(Ottawa) During their meeting in Ottawa on Mark Carney and the Prime Minister of Ontario, Doug Ford, upon their meeting in Ottawa on Monday, emphasized Canada’s global competitiveness rather than the conclusion of a trade agreement with the United States.
The two leaders met on the hill of the Parliament, while commercial negotiations with the United States show only few signs of advance.
After the meeting on Monday, journalists questioned Mr. Ford on his prospects for the conclusion of an agreement without customs duties with the United States. He replied that the behavior of the American president, Donald Trump, was “unpredictable”.
“He’s going to release an absurdity that we are not even aware of tomorrow, isn’t it?” Wave the Ontarian elected official. I have always said that we could never predict what Donald Trump was going to do, but […] We can create the environment and the conditions for companies to invest here. »»
At the beginning of the month, the American president imposed general customs duties of 35 % on Canadian products not in accordance with the Canada-US-Mexico trade agreement, in addition to customs duties aimed at sectors such as steel and aluminum.
Doug Ford then mentioned the need to use steel manufactured in Ontario by companies like Algoma in infrastructure projects, such as a hypothetical pipeline.
“We have to beat Trump to his own game and make sure to be more competitive and import as many products as possible in Canadian territory,” he exclaimed.
Photo Patrick Doyle, the Canadian press
Ontario Prime Minister Doug Ford
According to Mr. Ford, nothing concrete came out of the meeting, but he told journalists that Mr. Carney and were “on the same wavelength”.
“We share the same message:” Let’s start to think about how we can be competitive here “. »»
Prime Minister Carney did not addressed journalists when he left, but when he arrived in Reunion.
“I would like to salute the leadership of Prime Minister Ford of Ontario and then of the Federation Council for a crucial time for our country,” said the Prime Minister.
Photo Patrick Doyle, the Canadian press
Canada Prime Minister Mark Carney
He said the two men would focus on the aspects of the Canadian economy “that we can control”.
“We will talk about the real estate, steel, automotive sector, new sectors of the economy [comme] Artificial intelligence, and what we do to make Canada competitive, ”said Carney.
The Minister of Commerce Canada-United States, Dominic Leblanc, was also on the hill of Parliament on Monday morning and did not answer questions from journalists who followed him in the hall. Mark Carney said that Mr. Leblanc should take stock of the state of commercial negotiations with the Americans.
Doug Ford is in Ottawa for the Conference of the Ontario Municipalities Association, which takes place until Wednesday.
Donald Trump has worked in recent weeks to negotiate an end to war between Russia and Ukraine. On Monday, he had to hold a series of meetings at the White House with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, several European leaders and the secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Prime Minister Carney does not attend these meetings.
With information from Sarah Ritchie and Catherine Morrison, in Ottawa, and Allison Jones, in Toronto
