The cabinet official leading Canada’s negotiations with the Trump administration says talks on removing tariffs aren’t going fast enough, pouring cold water on the hope a deal will be announced at this week’s G7 summit.
Dominic LeBlanc, the minister responsible for Canada-U.S. trade, says that while conversations on a new economic and security partnership are “frequent and constructive … we don’t have the outcome we want yet” — particularly the lifting of recently doubled tariffs on steel and aluminum, as well as duties imposed on the auto sector and other goods.
“I’m hopeful we’ll get there, but it’s not fast enough,” he told Mercedes Stephenson in an interview that aired Sunday on The West Block.
“Our hope was that we would have made more progress before the president arrives in Alberta for the G7. We haven’t hit that sweep spot.”
U.S. President Donald Trump is set to meet with Prime Minister Mark Carney when G7 leaders gather in Kananaskis, Alta., on Sunday for three days of talks. All eyes will be on whether a trade agreement or a framework of a deal can be reached at the summit.
The two leaders have spoken directly “on a number of occasions” since their meeting last month at the White House, LeBlanc confirmed, including “informally on a range of issues.”
“Those conversations, (from) my understanding, aren’t exclusively on one particular subject,” he said. The G7 will provide “an opportunity to continue that conversation,” he added.
Reports of the behind-the-scenes talks between Carney and Trump had raised hopes that a deal was imminent.
Pete Hoekstra, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, would neither confirm nor deny reports last week that a deal framework was in the works, but expressed optimism that the talks were bearing fruit during a fireside chat with Stephenson at the Canadian Club of Ottawa.
LeBlanc also said he’s “eternally optimistic,” but warned time is running out to secure a deal before Canada strikes back at Trump’s latest tariffs.
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“I believe that the economic damage the Americans are doing to themselves will at one point force a change in policy,” he said, “but we understand the reasonable frustration of Canadian businesses and workers.
“If we conclude in a short period of time that we’re not close to a deal, obviously, as we’ve said, the country will look at what might be further measures to retaliate against that doubling of the steel and aluminum tariffs.”
The minister would not say what those countermeasures may be, or if the government considers the G7 summit a deadline.
Canadian industries and provincial politicians like Ontario Premier Doug Ford have been pushing Ottawa for new counter-tariffs on the U.S.
Canada has already put tariffs on $60 billion worth of U.S. goods, a move LeBlanc acknowledged “is not without challenge for the Canadian economy” and is further fuelling the desire to resolve the dispute “as quickly as possible.”
LeBlanc — one of several key ministers negotiating with their Trump administration counterparts — said he has made the case to U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and other administration officials that co-operation on shared issues like defence can’t happen “at the same time as they’re hammering our economy with these punitive tariffs.”
Lutnick, Hoekstra and other officials have previously said tariffs on Canada will likely stay put under any future deal, even at a lower rate.
Trump has imposed a 10 per cent baseline tariff on nearly all global trading partners, which remains in place under a new trade framework with the United Kingdom that was announced last month.
LeBlanc said he’s ensuring talks with the U.S. remain “collaborative and constructive” despite the tensions at play under Trump. Despite renewed efforts to diversify Canada’s trading partners and shore up the domestic economy, he said Canada doesn’t seek to break away from the U.S. entirely.
“They’re our most important economic trading and security partner, and geography means that will always be the case,” he said. “My approach (is that) being belligerent or sort of confrontational in a way that’s not particularly constructive, I don’t think advances the case.
“The Americans, we hope and believe, will change these decisions because it’s in their economic and security interest to do so.”
The opportunity to secure and bolster economic partnerships with other countries will be a major focus for Carney at the G7 summit, beyond the meetings with Trump.
LeBlanc said that was the main impetus for inviting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the summit despite allegations that Modi’s government has been involved in the murders, attempted murders and surveillance of Sikh nationals on Canadian soil.
The invite has earned Carney criticism from Sikh diaspora groups, opposition MPs and even members of the Liberal caucus.
“(Carney’s) responsibility as chair of the G7 is to have a conversation around economic security involving things like critical minerals, involving new and emerging markets that are in the interest of G7 partners,” LeBlanc said. “So an invitation like that to a significant economic player in the person of the prime minister of India is not unusual.
“That being said … there are investigations that are properly in the hands of police authorities and perhaps ultimately prosecutors, if that’s where these things go, that can also exist at the same time as a conversation takes place around economic and global security issues.
“We think that’s a reasonable decision to take.”
Modi’s invitation was given renewed scrutiny last week after Global News revealed that a suspected agent of the Indian government was surveilling Jagmeet Singh, who was placed under RCMP protection in late 2023 while he was serving as leader of the NDP.
The NDP called on Carney to revoke Modi’s invitation following the report.
LeBlanc, who was public safety minister at the time Singh was put under police protection, told Stephenson he continues to have faith in the RCMP to investigate foreign interference and protect political leaders and diaspora groups.
“The RCMP, in my view, do terrific work in dealing with this, and that work continues,” he said.
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