Yes, clearly every trade agreement must benefit our local Canadian oligarchs – Irving, Weston, Rogers and Patterson. We certainly can’t use free trade and human dignity to work towards fairer, more equitable societies - that would be too logical right?

Canadian society is about supporting individuals

A strong, viable welfare system isn’t funded by good feelings. You too are also welcome to leave if you contribute nothing to society.

Yes, that seems to be the preference among this crowd. It’s good to lick the boots of monopolies and I’m sure everyone loves paying 3x the global cost for cell phone service.

My wallet shouldn’t be used to subsidize a fundamentally unproductive Quebec dairy farm because political parties need to prop up their Quebec MPs. Markets should be free, trade should be open and fair for trading partners that feel likewise.

They desperately want to flood our protected markets and crash our economy and are pissed we aren’t letting them - hence the threats. Literally every interaction we have had with the Donald government has been a goddamn threat. Let us crush your local production, let us have your resources, let us have the Arctic, etc etc

I think this argument is missing the bigger picture. Trade isn’t some one-sided plot by the U.S. to “take over” Canada—it’s about negotiations, and sometimes, yes, that includes pressure tactics. But the real issue here isn’t some grand conspiracy to flood our markets and crash our economy. It’s that the U.S. often pushes for one-sided trade deals that benefit them more than us, and we push back. That’s not an attack—it’s just how trade disputes work.

The real question is: why should Canada keep such heavily protected markets in sectors like dairy and telecommunications while expecting full access to the U.S. market? Competition is a good thing—it leads to lower prices and better services. Imagine getting European cheeses at a fraction of the cost or finally having real telecom competition. If the U.S. is willing to open its markets to our regional airliners, our softwood lumber, and other key exports, why wouldn’t we negotiate on equal footing?

The problem isn’t trade itself—it’s unfair trade. If the U.S. wants access to our markets, we should be getting equivalent access to theirs. That’s the real fight here. Instead of seeing this as a U.S. plot to crush Canada, we should be focused on securing a deal that works both ways—whether that means better market access, fairer tariffs, or even things like freer movement of citizens across borders.

The goal should be fair trade, not a lopsided deal where one side wins at the expense of the other.

This has been the playbook from day one—Trump throws out an outrageous statement, his lackeys rush to ‘clarify’, ‘negotiate’ or downplay it, and then, surprise, he meant exactly what he said.

The real problem is the constant gaslighting: pretending he’s just posturing when, in reality, he’s dead set on pushing his reckless, authoritarian agenda. At this point, anyone still treating him like a rational actor is either delusional or complicit. No rational actor would casually equate ethnic cleansing to a real estate transaction, or try and take over a sovereign state as though it was a ruthless corporate takeover.

There is no future in negotiating with the US - the only way out of this mess is to do what we should’ve been doing for the past 30 years - diversify our supply chains, build resilient trading relationships and establish the infrastructure to insulate ourselves from the whims of volatile US policymakers - even if that means cozying up to global partners with historical animosity.

Canadian tariffs are targeted in a number of ways. One of the ways is targeting American goods that have Canadian alternatives. So the goal is to make American products less attractive by making them more expensive, damaging the US economy while bolstering our own.

I feel like it’s often missed that it isn’t a binary Buy US/Buy Canada dilemma. Most goods have substitutes - there are other countries that can produce most consumer goods. It’s only when you start getting into high-value-added goods like turbines, flash memory, missiles and planes that there’s difficulties in import substitution. A 25% retaliatory tariff doesn’t mean your canned tomatoes are definitely going up by 25%, but you’ll likely start seeing Mexican, Peruvian, etc. canned tomatoes on Canadian shelves that weren’t there before.

And while patriotism is great and all, buying goods from other countries that we don’t have strong established trading ties with is a good way to make the case for closer bilateral cooperation and even future free trade agreements that exceed most-favoured nation benefits conferred by the WTO. When countries start building export-driven industries that give dignity and economic self-sufficiency for their citizens, that’s a future tiger worthy of negotiating a free trade agreement with.

I’m doubtful full membership will ever happen, and even an EEA Norway-style agreement where we adopt 75% of the EU’s laws without representation but keep our fishing and agricultural policies (pre-requisites for the Atlantic and Prairie Provinces to agree), would take decades to be negotiated, signed and ratified with all the dysfunctional, proportional representational governments in Europe right now.

There’s been discussions about “associate membership” in the EU to bypass the European-ness requirement, but I don’t think that’s gotten any traction.

I would be grateful for any kind of free movement agreement that gains traction right now, even with CARICOM or MERCOSUR.

This isn’t the major issue it’s being portrayed as.

Under Canada’s free trade agreements—including those with the WTO, CPTPP, and the European Union—Canada is obligated to allow foreign companies from these partner regions to compete for large government procurement contracts (typically valued at ~$230,000 CAD or more). These agreements ensure fair access without protectionist barriers and, in return, give Canadian companies access to similar opportunities in those markets.

Given this context, it’s not surprising that a significant portion of federal procurement contracts go to companies headquartered in the world’s largest free market economy, the United States. The fact that nearly 25% of federal government suppliers by total contract value being U.S.-based is not unexpected under these trade arrangements.