Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard hosted the first of several roundtables with various stakeholders on Quebec-U.S. trade relations Tuesday afternoon. Among those invited was the chief negotiator for NAFTA for Quebec, as well as union representatives and economy, forestry and labour ministers.
“This question of international trade is vital for Quebec,” said Couillard.
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The province is talking to stakeholders about how to protect Quebec interests in the Trump era. The premier didn’t explicitly mention U.S. President Donald Trump in his opening speech; instead he made reference to a world of economic trade that is more uncertain.
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The United States and Canada will soon begin to renegotiate NAFTA, but the premier made clear he wanted to protect the relationships his government has made with local U.S. lawmakers. Members of his cabinet have travelled to the United States 19 times since January this year. They want to protect Quebec jobs. Seventy per cent of Quebec’s international exports go to the U.S.
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“Basically, this is the economy of Quebec at stake in this negotiation,” said Raymond Bachand, special advisor to the Quebec government in the NAFTA renegotiation.
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Monday, Quebec learned that the Department of Commerce slapped new tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber (on top of the almost 20 per cent levy it implemented in April). The tariffs are now almost 27 per cent — putting Quebec jobs at risk.
“We need to export, we need to keep the markets open in order to create, protect, but to also create high-quality jobs for our citizens all across Quebec and in all regions. We will do this, we will get through it as we’ve done in the past,” Couillard said.
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Quebec politicians say they’re not happy, but they’re not surprised — the softwood lumber dispute has been an ongoing issue for decades. Couillard’s government says it’s staying optimistic because there is much more to U.S.-Canada relations than Washington and Ottawa.
“It’s also a relationship between the different states and different provinces, therefore what we want to accomplish is to continue what we’ve been building in terms of momentum and make sure that people are mobilized and we keep being extremely proactive,” explained Economy Minister Dominique Anglade.
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