The US has Canada over a barrel … literally.
BC’s refusal (so far) to lift its objections to oil tanker travel along our west coast, and Quebec’s refusal (so far) to allow oil/natural gas pipelines to the east coast are playing right into the US’s hands.
Canada will never be able to break free from American dominance and control of our oil (and mining) resources …which includes allowing the US to pay us 20% BELOW world market prices … unless BC and Quebec open up our access to alternative foreign … and friendlier … buyers.
If they don’t, all the talk about freeing us from US President Donald Trump’s domination, insults and humiliation, are futile.
In fact, although negotiations are still continuing, Canada is already hurting from the US trade attacks and interim tariffs.
Particularly hard hit are the steel, aluminum, automotive, furniture, clothing and forest industries … and, if the trade talks fail, those and all other cross-border trade are expected to suffer even more.
BC, already in a particularly difficult economic state, will be especially impacted … unless we open up our west coast ports to more potential customers in Asia, South America and other Pacific nations.
The Statistics Canada latest Jobs Figures for June tell the tale.
The good news was the country’s overall unemployment rate, despite layoffs in some sectors, was basically stable: 6.9%, with 83,000 new jobs added. Canadians are clearly stepping up … buying Canadian … trying to protect jobs.
But in BC, although the June unemployment rate dropped, unfortunately it was for the wrong reason:
“Although B.C.’s unemployment rate declined from 6.4 per cent to 5.6 per cent last month, making it the third-lowest in the country, that improvement mainly reflects the number of people leaving the workforce, as opposed to job creation,” the Vancouver Sun reported.
“B.C. gained 5,000 jobs in June. While the province recorded 8,000 new positions in accommodation and food services and 4,600 new jobs in public administration, it lost 4,800 jobs each in manufacturing, transportation and warehousing.
“There was also a decline in the number of jobs in critical fields such as health care and social assistance, which lost 2,100 jobs, and construction, which lost 2,500,” the statisticians found. (You can read the whole article here: https://vancouversun.com/business/bc-losing-workers-as-youth-cant-find-employment-due-to-lack-of-private-sector-jobs)
And there’s BC’s overall economic health …
“The B.C. government upped projected budget deficits throughout its three-year fiscal plan, including a record $10.9 billion shortfall in 2025-26,” RBC reported in March … and that, of course, was prior to the latest fiscal woes/threats besetting the province.
“Significant risks threaten revenue and expenditure projections—the plan doesn’t incorporate U.S. tariffs into economic assumptions.”
Ugh!
And our debt forecast looks even worse!
“B.C.’s debt is set to skyrocket with continued deficits and ambitious capital spending. The budget forecasts taxpayer-supported debt to jump from $97.7 billion in 2024-25 to $166.5 billion by 2027-28. This represents a nearly $69 billion (70%) increase in just three years.”
S & P’s last economic-lending review downgraded the province’s long-term credit rating to A+ from AA- .
And Moody’s dropped BC’s credit rating score as well:
“Moody’s said in a news release that its downgrade reflected a “structural deterioration in British Columbia’s credit profile” and it predicted this year’s deficit would soar to $14.3 billion,” according to The Sun.
“That’s more than 31 per cent higher than the forecast in Finance Minister Brenda Bailey’s budget last month. Moody’s said its credit outlook for B.C. remained negative with no “clear visibility” on how the province would balance its finances.”
And there’s a price to pay for that … literally:
A lower rating will cost BC millions more to finance its debt.
In Quebec, the impact of the tariff war will also have severe consequences:
““The core risk is really for manufacturing jobs. There is about 95,000 manufacturing jobs in Quebec in those sectors that are very dependent to US exports. So let’s think about aluminum, steel, aerospace. So 95,000 jobs that are in those very crucial sectors,” the Institut du Quebec warned.
“Quebec consumers will still feel the downsides of the tariff war through price increases on consumer goods such as appliances, furniture, clothing, and food products. The analysis indicates that unlike the industrial impacts, which could vary from one region to another, these increases will affect all of Quebec,” Montreal’s City News reported.
All of this, I’m sure, is not lost on our former American trading partners, now adversaries.
BC and Quebec must wake up a smell the coffee (now under a 50% Trump tariff threat)!
And let’s keep it real: even if a new trade agreement is reached soon, Trump is so unstable, it’s unlikely he won’t go off on another trade tantrum and attack (or two or three) before his term is up.
We MUST do everything we can NOW to expand access to world markets for our resources, our industries and our trade/co-operation relationships with friendly countries.
And a NECESSARY pre-requisite for that is the removal of self-imposed pipeline and port barriers preventing us from doing so!
Harv Oberfeld
(Follow @harveyoberfeld on “X” for FREE First Alerts to new postings on this blog.)