UNION BUSTING

Amazon to Face Legal Action After Laying Off 1,900 in Quebec

WALMART QUE DID THIS TOO WHEN UNIONIZED

A Prime delivery truck drives past Amazon's DXT6 warehouse in the Montreal suburb of Lachine on Monday, Jan.27, 2025. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press)

By Mathieu Dion and Matt Day, 

Bloomberg News

February 04, 2025 

(Bloomberg) -- Amazon.com Inc.’s decision to close all seven of its warehouses in the Canadian province of Quebec and terminate more than 1,900 workers is prompting legal action from the affected union.

The Federation of National Trade Unions will petition a court to annul the layoffs and order the reopening of the warehouses. It will also ask for payment of compensation and damages, the union said in a statement Tuesday.

Amazon is in the process of laying off employees in the province and will cut ties with more than 2,600 others who work with delivery partners, according to Quebec’s employment ministry. The online retailer plans to use subcontractors, such as Montreal-based Intelcom Courrier Canada Inc., instead.

“What it calls its ‘new business model’ is just an attempt to circumvent its obligations under the Labour Code,” Federation President Caroline Senneville said in the statement. “The court should recognize that this scheme violates the law and it can then order the reinstatement of Amazon’s workers.”

The union had been negotiating with Amazon since July to create a collective agreement for 300 employees at a warehouse in Laval, a suburb of Montreal. The closures were announced on Jan. 22, less than a year after the Laval workers unionized. Amazon said at the time that the decision was not related to the unionization effort.

Amazon spokesperson Barbara Agrait said returning to a third-party delivery model will allow the company to provide “even more savings to our customers over the long run.” It’s complying with federal and provincial laws, she said.

The union also launched a campaign calling on consumers to boycott the multinational by not shopping on its online platform and canceling Amazon Prime subscriptions.

Francois-Philippe Champagne, Canada’s industry minister, said in January that Amazon’s decision is unacceptable, and called for a review of the business relationship between the company and the Canadian government.

Amazon has 1.55 million employees worldwide. Many of their warehouse workers in Europe are covered by sectoral bargaining agreements. Employees at facilities in New York and Philadelphia have unionized, but still lack a contract.

(Update with comments from Amazon in sixth paragraph.)

©2025 Bloomberg L.P.

WAIT WHAT?!

Parks Canada sends memo encouraging employees to buy from Amazon amid decision to leave Quebec, , tariff war with U.S.

By Rachel Lau

February 04, 2025 

A memo from Parks Canada encouraging employees to join Amazon’s business program to purchase office and other supplies is causing waves, according to an exclusive report by Noovo Info.

The e-mail was sent on Monday afternoon, just as the Canadian government was working to convince U.S. President Donald Trump to suspend his tariff threat.READ MORE: Canada and the U.S. have avoided a trade war for now. Here are the latest updates

It also comes less than two weeks after Amazon announced that it would be closing all its facilities in Quebec and returning to a third-party delivery model.

“We are pleased to announce that Parks Canada has established a business account with Amazon for the purchase of low-value goods,” reads the notice, a copy of which was obtained by Noovo Info. “This new program simplifies your purchasing process and allows you to take advantage of the vast selection of products and competitive prices that Amazon offers.”

Managers will be allowed to make purchases up to $10,000 with a Parks Canada purchasing card without having to issue a call for tenders.

The limit is $5,000 for other employees.

“My colleagues simply couldn’t believe it,” one employee told Noovo Info.

Amazon is pulling out of Quebec over the next two months, spokesperson say it's returning to a third party model.

A Parks Canada manager, who is not authorized to speak to the media and asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals from her employer, acknowledges that the note was sent at a bad time.

“It’s bad timing,” she admitted, pointing out that the directive had been in the works for some time.

Nevertheless, she says she is urging employees to buy from local suppliers wherever possible.

“It’s not an incentive to buy with Amazon,” she said. “It’s to give us information about what the employees bought.”READ MORE: Quebec union confederation calling for Amazon boycott, planning legal action

Tuesday, the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN) launched a boycott campaign against the e-commerce giant, calling on the public and politicians to demonstrate on Feb. 15.

“There are 450 agencies in the federal government, and maybe the memo hasn’t made it everywhere,” said CSN President Caroline Senneville, adding she knows a few federal ministers “who won’t be happy about this.”READ MORE: Amazon closing all Quebec warehouses

Following Amazon’s Jan. 22 decision to close all its facilities in Quebec, municipalities across the province have said they would stop doing business with the retail giant.

The Canadian government also spoke out at the time, demanding that Amazon “immediately” reconsider its decision to close all its distribution centres in Quebec and threatening to review its commercial relationship with the company if nothing is done.

Amazon has denied that the closure is linked to the unionization of employees at the DXT4 facility in Laval, Que.

Rachel Lau
Digital Reporter, CTVNewsMontreal.ca

Why ESG Faces Backlash and Its Future Under Trump 2.0

By Saijel Kishan and Tasneem Hanfi Brögger, 

Bloomberg News

February 04, 2025 


(Bloomberg) -- ESG. Three letters that have inspired, confused and angered.

They stand for environmental, social and governance, and refer to a strategy where banks and investors weigh factors such as climate change and labor conditions in their financing decisions.

The term was coined about two decades ago by United Nations staffers working with the finance industry. It became more popular after the #MeToo, racial justice and climate movements took hold when President Donald Trump was in the White House the first time around. The hope was that ESG standards would help make the world a better place, demonstrating that profit doesn’t have to come at the expense of clean air, human rights or honest management.

The ESG label was put on everything from mom-and-pop investment funds to complex Wall Street securities. But it was an amorphous and ill-defined concept, and quickly became a hotly debated topic as inconsistencies were exposed.

As accusations grew that companies and money managers were exaggerating their ESG credentials, European and US regulators began to clamp down on this “greenwashing” activity. And then ESG investing became a political wedge issue in the US as Republican politicians mounted an unprecedented, coordinated attack, castigating it as a threat to American capitalism — all before Trump even began his second term.

How have Republicans attacked ESG?

The US is the epicenter of the ESG backlash as the investing strategy became a lightning rod in the country’s culture wars. Financed by fossil-fuel interests, Republicans took aim at Wall Street for its talk on climate change, accusing lenders and investors of being part of a “woke agenda.”

They launched investigations, introduced anti-ESG bills across the nation and restricted some firms from doing business in their states. Officials also took legal action against companies including BlackRock Inc. — the world’s largest money manager, whose chief executive officer, Larry Fink, was an early advocate of ESG — claiming they prioritized ESG considerations over investment returns.

Republican lawmakers in New Hampshire even tried, though unsuccessfully, to criminalize the use of ESG factors in investing.

How will Trump’s return affect the ESG landscape?

Conservatives stepped up their anti-ESG efforts in the run-up to Trump’s inauguration. In December, the Republican-led House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committee called on investment firms to detail their role in net-zero groups such as Climate Action 100+, which it accused of operating as a “climate cartel.”

The attacks on ESG will intensify as the new Trump administration targets three-letter labels that can be used as a catchall for subjects it doesn’t like — another notable one being DEI, which stands for diversity, equity and inclusion. Shortly after being sworn in for his second term, Trump took aim at key ESG topics, including electric vehicles and wind turbines, while lashing out at DEI programs.

The fight is being sustained at the state level too. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is leading an effort to demand Wall Street answer questions about its DEI and climate commitments, threatening legal action if firms don’t comply.

What have ESG champions said?

ESG advocates have described Republicans’ attacks as anti-free market. They say taking into account the risks of global warming and other ESG topics can protect investment returns and is in line with acting in the best interests of clients.

The wildfires in California demonstrate the financial risks from natural disasters, which are becoming more frequent and severe. They’ve caused billions of dollars in losses, raising liabilities for insurance companies.

Labor strikes in 2023 cost the automaking industry billions of dollars and saw the share prices of Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co. and Stellantis NV — the big three Detroit manufacturers — tumble. Members of the United Auto Workers union successfully picketed for higher wages and other improvements in their employment contracts.

Has the anti-ESG push had an impact?

The war on ESG has sent a chill across the US finance industry. The pendulum swung from Wall Street being accused of embellishing its ESG bona fides to “greenwash” its image, to potentially “greenhushing” its activities, meaning it’s not being as vocal about its sustainability efforts.

BlackRock’s Fink said he would stop mentioning ESG altogether after it had become politically “weaponized.” His firm lost business from some state entities amid the wave of anti-ESG sentiment.

Money managers and bankers now avoid talking publicly about net-zero emissions goals and have scrubbed the ESG label from websites and many funds. Banks have quit climate alliances in droves amid the threat of litigation from Republican politicians. They’ve found themselves walking a tightrope because they still want to cater to climate-conscious clients.

Meanwhile, investors pulled around $20 billion from US ESG funds in 2024, according to Morningstar Inc., compared with outflows of just over $13 billion a year earlier. By contrast, traditional funds pulled in $740 billion of net new money.

That movement of capital wasn’t just about the political backlash; investors were discouraged by lackluster returns as the ESG strategy was tested by high inflation, elevated interest rates and supply-chain disruptions. The iShares Global Clean Energy ETF, for example, slumped by about 27% in 2024, whereas the S&P 500 climbed 23%.

The global sustainable debt market has proven more resilient. Annual bond issuance topped $1 trillion in 2024 — the second-highest total since the market’s inception in 2007, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. This was fueled by record sales of green and sustainability notes.

Has the ESG backlash spread to Europe?

There are headwinds for ESG in Europe too, although these are being driven more by regulatory fatigue rather than the ideological debate raging in the US. Companies are balking at the sheer volume of data points they’re being asked to provide, on everything from the gender diversity of their boards to the biodiversity risks posed by their operations.

The European Union has been at the forefront of ESG rulemaking, buoyed by its commitment to reach net-zero emissions by mid-century — a target that’s enshrined in law. The bloc introduced its green taxonomy in 2020, a classification system that defines what economic activities are considered environmentally sustainable.

But two more landmark ESG reporting rules have been passed since then and concerns are growing that the regulatory burden could put European companies at a competitive disadvantage — particularly as the US looks poised to enter a phase of deregulation. The EU’s two biggest economies, France and Germany, have pushed for the bloc to scale back its Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive.

The EU’s executive branch, the European Commission, said it would propose a legislative package to simplify the three pillars of its ESG regulation — the taxonomy, CSRD and CSDD — and this is likely to land at the end of February 2025. The Commission is expected to limit the number of companies in scope for the full CSRD requirements.

©2025 Bloomberg L.P.

Interprovincial trade barriers: what they are, why they exist and how to cut them

By Dylan Robertson, 

The Canadian Press

February 04, 2025 

Prince Edward Island Premier Dennis King, second from right, reacts as Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew speaks at a press conference concluding a first ministers meeting in Ottawa on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. The Trump administration's threat to impose damaging tariffs has boosted longstanding calls for Canada to tackle interprovincial trade barriers. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

OTTAWA — The Trump administration’s on-again, off-again threat to impose damaging tariffs has boosted an old idea for driving economic growth in Canada: eliminating interprovincial trade barriers.

“There are millions of different ways in which rules and regulations and standards and so on affect decisions that add up to a lot, at the end of the day,” said University of Calgary economics professor Trevor Tombe.

Here’s a look at how interprovincial trade barriers work and why years of efforts to tear them down them have largely failed.

What’s an interprovincial trade barrier?

Tombe said this term applies mostly to regulatory burdens that frustrate efforts to buy, sell or otherwise do business across provincial lines. They generally don’t involve quotas or tariffs.

“It should just be thought of as differences in the rules and regulations and standards and so on that exist from one province to the next,” he said. “Navigating those different rules adds costs, and therefore detracts from internal trade.”

Tombe said the provinces have a combined total of about 600 professional credentialing bodies that regulate goods and services within their borders — so these barriers exist in virtually every industry.

Health and safety rules that vary by jurisdiction can throw up barriers to interprovincial trade. They include provincial regulations that require a commercial vehicle to get a second inspection after crossing the border between British Columbia and Alberta.

They can also include federal regulations, such as those that require federal inspections of agricultural products when they cross a provincial border — even if the product was inspected provincially when it was produced.

Provincial regulations that categorize products for tax purposes — regulations that determine which ingredients a beverage must contain to be sold as “vodka,” for example — also make it harder to sell products across provincial borders.

But Tombe said the modest level of alcohol trade across provincial borders relates less to regulations and more to the fact that most provincial governments purchase their own supplies for provincial liquor agencies.

Experts have been lamenting the low level of interprovincial trade in Canada for decades. Tombe pointed out that the problem was flagged in the 1940 report of the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations.

Why do these barriers exist?

Tombe said they’re largely the product of political inertia.

“There aren’t nefarious motives on the part of provincial governments,” he said. “It’s just that naturally, when you set your rules, you’ll arrive at potentially slightly different rules.”

He said that provinces have many priorities to focus on, such as schools and hospitals, and harmonizing regulations with their neighbours is “really difficult.”

Sean Speer, a public policy analyst and senior fellow at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs, has suggested governments should use artificial intelligence to “create an apples-to-apples comparison across the provinces” for various regulations, and propose ways to harmonize rules.

“A major obstacle to eliminating interprovincial trade barriers is actually identifying them,” he wrote on the platform X last month.

What’s the economic impact?

In a report Tombe co-wrote for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in 2022, he estimated that eliminating interprovincial barriers could boost Canada’s gross domestic product by between 4.4 and 7.9 per cent over the long term.

He pointed out that result would require the elimination of all barriers and probably wouldn’t be apparent for several years.

At the time it was published, Tombe’s paper estimated that opening up interprovincial trade could increase the size of the national economy by $200 billion. He said that increase in value would reach about $245 billion today — meaning thousands of dollars per person.

Tombe said that Statistics Canada data on exports and imports by province suggests that just one-third of Canadian trade by GDP is interprovincial, with the rest of it moving on to other countries.

He said that illustrates how it’s often easier for businesses to trade goods with foreign countries than across provincial lines.

What has the Trudeau government done to fix this?

Ottawa brought the provinces together to sign the Canadian Free Trade Agreement in 2017, which has led to some provincial and federal rules being softened or repealed to make them more uniform.

Some economists have criticized the agreement for retaining hundreds of exceptions to rules meant to ensure barrier-free trade.

“Despite some partial efforts to reduce barriers in the past, provinces have been reluctant to pursue further measures,” Scotiabank economist Jean-François Perrault wrote in a March 2022 analysis.

Tombe said the 2017 pact is “really meaningful” in that it created an institutional process for provinces to identify irritants and harmonize regulations. But the process itself is slow, he said.

He added that Ottawa has limited control over how provinces regulate within their jurisdiction.

The federal government has convened meetings and has launched surveys and databases meant to identify barriers and ways they can be removed.

Ottawa also has published a building code that provinces can choose to adopt to harmonize the construction sector.

The federal government also standardized electronic hours-tracking for commercial drivers and consolidated 14 food safety regulations into a single set of rules.

What would the Conservatives do?

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has said he’d prioritize tackling a patchwork of trucking regulations, arguing it should be the easiest way to get more Canadian goods moving across provincial borders.

He also has said he would remit tax revenue to provinces that scrap regulations preventing interprovincial trade, and use the added federal tax collected from the resulting increase in commerce.

That idea stems from Scotiabank’s 2022 analysis, which argued such a move could eventually generate $15 billion in federal revenues.

Poilievre also said he would standardize certifications for medical personnel — though past governments that have attempted to do so have faced pushback from regulators and unions.
Would resolving these barriers insulate Canadians from tariffs?

Tombe said scrapping barriers would boost productivity and unlock economic growth — but even swift action would take years to deliver real gains.

“There’s no avoiding a recession, if indeed the U.S follows through with permanent 25 per cent tariffs on Canada,” he said. “But over time, we could potentially more than compensate.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 3, 2025.

What is Trump’s economic endgame? Here’s what an expert had to say

By Dorcas Marfo

February 04, 2025

Ian lee from Carleton University says Trump’s vision is ‘audacious’ and ‘radical’, and his goal is to reform the world’s economic system.

In a move that has caught many allies off-guard, the Trump administration is pursing an “audacious” plan to reshape the international economic system that has governed global trade since the end of the Second World War, according to an expert.

In an interview with CTV’s Your Morning Tuesday, Ian Lee, an associate professor at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business, said, “(This vision) is radical, in my judgment, it is nothing less than the reform of an entire international economic system … often just simply called multilateralism.”

Lee said according to a key document, published by Stephen Miran, the chief economist to Donald Trump in the White House, the U.S. president is seeking to use tariffs and market access as leverage to force other countries to open protected parts of their economies to U.S. corporations.

Lee said contrary to what Canada’s federal and provincial leaders have said about Trump’s lack of vision, Trump does have a plan that seeks to “rewrite the rules.”

“He can get away with it because they are the largest economy in the world,” Lee said. “Almost everybody wants access to the American market. So, the fact that everyone wants to access to sell into the American market is (America’s) card. That’s their lever.”

The document, titled “User’s Guide to the Reform of the International Economic System,” argues that the U.S. has been taken advantage of for decades by both friends and foes who demand full access to the massive American market while protecting parts of their own economies. Trump’s team believes it’s time to flip the script.

“This contradicts all the trade agreements. That is not what is said in the NAFTA agreement, or CUSMA or the WTO,” Lee said, referencing agreements that are built on mutual market access.

Beyond just demanding access to protected sectors, Trump’s team is also making more demands such as rescinding digital service taxes on U.S. tech giants and requiring countries to contribute more to international security, according to Lee.

“They argue that they’ve paid the overwhelming share of the trillion spent since 1945 on international security,” Lee said.

In a recent deal with the U.S., Mexico’s tariffs will be paused for a month in exchange for a fortified border, shared with the U.S., where 10,000 members of the national guard will be tasked with blocking drugs like fentanyl.

Canada’s deal with the U.S. followed in which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, after a pair of calls with Trump, announced that both sides agreed to a delay in tariffs for 30 days as Canada plans to implement a $1.3 billion border plan that includes 10,000 personnel and other surveillance measures.

Canada also aims to launch a cross-border “Strike Force” to target organized crime, fentanyl and money laundering.

As Canada and other U.S. allies grapple with the new reality, the stakes continue to be raised.

For Canada, a close trading partner of the U.S., this poses challenges. Lee argues that Canada must deeply understand Trump’s blueprint to effectively negotiate and protect its interests, rather than being caught off guard.

“You have to do opposition research. We’re now learning, very belatedly, what the U.S. government is up to. We’ve got to do a better job,” Lee explained.


Dorcas Marfo
CTVNews.ca Journalist

What did U.S. get from deals to pause tariffs on Canada and Mexico? Not that much, observers say

By Josh Boak, María Verza And Rob Gillies, 

The Associated Press

February 04, 2025 

Mexican National Guards prepare to board an aircraft at the International Airport in Merida, Mexico, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025, to travel north to reinforce the country's border with the United States. (AP Photo/Martin Zetina)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs against Canada and Mexico — now on hold for a month — risked blowing up North America’s economy. What did the United States get out of his deals to pause the import taxes against the two nations?

Not all that much, according to people outside the administration looking at the agreements.

The U.S. president has been openly pugnacious with America's two largest trade partners. His orders to impose a 25% tariff on all imports from Mexico and on most imports from Canada, with a lesser 10% tax on its energy products, created a sudden political and economic firestorm. Separately, 10% tariffs went into effect on China on Tuesday.

By agreeing to the pause for Mexico and Canada, Trump has been able to tell his supporters that he brokered a smart deal and to declare victory in addressing illegal immigration and drug trafficking. Canada will have a new “fentanyl czar,” and Mexico pledged to deploy 10,000 members of its National Guard. The White House sent out an email with 68 Republican lawmakers praising him after the pauses were announced.

But many of those outside the White House looking at the tariffs drama say little was accomplished, arguing that the measures taken by the two U.S. neighbors were already in place or likely could have been achieved without Trump's ultimatums. Even the financial markets seemed to shrug off the showdown with a modest sell-off on Monday.


What Canada and Mexico offered the United States

Weeks ago, Canada offered $1.3 billion Canadian dollars ($900 million) for border security with a package that included drones, helicopters, more border guards and the creation of a joint task force. On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said after talks with Trump that they added the fentanyl czar and agreed to list Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations.

“Canada did not bend the knee,” Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey said. “There is such a small flow of fentanyl into the United States from Canada that it will be tough to show the president that there’s been gigantic reduction because there’s not a gigantic start to begin with compared to the southern border.”

The Trump team saw it as win that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum agreed to station 10,000 members of her country’s National Guard on its border with the United States. But those troops are essentially being shifted from other parts of the country, rather than newly deployed.

The Associated Press observed more than 100 members of the National Guard boarding a plane Tuesday morning in the southeastern city of Merida, bound for Ciudad Juarez. Additional units were scheduled to depart Cancun and Campeche, while still others were expected to move north by road.

They would join the more than 10,000 troops already stationed along Mexico’s northern border, whose presence has been unable to stifle persistent violence in a region closely held by organized crime to allow the smuggling of drugs, migrants and guns.

“It did not get the United States much at all from what it already had substantively,” said Josh Lipsky, a senior director at the Atlantic Council, a foreign policy think tank in Washington. Lipsky said Trump could have achieved the same results without the bad will generated by tariff threats.

Trump's pattern: Find a way to declare a win

Inu Manak, a fellow for trade policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Trump's tariff threats "were certainly not necessary,” but his objectives in making the threats are “purposefully vague so that he can declare victory regardless of the outcome.”

“A win is anything Trump wants it to be,” she said. “There isn’t any grand strategy or rational explanation for what he’s doing. It’s chaos for the sake of chaos.”

Trump often stirs up drama and then tries to take credit for actions that might not resolve the underlying problems. After the recent wildfires in Los Angeles, Trump made a big show of having water released on Friday from reservoirs in California, even though the water does not flow to Los Angeles County. He's also taken credit for corporate investments in artificial intelligence that predated his presidency.


But what also matters to Trump is showing that he can get others to act. His tariff threats this year echo what he's done before, with similar but less durable results for Mexico.

In 2019, then-President Andrés Manuel López Obrador reached a similar deal with Trump to head off another tariff threat. At that time, López Obrador pledged 15,000 members of the newly created National Guard to help stem the flow of migrants at the northern border and another 6,500 at Mexico’s southern border.

Trump posted on X after the 2019 deal that the tariffs “are hereby indefinitely suspended.” But this time, Mexico bought itself only 30 more days until the taxes could begin.

Trump's defense that his approach works

The White House did not respond to questions about which parts of its agreement with Canada and Mexico were new and what could be produced from the upcoming talks.

Peter Navarro, Trump's White House trade adviser, said Tuesday at a Politico event that the tariffs threat meant that fewer U.S. citizens would die from fentanyl addiction. He suggested additional concessions could come from talks over the next month and that Trump's seemingly mercurial approach to Canada and Mexico had succeeded.

“When he does stuff and it looks like things are a little chaotic, it’s not,” Navarro said. “It’s genius and he delivers.”

Navarro said that what Canada and Mexico had offered was not “minor” because “it's a 30-day thing” and more concessions could result.

Building or burning bridges with trade partners?

The risk for Canada and Mexico is that Trump could easily end his tariff suspensions and again threaten to charge the import taxes. While White House officials have said the taxes were about stopping illegal drugs, Trump himself has said the talks also need to address America's trade imbalance with its neighbors.

All of that means other countries might be less likely to trust Trump going forward.

“Would you threaten to burn down the house of your friendly neighbor to get some salt or sugar from them?” said Daniel Beland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal. “President Trump’s approach to bargaining is destructive, and it erodes trust. Most Canadians are unlikely to forget what just happened, even if his tariffs are never imposed upon Canada.”

___

Verza reported from Mexico City, and Gillies reported from Toronto. Associated Press Writer Amy Taxin in Santa Ana, California, contributed to this report.

Josh Boak, María Verza And Rob Gillies, The Associated Press

Canada Oil Tariffs Seen Adding 8% to US Northeast Heating Bills

By Simone Foxman, 

Bloomberg News

February 03, 2025

(Bloomberg) -- Supply Lines is a daily newsletter that tracks global trade. Sign up here.

The cost to heat a home with oil this winter in the US Northeast would rise 8% if tariffs on Canadian energy products are enacted, an energy nonprofit estimates.

The levies would on average add $117 to heating bills for the duration of the winter season in New England, Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey, states that account for three-quarters of heating oil use in the US, Mark Wolfe, executive director of National Energy Assistance Directors Association, said in an email. The organization advises states on a federal program that helps low-income families pay heating and cooling bills.

Trump on Saturday imposed a 10% tariff on US imports of Canadian energy products and a 25% duty on other goods from the country. Those levies are set to take effect at 12:01 a.m. Washington time on Tuesday. Economists and refineries have been warning consumers they quickly could bear the brunt of tariffs on Canadian energy products.

“In the absence of additional federal assistance to offset these higher prices, low-income families will be hit hardest by these increases and many will be forced to choose between paying for home heating and other essentials including food, clothing and medicine,” Wolfe said.

Wolfe estimated households who must buy an additional tank of oil this winter will likely spend $85 to do so. About 4.8 million households in the US used heating oil to heat their homes last year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

©2025 Bloomberg L.P.

Canada tech leaders launch group to influence political upheaval

IF IT'S 'NON-PARTISAN'; IT'S RIGHT WING

By Thomas Seal, 

Bloomberg News

February 04, 2025

A group with the backing of top Canadian tech entrepreneurs has launched an effort to promote policies ahead of a general election this year.

The “Build Canada” website appeared on Tuesday with a list of supporters featuring several members of the executive team at Shopify Inc., venture capitalist and entrepreneur Anthony Lacavera, as well as the co-founders of AI startup Cohere Inc. and fintech startup Wealthsimple Inc. Its core team includes former Shopify Vice President Daniel Debow and former government official Lucy Hargreaves, now head of corporate affairs at tech company Patch.

The site bemoans the “small thinking, bureaucratic inertia and special interests” holding Canada back. It says it’s non-partisan, and features articles by business figures with policy ideas such as talent-driven immigration reform - instead of “providing residency as a form of charity” - revamping programs to promote pro-Canadian cultural content, updating and integrating health records, and centralizing transportation regulation. It also promotes “selling more Canadian products and resources.”

Canada is due to hold a general election by October. The public focus by tech leaders on policy making echoes the role their American peers played in November’s U.S. election. That influence was epitomized by the efforts of Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk, who poured more than $250 million into political groups and helped President Donald Trump create the Department of Government Efficiency.

Much lower political donation limits prevent the same playbook from being employed in Canada. Build Canada, Shopify, Wealthsimple and Cohere didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

©2025 Bloomberg L.P.

Quebec premier says North American free-trade agreement should be reopened now

By The Canadian Press

February 04, 2025 

Quebec Premier Francois Legault makes a statement on U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs at the legislature in Quebec City, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025.

 THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques Boissinot

Talks should begin as soon as possible on renegotiating the North American free-trade agreement, Quebec Premier François Legault said Tuesday in the legislature, as he and other leaders pondered how to respond to the major economic threat south of the border.

Legault made the comments in a special speech to the national assembly, one day after United States President Donald Trump paused for 30 days the implementation of 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods and services.

“Obviously, we hope that these tariffs will never be put in place,” Legault said. “But when you listen to Mr. Trump, you can’t take the risk of betting on that.”

The premier said the uncertainty that is being created by the constant threats of U.S. tariffs is like injecting “poison” into the economy. If Trump is unhappy with the North American free-trade agreement, then the U.S., Canada and Mexico should begin talks immediately instead of waiting for a scheduled review in 2026, Legault said.

The Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, signed in 2018 and entered into force in 2020, governs trade across the continent and replaces the original deal that went into effect in 1994.

Legault said that in light of Trump’s tariff plans — what the premier described as a “brutal economic attack” — the province must move to diversify its economy and make it less dependent on the U.S. “We have to bet on ourselves above all,” the premier said.

If the Trump administration ends up imposing 25 per cent tariffs across all Canadian goods and services, Quebec could see up to 100,000 jobs losses and businesses struggling to survive, particularly in forestry, aluminum processing and the agri-food industry, Legault said. Priority No. 1 will be supporting those affected businesses, he added.

Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon said Legault’s plan lacked specifics and was full of “clichés.”

“What we want from the government in delicate and complex situations is not for it to amplify fear and anxiety, nor to stage media spectacles like we saw during the pandemic,” St-Pierre Plamondon said, sparking outrage among Legault’s party.

According to the PQ leader, the provincial government must offer “fiscal incentives for our entrepreneurs.”

“We believe that this government has excessively subsidized businesses in general over the past seven years. And the results have not been there, as evidenced by a historic $11-billion deficit,” he argued, adding that it was necessary to reduce “bureaucracy and red tape.”

Interim Liberal leader Marc Tanguay said Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec government was unprepared to deal with Trump, and he called on the premier to be more active with diplomacy in the U.S. Legault must name a chief negotiator for the province, Tanguay said.

“Quebec diplomacy exists. We need to take action to prepare for what is likely to happen in 30 days and ensure that the pressure comes from within the United States,” Tanguay said, suggesting the province lobby U.S. leaders to pressure the Trump administration to drop its tariff threat. “We have asked for this, but we do not see any tangible and concrete activation of bilateral diplomatic relations.”

Québec solidaire’s Ruba Ghazal said Trump is a wild card and can’t be trusted. “We have before us a rogue emperor, a bully of the worst kind, an intimidator who does not care about laws, rules or treaties.”

“There will be some who say that the storm will pass, there will be some who say that Uncle Sam will come to his senses, that Donald Trump will end up understanding that it is in the interest of the American economy and the American people to cultivate good relations with its neighbours,” said Ghazal, whose party called for Tuesday’s debate in the legislature.

“We, Quebecers, are optimistic people, but we are also lucid,” Ghazal said.


This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 4, 2025.

— By Sidhartha Banerjee in Montre

Canadian Purolator buys customs broker Livingston amid heightened trade uncertainty

By The Canadian Press

February 04, 2025

A Purolator plane sits on the tarmac at the John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport in Hamilton, Ont., Friday, Feb. 23, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nick Iwanyshyn

Purolator Inc. has acquired Livingston International, one of Canada’s largest customs brokers, in a bid to boost its trade expertise in the Trump era.

The purchase, which closed Tuesday for an undisclosed amount, will allow one of the country’s biggest couriers help clients steer through shifting international rules and supply chains, said Purolator chief executive John Ferguson.

In an interview he acknowledged the instability brought on by U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to impose sweeping tariffs of 25 per cent on Canadian imports, but said demand for customs brokers will only rise as a result.

“Obviously it’s a significant issue and it’s created a lot of uncertainty,” Ferguson said.

“With uncertainty and trade complexity, these services that we’re bringing on are actually highly beneficial to our customers, because they have a significant trade consulting practice,” he said of Livingston.

“That is really going to be able to help companies that are trying to navigate all the tariffs and global re-engineering of supply chains.”

Some 30 per cent of Purolator’s business stems from cross-border deliveries, he noted, making it vulnerable to the potential tariffs and retaliatory duties on $155 billion worth of American goods announced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over the weekend.

However, Ferguson said he believes trade between the two countries will rise in the coming decades, benefiting the Canada Post-owned company.

“I don’t see trade dampening in the long term, and we really are a long-term strategic investor.”

Livingston, based in Toronto, says it employs about 2,700 workers at more than 50 border crossings, seaports and airports across the continent as well as in Europe and Asia.

It was sold to Purolator by Platinum Equity, a Los Angeles-based private equity firm that bought the 80-year-old brokerage in 2019.

Livingston is Canada’s biggest customs broker and the fifth-largest entry filer in the U.S., Platinum said.

Ferguson said customs brokerages enjoy enviable client retention, describing them as “extremely sticky.”

“People look at their customs brokers like they do their doctors, (who) they really depend on.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 4, 2025.

STFU

Alberta's Smith says Canada should ‘stop making excuses,’ address Trump concerns to avoid tariffs

By Spencer Van Dyk

February 04, 2025 


Alberta Premier Danielle Smith talks about extending the 30-day freeze on U.S. tariffs by addressing fentanyl and other issues that are irritating the U.S.

The premier of Alberta says if Canada wants to avoid U.S.-imposed tariffs on Canadian imports in a month’s time, federal and provincial governments should “stop making excuses” and heed President Donald Trump’s border security demands.

“He wants us to recognize that Canada enjoys a very special relationship with the U.S. that no other country in the world enjoys, and just show the respect of taking seriously the fact that they’ve got people dying and they want it to stop,” Danielle Smith said, referencing the fentanyl overdose crisis, Trump’s stated reasoning for the tariff threat.

In an interview on CTV’s Power Play with Vassy Kapelos on Tuesday, Smith said the comparison many Canadian officials are making — that the amount of fentanyl seized at the Canada-U.S. border is a fraction of that seized at the Mexico-U.S. border — is “not a very persuasive argument.”

“We should stop making excuses,” Smith said. “Stop saying, ‘Yeah, but we’re not as bad as the other guys.’ We should just say, ‘Yes, we agree, and we’re going to take care of our part of the issue, so you don’t have to worry about us anymore.’”

When pressed by Kapelos on accepting Trump’s characterization of the border and drug issue rather than pushing back with the facts, Smith insisted her approach would lead to a better outcome.


“I think it’s just a serious issue for me in my province as it is for the Americans in their country, and that we’ve got to crack down on it, and this is our opportunity,” she said.

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, only 43 pounds of fentanyl has been seized at the Canada-U.S. border in the past year, compared to 21,148 pounds at its southern border with Mexico. CBP statistics suggest less than one per cent of fentanyl seized by authorities in the U.S. comes from Canada.

Trump signed an executive order on Saturday that would implement a 25 per cent across-the-board tariff on Canadian imports, and a 10 per cent tariff on Canadian energy, as of Tuesday.

Following two phone calls with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday — the pair’s first conversations since Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20 — the president said he’d delay the tariffs pending progress on Canada’s border plan.

“Canada has agreed to ensure we have a secure northern border,” Trump announced on Truth Social, adding the tariffs he announced on Saturday “will be paused for a 30-day period to see whether or not a final economic deal with Canada can be structured.”

Amid Trump’s early assertion that border security is the main reason for the tariffs, Canada earmarked $1.3 billion in the fall economic statement to add resources.

The federal government then laid out its new border plan late in December, which includes helicopters, drones and surveillance towers, and pledges 24-7 surveillance between ports of entry, among other measures.

“Through Canada’s Border Plan, we’re deploying thousands more frontline personnel to the border, launching a precursor chemical detection unit, and building a new drug profiling centre to combat the fentanyl trade,” Trudeau wrote in a social media post on Tuesday. “This drug trade is a global, deadly issue — and Canada is tackling it head-on.”

Smith said “hopefully” the 30-day extension will give Canada time to make “enough progress that we can move on to some of the other issues.”
‘There are two tariffs’: Smith

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office between the first and second calls with Trudeau on Monday, Trump restated his desire to see Canada become the “51st state,” adding that should that occur, “there would be some pain, but not a lot.”


He also repeated his assertions of an unfair trade deficit with Canada.

“I look at some of the deals made. I say, ‘Who the hell made these deals? They’re so bad.’”

The current Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) free trade agreement was signed by Trump during his first term in office, and according to the Canadian government, data indicates when energy exports are excluded, the U.S. has a trade surplus with Canada.

When asked by Kapelos whether she believes extending the pause on tariffs is predicated on action at the border — despite Trump’s comments about CUSMA and wanting to annex Canada — Smith said there are “two conversations” happening between Canada and the U.S. administrations, and “two tariffs.”

“One conversation is the tariffs related to fentanyl, and the second conversation is all of the irritations that the administration has with the CUSMA agreement, and I don’t think we should intermingle those two,” Smith said.

She’s also calling for a federal election sooner rather than later.

Trudeau announced on Jan. 6 he would be stepping down as Liberal leader and prime minister. The race to replace him is now underway in earnest, with the new leader set to be announced on March 9.

The opposition parties, meanwhile, have committed to voting to bring down the government at the earliest possible opportunity, once Parliament comes back from prorogation at the end of March.

“I think we’ve got to address the fentanyl issue to avoid the 25 per cent tariffs, and then the second stage is having an election so we can have a government that can spend four years renegotiating the CUSMA,” Smith told Kapelos.

The Alberta premier pointed to issues such as the digital media tax, the banking industry, telecoms, and supply management as a few that are “irritating to the Americans.”

“Those keep coming up, but those are can only be resolved in the context of a broader renegotiation of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico free trade agreement, and that’s not scheduled to be done until 2026, so we need an election,” she said. “We can’t have one prime minister start those discussions, a second prime minister carry it a few yards, and then a final prime minister negotiates it.”

With files from CTV News’ Rachel Aiello

Spencer Van Dyk
Writer & Producer, Ottawa News Bureau, CTV News

CANADA

Investors, businesses should brace for uncertainty amid ‘forever changed’ trade landscape: experts

By Daniel Johnson

February 04, 2025 

Experts say investors and businesses should brace for continued volatility after U.S. tariffs on Canada were put on hold, with one analyst saying he expects tariffs to still come at some point.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were able to come to some kind of mutual understanding during a phone call Monday, resulting in tariffs being put on hold for 30 days. The pause came after Trudeau said Canada would expand its $1.3 billion border protection plan. Brooke Thackray, research analyst at Global X, said in an interview with BNN Bloomberg Tuesday the issue “isn’t done yet” and he thinks there will be more market volatility and uncertainty regarding tariffs going forward.

“I think the volatility will increase, and that’s going to shake a lot of investors out. You’re going to see a lot of fear being driven into the markets, in the equity market and also the fixed income market as well,” Thackray said.

The pause came after Trump signed an executive order on Saturday to impose a 25 per cent tariff on all goods from Canada that would have taken effect on Tuesday, with an exception for energy which would face a 10 per cent tariff.

Barry Schwartz, a partner and portfolio manager at Baskin Wealth Management, said in an interview with BNN Bloomberg Tuesday that investors should get used to volatility of this kind as “the next four years are going to be a roller coaster.”

“These are the conversations that we’re going to have with clients, and we’ll have to calm them down, and I know the right things to do. Own good companies and be patient,” he said.

Thackray highlighted the Chicago Board Options Exchange’s CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), a tool used by traders to measure volatility, which spiked Monday morning on tariff fears but later came back down.

“This really comes back to that you can’t really panic in the moment because you would’ve been battered around all over the place,” he said.
What’s next?

Thackray also said he doesn’t think tariff issues between Canada and the U.S. are over and predicts tariffs of some kind to take shape.

“I think this isn’t over…I think this is just a pause here and maybe we end up with tariffs that aren’t 25 per cent,” he said.

“Maybe they’re 15 per cent, maybe they’re 10 per cent, maybe they’re five per cent. I think there’s going to be tariffs down the road at some point. Trump has basically also said on the other side that he wants to use tariffs as a revenue generating tool.”

David Detomasi, professor of international business at Smith School of Business, said in an interview with BNNBloomberg.ca Tuesday that Trump knew that from an economic perspective, “these tariffs were a bad idea.”

“But I do think he believes that the threat of importing tariffs or the actual execution of putting on tariffs, is a viable tool to compel governments to do what he thinks they ought to in a variety of noneconomic areas,” he said.

Detomasi added that he doesn’t think the pause on tariff discussions will be the “end of the story.” He said Trump most recently used the threat of tariffs to get border changes that were likely to come anyway.

“But I do think he’ll pull out the tariffs again in a month or two months, or six months when he wants something else from us,” Detomasi said.

‘Forever changed’ trade landscape

As tariffs have been put on hold for 30 days, Charmaine Goddeeris, the director of BDO Canada’s customs and international trade practice, said in an interview with BNNBloomberg.ca Tuesday that she is advising clients not to take their “foot off the pedal in contingency planning.”

“I believe that the trade landscape has forever changed now, and companies need to realize that and put in solid plans to manage their business and mitigate their costs going forward,” she said.

According to Goddeeris, supply chains rely on predictable and efficient customs processes, which are disrupted by tariffs.

“It is imperative that businesses really get a handle on what their supply chain looks like right now, what the duty and tax impact is, and pressure test, let’s take a look at how much your bottom line can withstand, and then do some planning from there,” she said.

Detomasi said that his advice to Canadian businesses would be to become less reliant on the U.S.

“I think we need to think about how we can build internal strengths ourselves to try to break that assumption that the U.S. will always be there for us,” he said.


Daniel Johnson

Journalist, BNNBloomberg.