Responding To Trump’s Unjustified Tariffs
The following is a transcript of the Hon. Pierre Poilievre’s remarks from March 26th, 2025. Check against delivery.
Thank you very much. I want to start by condemning, without equivocation, the unjustified and unprovoked tariffs that President Trump has now announced against our auto sector. These tariffs will damage his workers and his economy, just as they will damage ours. We must retaliate and target goods and services that we don’t need, can buy elsewhere, or make ourselves to maximize the impact on the Americans while minimizing the impact on ourselves.
But before I go any further about these unjustified tariffs and how we’re going to respond to them, let me speak to the workers in the auto sector. You’re afraid right now, you’re anxious. You wonder how you’re going to pay your mortgage or put food on the table. You’re thinking about the conversations you may need to have with your little children about whether they can register for next year’s hockey or this summer’s soccer. You don’t know if you’ll be able to stay in the same city or what’s going to happen to your future. Canada will be there for you. We will be there for you.
We will ensure that you have income replacement to put food on the table and money in your bank account. We’ll make sure that businesses directly affected will have the liquidity they need to get through this dispute. And we will unite as Canadians to protect our affected sectors.
But more than that, we need to become strong, self-reliant, and sovereign, so that we can stand on our own two feet and stand up to the Americans. What is clear is that 10 years of economic weakness have made us more reliant than ever on the Americans. 75% of our exports go to one country. Almost all of our energy, most of our raw materials go south because we can’t get them anywhere else.
We need to take drastic action to build an economic fortress in Canada, able to reach other markets around the world, repealing the anti-pipeline law, rapidly building LNG liquefaction plants, mines, factories, expanding and making our ports functional so that we can move our goods to other places around the world. Knocking down the barriers between our provinces so that we can trade with ourselves, for a change. Passing a Bring It Home Tax Cut on work, investment, home building and energy. To make this the best place in the world. To bring back the half-trillion dollars that Liberals pushed out of the country over the last decade. Then, and only then, will we be able to properly stand up to the Americans and stand up for ourselves.
Now is not a time for weakness. Now is not a time to continue on with the failures that got us into this place of dependency. Now is the time to take back control and relaunch our economy so that we can confront the president’s unjustified threats and tariffs in a position of strength. We will do this for our people, for our land, for our home, for Canada first – for a change.