Liberation Day Response

Dominic Cardy responded to the reciprocal tariffs announced by Donald Trump on the day Trump coined “Liberation Day”

“We need to stop talking about Mr. Trump quite as much as we do and start responding exactly to what he does. Canada appears to be exempt from today’s reciprocal tariff’s for now but tomorrow is another day. In Trump’s twisted view of the world, Liberation Day will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America's destiny was reclaimed, and the day America will be wealthy again. Instead, it will be remembered as the day Trump destroyed the free trade regime that made America great for almost a Century.

Canada faces a choice.

First, I propose the expulsion of a diplomat from the United States Embassy and Consulates every single time a US administration official refers to our country, Canada, as a state or disparages our Prime Minister or otherwise threatens our independence. I've mentioned already the need to diversify away from countries that are unstable or non-democratic for our defence and other trade deals. We also need to look at repeating the actions that have been taken by our government so far of imposing consequential tariffs in response to every move made by the US.

At home, we must prepare for this, ending interprovincial trade barriers. Mr. Carney has promised that will happen by July 1st. If he's elected, hold him to it. If Mr. Poilievre is elected, ask him his plan.

We must take advantage of the 2% of GDP that we're leaving on the table [by limiting our interprovincial trade], because our provinces and the federal government have not had the leadership to be able to fix this issue. It's a federal government's job to tell the provinces this must stop. Part of that means the federal government needs to respect its responsibilities.

No more federal programs that overlap provincial responsibilities. No more, as well, in the face of this global crisis, hamstringing and handcuffing our energy resources when our European and other democratic allies need them.

This is a moment of incredible change and challenge for the world and my commitment to Canadians is to be honest and to share better and more powerful, evidence-based solutions.

We aren’t here to win an election, we’re here to change the debate.”