Month: April 2019

MONTREAL — President Donald Trump is blackmailing Canada, Mexico and asylum seekers in order to exert maximum pressure to reach a new NAFTA deal that is favourable to the United States and to get funding for his border wall, former Mexican president Vicente Fox said Wednesday.

“In the case of Mexico, the blackmail is the wall. He wants the wall and maybe he will grant NAFTA,” Fox said in an interview from Mexico City.

The outspoken ex-politician has nothing good to say about the U.S. president, whom he describes as ignorant, bigoted and dangerous.

Watch: Trudeau hasn’t spoken to Trump since G7

Fox said Trump’s racist comments about Mexicans being rapists and criminals and complaints about illegal immigration belie the fact that NAFTA has done its job in stemming the flow of people crossing the border.

Canada and Mexico have to remain firmly united rather than give in to Trump’s demands for bilateral agreements with its two North American neighbours, he said.

“I don’t see the advantage of going bilateral,” he said, adding that trade for Trump is a zero-sum game, in which he wins and others lose.

“So whatever formula, whether bilateral or trilateral or whatever other formula, it will never work if he insists that the United States has to have a surplus and we have to have a deficit.”

Countries like Canada that believe in globalization and entrepreneurship need to stand up against Trump’s bullying behaviour, he said, criticizing the president for verbally attacking Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for his post-G7 meeting statement that Canada won’t be pushed around.

“He’s a great prime minister doing a great job and this crazy horse, this crazy guy Trump doesn’t have the right to attack him the way he did.”

Fox said he hopes the U.S. Democratic Party will make progress in November’s mid-term elections so Trump “can be bridled.”

“Otherwise, we are all going to be paying a high price.”

Canada and Mexico have both announced retaliatory tariffs after the United States imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum on them and a host of other countries.

Fox said Mexico can also buy soybeans, yellow corn and dairy products from Brazil, Argentina and other countries to exert pressure on millions of U.S. farmers.

Trump’s threatened tariffs on auto sector imports into the U.S. will raise prices for American consumers but, Fox said, won’t destroy Mexico because the country has developed a solid consumer market and can also shift exports to South America.

American trade actions will only further drive countries into the trading orbit of China, which is increasing its business relationships in Latin America, Fox added.

“China is ready to get in love with Latin America,” he said, adding that 1,000 Chinese business leaders are scheduled to meet next spring to drive up business in Mexico.

The U.S. accounts for 20 per cent of the global economy but China is poised to overtake it as the world’s largest economy.

He said Americans need to stand up to oppose Trump’s leadership.

‘Stupid guy’

“Either they resist and repeal and change things or the United States will lose any remaining moral authority that they could have today by this stupid guy they have as president.”

Fox spoke to The Canadian Press after it was announced he will join the board of Knowledgehook, a Waterloo, Ont.-based company whose platform analyzes the academic performance of math students in real-time to identify the best-practice teaching solutions to educators.

The former president said that he hopes to use Knowledgehook to help Mexico’s education system, which had a high school graduation rate of 45 per cent. The platform will be implemented into Centro Fox Library in Mexico.

MONTREAL — U.S. President Donald Trump took to Twitter a day after imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum to call out Canada’s softwood lumber industry, a sector that could provide insight for others on resilience in the face of U.S. tariffs.

Trump criticized Canada’s softwood lumber and agriculture policies, using them as examples of how America is being treated poorly by Canada.

Canada’s softwood lumber sector has been dealing with the latest U.S. tariffs to hit the industry for nearly a year, handing over more than $200 million in 2017 to cover duties of about 20 per cent of the value of all exports.

Hundreds of millions more is expected to be deposited in 2018 as well.

However, the Canadian industry has been less damaged than had been anticipated as duties imposed by the U.S. government have been passed on to U.S. consumers in the form of higher prices.

Soaring demand for lumber from the booming U.S. housing construction sector, where housing starts were higher than they have been in a decade last year, has helped pushed prices to record highs.

RBC senior economist Nathan Janzen says the same forces could be at play with tariffs on steel and aluminum as a strong global economy and North American industrial sector could absorb prices that already increased when the first tariffs were imposed on several countries.

The federal government said Thursday that it would impose dollar-for-dollar counter-tariffs on $16.6 billion worth of United States goods in response to exemptions for Canada, Mexico and Europe from import duties of 25 per cent on steel and 10 per cent on aluminum.

Janzen says the steel and aluminum tariffs are a unique result of Trump policies whereas softwood lumber has been an irritant for several administrations of both political parties.

International Trade Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne says he doesn’t want to compare the softwood lumber and metals industries, even though both key sectors of the Canadian economy face import tariffs.

ST. ANDREWS, N.B. — Canada’s premiers have agreed in principle to reduce barriers limiting the amount of alcohol that can move across provincial and territorial borders, but failed to produce clear timelines or details around personal limits.

New Brunswick Premier Brian Gallant said provinces are willing to increase import limits, although some want to consult with the public to determine how it will be done.

“Make no mistake about it, there is an acknowledgment that we have to look at this issue,” he said at the close of two days of meetings in the seaside community of St. Andrews, N.B. “There’s an acknowledgment that there should be pushes to have significant increases to import limits.”

Gallant hinted that a full deal was close, but that some provinces were reluctant. He wouldn’t name those provinces.

In many cases, he said any potential move on alcohol would also involve changing existing legislation.

“We have all committed to take action over the next weeks and months,” Gallant said at the closing news conference. “That’s where we landed on the consensus.”

A statement released by the premiers said that some jurisdictions may eliminate limits entirely, as is now the case in Manitoba and Alberta.

For its part, Gallant said New Brunswick remained committed to doubling its limit on the amount of beer and alcohol that can be taken across its borders.

He also said the premiers agreed to take “immediate and meaningful action” to bring down barriers regarding First Aid course content and restrictions on the use of wide base single tires and size and weight restrictions in the trucking industry.

They will also work on the licensing of abattoirs and on business registration requirements.

Manitoba’s Brian Pallister said the agreement as it stands is important in the face of measures by U.S. President Donald Trump when it comes to cross-border trade.

“These premiers took positive steps in the last couple of days,” Pallister said. “We are a trading nation and we have to demonstrate that we understand the benefits to the Canadian family of trading more effectively within our own boundaries if we wish to make the case to others that they should pull the wall down between us and them.”

The premiers confirmed that they will meet this fall with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to discuss interprovincial trade.

Meanwhile, eight premiers met for breakfast Friday to discuss universal pharmacare with former Ontario health minister Eric Hoskins, who chairs the Advisory Council on the Implementation of National Pharmacare.

Linda Silas, president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions, was also in the meeting and said she is encouraged there is support from the provinces after they came out last year in favour of a national plan.

“They are all in support of reforming our system, they see it in their budgets,” said Silas. “They want to know who is going to pay for the transformation because there will be initial costs, and also how will the pie be divided after that.”

Hoskins, who quit his cabinet post in February to take on the federal appointment, said it’s still early days as the advisory council carries out consultations across the country.

He said consensus will have to be built, but he expressed optimism that something can be done, pointing out that estimates suggest 10 per cent of Canadians are unable to afford their drugs.

“We are not yet at the stage where we’ve established what the best cost-sharing mechanism might be, let alone the model itself,” he cautioned.

Hoskins said there are more than 100 different public plans across the country and in excess of 500,000 private plans.

“We pay between 30 and 40 per cent higher than the other similar industrialized countries pay for their medications,” he said. “Part of the reason is that we have such a diverse number of purchasers.”

Pharmacare must be ‘voluntary’: premiers

The parliamentary budget office pegs the total cost of pharmacare at about $20 billion and says about $4 billion in cost savings can be realized with a national plan.

“The parliamentary budget office has indicated that we could spend considerably less if we were to make certain changes and find efficiencies for example in bulk purchasing and other areas,” said Hoskins.

In their final communique, the premiers emphasized that a successful pharmacare program would require “adequate and sustained federal funding” and that the participation of the provinces “must be voluntary.”

“Any jurisdiction that wishes to maintain full control over drug insurance should have the right to opt out unconditionally, with full compensation should the federal government participate financially in the establishment of a pharmacare plan,” said the communique. “Quebec has already indicated its intention to follow that path and all provinces and territories reserve the right to do the same.”

The meetings focused mainly on trade issues, although the talks were publicly upstaged by Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe who announced that Ontario will intervene in Saskatchewan’s court challenge of Ottawa’s carbon tax plan.

On Friday, Ford was asked whether he found any other allies and he downplayed the issue.

“It’s their choice, right?” said Ford. “Premier Moe and myself, we’re deciding to take a different avenue when it comes to the carbon tax.”

Ford also joined Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard and Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister on Thursday in calling for more help from the federal government in dealing with asylum seekers who cross their borders.

All three premiers want Ottawa to review its current policy, and they also called for full compensation for the “impacts to services resulting from the increase in non-point of entry border crossings.”

All premiers also called on Ottawa to do more to help with the roll out of legalized cannabis, which is slated for October, and they urged the federal government to work with Greyhound to extend its notice period to communities affected by its elimination of passenger bus routes in Western Canada.

CLARIFICATION: An earlier version of this Canadian Press story said the country’s premiers had agreed to double the amount of alcohol Canadians are allowed to import from other provinces. The latest version of the story now reports that the premiers have not provided details on changes to alcohol allowances.

VANCOUVER — Home sales in British Columbia plummeted last month compared with March of last year, but the B.C. Real Estate Association says the decline was not reflected in prices.

Sales figures released by the association for March show 7,409 homes changed hands last month, a decline of 24.6 per cent over March 2017, while average property prices climbed 5.3 per cent over the same period.

A news release from the association says the average home sold for $726,930 last month and it blames persistently high prices on the lack of properties available for sale.

It says total active listings have changed very little since March of 2017, nudging a 12-year low across B.C.

Association chief economist Cameron Muir forecasts prices will continue to climb as long as the trend continues.

He is also critical of what he calls the “burdensome” mortgage qualification rules that took effect in January, saying they have had the “predictable effect of swiftly curbing housing demand.”

“You simply cannot pull as much as 20 per cent of the purchasing power away from conventional mortgage borrowers and not create a downturn in consumer demand,” Muir says in the release.

B.C. home sales in March tallied $5.39 billion, a 20.6 per cent tumble compared with March 2017, while the association says sales dollar volumes since January slipped 1.7 per cent to $13.9 billion, compared with the first quarter of last year.

Residential sales also fell 9.4 per cent during the first three months of this year, while the association reports the average price of a home increased 8.5 per cent to just over $732,000 during the same period.

Also On HuffPost: