AGAR: Canadian consumers paying to wage tariff war against Trump

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Who in Canada is responsible for fighting Donald Trump on tariffs?

All 41.5 million of us?

At the federal level, the newly installed leader, Prime Minister Mark Carney, is in Europe to lobby for closer trade and security.

At the provincial level, every premier has weighed in with Ontario’s Doug Ford taking the lead as the chair of the Council of the Federation.

Ford has shuttled back and forth between Toronto and Washington, D.C., conducting a battle of on-again, off-again tariff threats with the U.S. administration.

The British Columbia government recently announced that Trump “paused tariffs on some Canadian goods until April 2. About 62% of goods are still affected. As a result, Canada delayed the second round of retaliatory tariffs. B.C. will keep liquor and procurement measures in place until the tariff threat ends.”

Lately, the municipal level has been weighing in from the merely performative move of the City of Mississauga removing American flags from public spaces, led by Mayor Carolyn Parrish, who once said of the Americans: “I hate those bastards.”

Hate and flag-lowering are not what we need.

Taking a more consequential economic move, Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow announced the city’s latest purchase of fire trucks will not be ones produced in the U.S.

The city announced Toronto Fire Services’ “new commitment to prioritize the procurement of Canadian-made fire apparatus and personal protective equipment, a key example of how the city is leveraging its purchasing power to strengthen local supply chains. ”

U.S.-based suppliers may be deemed ineligible to bid on new competitive contracts when it is in Toronto’s best interest, the city said.

This is where you and I come in at the ground level. How much more are you willing to pay for goods and services, if it comes to that, to fight back against Trump?

In her announcement, Chow did not reveal numbers. Will Canadian-made fire trucks be cheaper if built with Canadian steel? If so, the city should have been buying Canadian from the start.

If not, how much more? That question will have to be asked at all levels of government across the country.

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At the store, you will likely take an interest in signs directing you to Canadian-made products, but how much more will you pay?

According to a Global News report based a survey conducted by Hill and Knowlton for Interac Corp., “79% of Canadians polled said they agree that supporting local businesses feels more important than it did at this time last year and 80% said they’re likely to choose Canadian-made products over imported ones.”

Other surveys have reported similar results. But how much more are people willing to pay?

The Hill and Knowlton survey revealed that “53% (of respondents are) willing to pay $5 more to buy a local product (and) 33% said they were willing to spend $10 extra.”

That fall off between $5 and $10 would suggest there is a limit.

You and I can make whatever choice we like with our dollars, but even in a trade war the generals can’t be throwing us soldiers out there like cannon fodder just to make themselves look good.

Tariffs aside, we already pay more than enough in taxes.