Americans need a plan that will deliver relief, not constant contradictions that attempt to distract from your endless concessions and defeats. We need reality, not more illusions.
That brings me to the reason for today’s letter: I am calling for you to tell Canadians your plan. Conservatives have called for an emergency meeting of the Standing Committee on International Trade next week. We demand that your government table a written plan at those hearings in the next two weeks to get tariffs removed and negotiate a win for our people and our workers at the bargaining table, as you promised.
In March of last year, you said, “a plan beats no plan.” Over a year and a half later, it’s long past time to present yours.