New American tariffs on Canadian goods are encouraging provincial leaders to remove trade barriers

[00:00:03]The American government is levying new tariffs. They say 50% August 19th.

[00:00:08]You've heard on this show on several Canadian goods including some covered by the free trade agreement. Now, the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce is urging our leaders to work harder to remove trade barriers in this country.

[00:00:19]Prab Rasswami is the organization CEO joins us live via Zoom this morning.

[00:00:23]Prab, thank you so much for doing this.

[00:00:26]>> Yeah, I can't hear you very well.

[00:00:29]>> We'll do our best to make our way through, Prab. Did you guys put out a memo yesterday urging provincial leaders to to keep momentum on internal trade? What are you pushing for at this very moment?

[00:00:42]>> Well, I mean you know, we are at a critical critical point in in Canada's economy. Yesterday, President Trump announced another round of tariffs which will have some impact on businesses in Saskatchewan. But, I think we need to build economic resiliency. One way of doing that is by tackling the internal trade barriers we have within Canada.

[00:01:09]The chambers of the federation, which is all the provincial chamber CEOs met with premiers yesterday calling on them to remove internal trade barriers, advance labor mobility, and and and create regulatory alignment. Unlocking internal trade barriers, according to the International Monetary Fund, can release another 210 billion to our economy. So, our economy can grow by 7%.

[00:01:38]Right now with the barriers we have in place, it's almost similar to having a 9% tariff.

[00:01:45]>> My goodness, that that's a pretty staggering number. We we hear about alcohol a lot when we hear about this, right? Trading booze between different different provinces. What are some of the other goods and services that are facing some sort of struggle getting their products from Saskatchewan to say Quebec or Ontario or all the way to BC.

[00:02:03]>> Generally the it's a very complex situation and we recognize that governments cannot do this overnight, but I think we're seeing a level of commitment to reduce these barriers in a way we've never seen in the last decade.

[00:02:18]Um, food and alcohol are very complex and yesterday the premiers nine provinces signed on to uh an agreement um around DTC which is direct to consumer alcohol sale. That is a significant milestone for our economy and for our country.

[00:02:39]>> You see the list on your screen of the tariffs that we could be facing and some of those are some of the staples here in Saskatchewan. Just how impacted could our businesses be and how resilient are we to meet this challenge?

[00:02:53]>> So in this current episode producers for most of our businesses have lived in an in an environment of uncertainty um and a lack of predictability for a very long time. So our businesses have become resilient. Secondly, um most of our businesses were exempt from tariffs because of the Canada-US-Mexico Agreement. Um, however the the recent round from yesterday circumvents um the CUSMA Agreement and so there are businesses in our province that are now experience tariffs. Um, but we understand the grand scheme of things on a large scale, this is not going to be um catastrophic uh in terms of the larger economy. But our businesses in wood manufacturing um in in the honey business and in dairy will experience the impact.

[00:03:46]>> Continue to follow it along the way, Prabha. We should do this more often.

[00:03:49]Thank you for doing the program this morning.

[00:03:52]>> Thank you.