By Don Newman

February 14, 2025

After visiting Washington in an unusual detour from a provincial election campaign, Ontario Premier Doug Ford returned to earth at the end of this week, taking a grilling over his record on housing during a leaders’ debate in North Bay, the first of two ahead of the province’s February 27th general election.

Ford was in the U.S. capital for a talking tour with the 12 other premiers aimed at securing relief from Donald Trump’s perpetual tariff threats and potential trade war, the latest volley of which came Thursday in the form of looming reciprocal global tariffs added to the threatened-but-not-yet-implemented 25% tariffs on steel and aluminium, and “paused” 25% tariffs of all Canadian imports to the U.S. Those tariffs would ostensibly not apply to energy, which would be tariffed at 10%.

All of which amounts to a tariff binge whose real, implemented cost to Canadians is as uncertain as whatever Trump might say or do next. As The Wall Street Journal editorial board put it on Thursday, “Try to catch your breath before his next blunderbuss tariff shot.”

Apparently, that shot could be a worldwide tariff on countries that have a valued-added tax as part of their taxation systems. All the G7 countries, with the exception of the United States. have a VAT. Most are included in the listed price of goods and not readily apparent, although Canada is different. This country’s value added tax is the GST and is charged at the point of sale.

Trump and his advisors apparently think this works as a tariff against American exports to countries with a VAT. It is not clear how they can come to that view since the tax also applies to all domestic goods and is not specifically aimed at imports.

In order to face this implacable foe, Ford called an election a year and a half before he needed to, arguing for the heft of a greater mandate than the large majority he already has in the Ontario Legislature. Public opinion polls indicate his Progressive Conservative government will be returned to office with a majority.

So far, Trump has been an asset to the Ford campaign, even if he doesn’t know it. Canada is the largest exporter of steel and aluminium, so the tariffs will particularly be felt in Ontario, where in both Hamilton and Sault Ste. Marie, steel is the major industry.

Ford has also benefited from the exposure in the past year as chairman of the Council of the Federation — the premiers’ multilateral consulting body, which meets annually. As the rotating chair, Ford has been front-and-centre at news conferences and other meetings of the premiers during the tariff crisis, and in Washington this week he assumed the position of de facto spokesman —- not an easy job when there are no shrinking violets among his colleagues.

The group’s final meeting was at the White House. President Trump was in the Oval Office, but the premiers were elsewhere in the West Wing, meeting with Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair and Sergio Gor, director of the Presidential Personnel Office. While Ford was keen to underscore the importance of the meeting for voters back home, telling reporters afterward, “People don’t get last-minute meetings like this,” Blair issued a clarifying statement to underscore the power dynamic at play. “To be clear” — Blair wrote in a social media post in response to B.C. Premier David Eby’s assertion he had told the officials Canada being the 51st state was a “non-starter” — “we never agreed that Canada would not be the 51st state.”

Whether the meeting will produce any relief from Trump’s tariffs, much less dissuade his fever dream of colonizing Canada, Ford’s trip to Washington is under fire by his opponents, with the NDP asking Elections Ontario to investigate a video paid for by the government made from clips of Ford in Washington, and posted to social media Thursday with the PC Party logo.

Ford plans to take his campaign to Washington once more before election day, presumably more carefully next time.

Policy Columnist Don Newman is an Officer of the Order of Canada, and a lifetime member and a Past President of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery.