Roll out the barrel, drop the balloons, we have yet another all-party consensus in the Ontario election campaign! Thanks to President Donald Trump’s tariff menaces, Ontario's three major party leaders (and the Greens too) agree it has never been more important that Canadian provinces eliminate interprovincial trade barriers — the cost of which the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) estimates at some $200 billion annually. We could use $200 billion right now. Read More

Late Monday afternoon, President Donald Trump offered Ontario and Canada a reprieve from the tariffs that were due to kick in at midnight. Odds are we’ll be back on the same cliff-edge in 30 days’ time. But if Ontarians imagined the provincial and national response would just mean paying a bit more for American orange juice, appliances, sports equipment and spirituous beverages, campaigning Premier Doug Ford put that dream to rest in recent days. Read More

Within the past 70 minutes, as I write this, two notable things happened. One: the Reuters news agency reported — citing three unnamed sources “familiar with the planning” — that the Trump administration would be implementing tariffs against Canada and Mexico on March 1. And two: White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt then denied the Reuters report, insisting 25-per-cent tariffs are coming down Feb. 1. Read More