With just hours to go before U.S. President Donald Trump potentially imposes sweeping tariffs on Canadian goods, the City of Brampton is announcing it’s ready to deploy a “Made in Canada” procurement policy in response.
“It’s really saying that we’re not going to take this lying down, that we’re going to stand up for our jobs, and there has to be pushback, a bully will continue to be a bully if there isn’t pushback,” Mayor Patrick Brown said at a news conference Monday morning.
Trump is set to unleash 25 per cent tariffs on all Canadian imports starting Tuesday, and a 10 per cent tax on energy.
The tariffs were previously set to take hold early last month but were suspended for Canada and Mexico at the last minute after both countries agreed to Trump’s demand to strengthen their borders against the flow of illegal drugs and migrants.
Brown said his retaliatory strategy is two fold, starting with a review of the city’s current procurement – which he said totals $1.9 billion – with U.S. companies and then blocking American businesses from future contracts in favour of Canadian ones.
“At a time when our economy is under threat, when jobs are at stake, we need to opt in for Canada,” he said.
Last week, Brown announced the city would create a “Mayor’s Tariff Task Force” to respond to the tariffs while looking into how it could diversify its existing trade relationships.
In January, the city passed a motion prioritizing a “not made in America approach” and Brown said he plans to move a similar motion at the Region of Peel alongside Mississauga Mayor Carolyn Parrish.
At the federal level, Ottawa has said it will respond with retaliatory tariffs if Trump’s tax takes hold, starting with a 25 per cent levy on $30 billion in U.S. products, with duties on another $125 billion worth of goods three weeks later.
With files from Alex Arsenych
