Three cabinet ministers are wrapping up their visit to Washington, D.C., and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is set to address the mayors of some of Canada’s biggest cities as Canada’s 30-day reprieve from U.S. tariffs continues.
Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, Defence Minister Bill Blair and Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne are all in Washington, wrapping up meetings with U.S. officials this week. The three ministers are expected to speak to the media Thursday.
A group of mayors of the 23 largest cities in Canada are also meeting Thursday in Ottawa to “discuss key shared priorities amid an upcoming federal election, and the impacts of a Canada-U.S. tariff war.”
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Big City Mayors’ Caucus will hold a press conference later in the day, after which Trudeau will make remarks.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Champagne said Ottawa has been working to ease free trade barriers between provinces as pressure grows to try to mitigate the impacts of potential tariffs.
“I can tell you, having spoken to a number of premiers, the premiers are ready. The country is ready. Businesses are ready,” Champagne told reporters on Wednesday.
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Champagne said the federal government was also planning a “Canada First procurement policy.”
Transport and Internal Trade Minister Anita Anand told reporters in Halifax on Wednesday that Ottawa was making “fast-paced progress with all of the provinces and territories.”
“We had an urgent meeting on Friday of the relevant ministers. At that meeting, we reached three strong recommendations,” she said.
Canada’s Committee on Internal Trade met last week to discuss how to open up trade between Canada’s provinces. Anand said the first major recommendation that the committee agreed to implement is mutual recognition of regulations across the country.
“That is, in other words, respecting the rules in place in other jurisdictions. So, you don’t have to comply, if you’re a trucker, with moving your lights to a slightly different location if you cross a provincial boundary,” she said.
“Secondly, we all agreed to reduce the exceptions in the Canadian Free Trade Act.”
Anand said the committee also agreed to make labour mobility across Canada smoother, making it easier for a professional certified in one province to practise in another.
Trudeau also discussed the lifting of interprovincial trade barriers in his meeting with Canada’s premiers.
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