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OTTAWA — Federal conservatives are calling on the government to release the full details of the trade offer from the United States that Canada rejected this week.
In a letter to Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc, Canada-U.S. relations critic Shuvaloy Majumdar said while his party supports the government’s decision to reject the deal, Parliament is in the dark on what was on the table.
“If there was a draft text of any agreement that both governments have seen, please release it. The U.S. administration has seen it. Your government has seen it. Canadians deserve to see it,” Majumdar wrote.
“Even after addressing Canadians and the media, the public and Members of Parliament still remain in the dark on your government’s demands in negotiations with the Trump administration.
Majumdar said he’s not asking for “negotiating secrets,” but rather information that both the Canadian and U.S. governments already know.
A spokesperson for the Bloc Québécois wouldn’t say whether they support the calls for the government to detail what the Americans were offering. But the party reiterated calls for a meeting between the “recognized” party leaders in the House of Commons to get a briefing on the situation.
“Canadians expect elected officials to collaborate in this moment, which is why we’ve made this request,” Julien Coulombe-Bonnafous told The Canadian Press in French.
Prime Minister Mark Carney suspended trade talks with the United States on Friday after accusing the U.S. administration of introducing measures in the final hours of negotiations that restricted Canada’s ability to do deals with other countries.
At a news conference Saturday, Carney told reporters the U.S. had also added terms near the end of negotiations that restricted Canada’s protections of language and culture.
He also said the U.S. offered to lower tariffs on autos in exchange for other concessions, but said the offer didn’t include medium and heavy trucks.
“With respect to Ford’s new plant, for example, in Oakville, which is F-350s, 450s, 550s, they would have been excluded. GM, Silverado, same thing, would have been excluded from that,” Carney told reporters.
“No rationale, just for exclusion. So effectively moving into a series of terms that would have made the production more uneconomic over time.”
In an interview with the New York Times on Saturday, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the Americans offered, in part, to cut the 10 per cent tariffs on softwood lumber, and lower steel and aluminum tariffs from 50 to 25 per cent.
