By Pepper Parr
March 11th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
It’s an awkward situation.
The man standing up to the President of the United States is the Premier of Ontario: Doug Ford.
The province is seeing a very different Doug Ford.
Speaking for the country is usually the job of the Prime Minister. Our current Prime Minister is waiting for the Prime Minister designate, Mark Carney, to take over: that should happen any day now. Couldn’t be soon enough.
Premier Ford implement the surcharge on an estimated 1.5 million homes and businesses in the three states, – New York, Michigan and Wisconsin. The Ontario government filed an “urgent” regulation under the Electricity Act of 1998. It amends the market rules used by the province’s Independent Electricity System Operator, which manages day-to-day energy needs.
Didn’t take long for the White House too squeal like pig about to be butchered.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, called Doug Ford, asked for a meeting (that is expected to take place on Thursday); based on that Ford suspended the surcharge. Federal Minister of Finance Dominic LeBlanc is said to be taking part in the meeting.
Will the meeting include President Trump? Don’t bet on it – the Americans are beginning to realize that they are on the ropes – Trump doesn’t get into the ring unless he is certain he is going to win. He knows that he isn’t going to be able to bully Doug Ford.
And when he eventually meets with Mark Carney he will quickly realize that Carney is cut from very different cloth. It should be a very interesting meeting
The breakfast meeting on Wednesday will be the first time we get a sense as to how Carney is going to work with a Premier who has been carrying the tariff fight to Washington.
On Wednesday Ford is going to have breakfast with Prime Minister designate Mark Carney – hopefully they will see the next steps forward the same way and the country can put out a single solid voice that represents the federal government and all the provinces and territories.
Pray that they don’t get mired down in any of that who does what when stuff.
We will get through this Trump incident, but there will be more until the American Senators begin to do their job and stand up to the President.
The American midterm elections, that will take place in 2026, should result in a significant difference in the number of Republican Senators and members of the House. That assumes that the American Supreme Court will uphold the Constitution and limit what Trump can actually do.
Still very very perilous
At some point, Carney will meet with Trump; will he address Carney as Governor?
One never knows exactly which tariff is in place and how long it will amount to what Trump first said it would be.
Is this man unravelling as we watch?
While all this drama is taking place the federal government under the new Prime Minister can begin to get on with creating an economy that doesn’t rely on the Americans as much as it has in the last two decades.
The NAFTA agreement and the USMCA that followed were great examples of economic integration that certainly served Canada very well.
The NORAD agreement is another example of how two friendly nations can protect themselves.
US Secretary of Commerce Lutnick watching President Trump sign yet another Executive order.
Trump changed all that, and we now realize that relying on the Americans the way we have was not in our best interest – we need to broaden our economic base and sell our products to other countries. That will result in some disruption, but we will be a better country for it with an economy that has us taking our products and services to mixed markets rather than selling to just the Americans.
The damage Donald Trump has done will take a decade to repair.
The challenge to the free world is to contain a very desperate man until he is no longer in office.
I have heard Canadian Governments talk for over 30 years about diversity of export markets with virtually no change .This sounds easier said than done.We used to be called an exporter of “Rocks and Logs”.Later we added oil,gas and Agricultural products.We export lots of autos and parts but from branch plants owned in other countries.The main reason we have that business is due to a low dollar and government subsidy like OHIP.That business will be dramatically reduced over the next few years.I hope we can develop new unique products that a very competitive in global markets.We need a government whose main focus is to identify and support new and existing competitive companies.
Liberals have never been good at this imo.