More Real Info. on the Trump/Canada Tariff Situation

I received the information below yesterday evening from a Canadian friend who generally knows what they’re talking about:

By Canada's constitution, Ontario cannot levy an export tax, that is solely within the jurisdiction of the federal government. Ontario and Quebec may negotiate contracts with American states, but Ottawa through the Canada Energy Regulator (Formerly the National Energy Board) approves and regulates that cross border trade. Ontario's bravado is not only stupid, it's actually unconstitutional.

The only reason why Ottawa hasn't said anything is because it is giving tacit approval to an unconstitutional action. This sets a dangerous double standard and precedent for other cross-border trade issues. The Premier of Ontario is trying to goad the Premier of Alberta to "do her part" and curtail oil exports to the US, but technically she cannot do that without curtailing overall provincial production (something the current Liberal government would like).

The problem with Trump's tariffs on Canada is that there is an agreement in place that Trump has decided doesn't matter. So by essentially abrogating the agreement (breaking the contract) it sets the precedent for Canada to ignore its contractual arrangements with the American states it's trading with. This is not good for either country.

I'm not a constitutional expert. But I'm having conversations with people who are very knowledgeable in that area and they haven't disagreed with my assessment. They too are wondering why Ottawa is letting Ontario do this. From a historical perspective, this is really a dereliction of duty since such actions are between nations. Frankly, I'm surprised that the Conservative opposition leader hasn't picked up on this.

I would point out that in 1976 when the government of Saskatchewan attempted an oil export tax it was struck down by the Canadian Supreme Court who deemed it was an intrusion into federal jurisdiction of trade powers.
https://taxinterpretations.com/content/356456

A former member of the National Energy Board said to me that he's surprised (but not surprised) that the Canada Energy Regulator has been absolutely silent around this drama and it's supposed to be regulating these things.

https://canadagazette.gc.ca/rp-pr/p1/2024/2024-12-14/html/reg4-eng.html

Given all of the "team Canada" meetings that have been held, one can only assume that the Federal Government is happy for Ontario to do the dirty work for it.

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So, it seems likely that Premier Ford doesn’t even have the constitutional authority to take the actions he tried to take over the past few days by levying new tariffs on imports from the United States. This reality probably played a role in his decision yesterday to quickly back off on his threats. His complete lack of any real leverage in the situation likely played an even bigger role, of course.

One more note: A couple of readers here have chimed in with comments saying President Trump’s actions are indefensible based on an argument that he should leave Canada alone because, after all, the amount of fentanyl it has allowed to flow into the United States is a fraction of what has been coming in from Mexico. While that is factually accurate, it is not the strong argument these readers seem to believe it is.

Fentanyl in any amount is a deadly drug, and the United States has been losing 50,000 to 100,000 of its citizens to this drug annually in recent years. By comparison, the U.S. lost 58,000 military personnel during the entirety of the Vietnam War. Thousands of those fentanyl victims have been innocent children who unknowingly consumed other medications that had been laced with fentanyl.

The argument these readers have made basically says Trump should give Canada a pass because its government’s neglect of border security under Trudeau’s atrocious rule has only enabled the killing of a handful of our fellow citizens as compared to what Mexico’s neglect has enabled. It’s akin to arguing we should give a one-time murderer a pass because he or she didn’t murder as many people as Ted Bundy did.

I find this argument not only specious, but incredibly offensive, and don’t want to read it again on my Substack site. These readers are welcome to construct more thoughtful arguments, or they will be prohibited from posting here in the future.

That is all.