How many migrants, and how much fentanyl, is actually going from Canada to the U.S.?
Border patrol had 23,721 “encounters” along the Canadian border last year… a sharp increase from 10,021 the year before By comparison, border patrol had 1,530,523 such encounters at the Mexican border last year. U.S. customs agents seized 43 pounds of fentanyl at the Canadian border last year, 0.2% of the total intercepted across the US.
How is this tied to trade?
Mr. Trump has a history of threatening to use tariffs to put pressure on other countries to agree to his demands. …He has also vowed to renegotiate the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement when it comes up for review next year.
Wouldn’t USMCA prevent him from doing this?
Canada and Mexico could theoretically launch a trade case against the U.S. under the deal if Mr. Trump goes forward with his tariffs. But trade disputes tend to take years to make their way through the system. A more immediate route that Canada and Mexico could try would be imposing retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. Another possibility is a court challenge on the US side.
What would the effect of 25% tariffs be?
While Mr. Trump likes to claim that tariffs are paid by foreign countries, they are actually paid for by people importing the tariffed products into the U.S., with the cost often passed on to consumers.
What is Canada doing?
Canadian officials have been ftrying to build alliances with American politicians and business leaders. More discreetly, some Canadian officials have spent months trying to build ties to Mr. Trump’s inner circle.
[to access the full story a Globe and Mail subscription is required]
Donald Trump has said he will impose tariffs of 25% on all imports from Canada and Mexico, and an extra 10% on Chinese goods, accusing the countries of permitting illegal migration and drug trafficking. …The Canadian dollar fell 0.9% against the US dollar to a four-year low, while the Mexican peso shed 1.3%. The announcements serve as opening shots in Trump’s confrontational new trade policy. “Stiff new tariffs on imports from the US’s three largest trading partners would significantly increase costs and disrupt business across all economies involved,” said a Washington-based think-tank. “Even the threat of tariffs can have a chilling effect.” …Canada’s Chrystia Freeland hailed the bilateral relationship with the US as “one of the strongest and closest . . . particularly when it comes to trade and border security”. They also noted that Canada “buys more from the United States than China, Japan, France and the UK combined”, and last year supplied “60% of US crude oil imports”.
Leaders in two industries critical to rural and northern B.C. — mining and forestry — are calling on the new ministers in those areas to improve the regulatory competitiveness of those industries. …Parmar had asked Premier David Eby to head his ministry, having served in it as a senior ministerial advisor before entering elected politics. …Linda Coady, COFI CEO said her organization looks forward to working with Minister Parmar to take what she called “urgent actions”. Coady added it is important that new minister focus on “strengthening the competitiveness” of the forestry sector to support critical rural, resource-based workers, businesses, and communities, advance reconciliation with First Nations and ensure healthy biodiversity and ecosystem outcomes. A focus on three priorities can help achieve these goals, she added. The first concerns stabilizing and increasing fibre supply. …The second concerns securing new agreements with First Nations. …The third concerns forest management.
NEW BRUNSWICK — Several of the province’s major forestry companies are appealing a major decision in the Indigenous title fight that had appeared to go their way. A judge ruled that several big industrial defendants and everyday private property owners must be removed from a lawsuit launched by the Wolastoqey Nation. But J.D. Irving, Acadian Timber and H.J. Crabbe and Sons have all now filed separate appeals to New Brunswick’s top court. The new appeal argues that while the court ruled that industrial defendants are no longer part of the lawsuit – as they were granted the land by the government and are a third party to the larger dispute – their land is still listed in the lawsuit. …J.D. Irving’s appeal states that the decision maintains a claim against JDI properties, while, at the same time “depriving them of their right to be heard and to make submissions regarding their fundamental property rights.”
QUÉBEC CITY — In the fall 2024 
President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to impose sweeping new tariffs on imports, leading his critics to argue that the plan will raise prices and spur inflation. …Nearly 10% of building materials used in residential construction are imported, according to the NAHB… and Canada probably accounts for the bulk of those imports. “Any tariffs that raise the cost of building products will have a detrimental effect on housing affordability,” says NAHB CEO Jim Tobin. ….A steep tariff on Canadian lumber would likely hit homebuilders the hardest—and could raise the prices of new homes, at least temporarily. But observers are skeptical that Trump would impose a steep, immediate tariff on such a fundamental raw material imported from a close ally. NAR’s Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said that it’s possible any tariff on lumber could be imposed over a ramp-up period to allow U.S. timber mills to boost production.
OTTAWA – Canada’s annual inflation rate accelerated more than expected to 2% in October as gas prices fell less than the previous month, data showed on Tuesday, shrinking market bets for a bigger rate cut next month. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast the inflation rate would speed up to 1.9% from 1.6% in September. In August, the annual rate was 2%. It was the first pick-up in the annual inflation rate since May. The central bank forecasts consumer price inflation to be 2.5% this year and 2.2% next year. …This was the last inflation data to be released ahead of the Bank of Canada’s interest rate announcement on Dec. 11, and currency markets now see around a 28% chance of a 50 basis point rate cut, down from 37% before the CPI data release.
The uptick in fuel prices will likely be temporary, said Ken Simonson, chief economist at the Associated General Contractors of America. However, the broader uncertainty tied to potential trade policy changes under the incoming Trump administration presents a new layer of unpredictability for contractors. …Future prices for crude oil and copper, typically reliable predictors of upcoming producer price index shifts, have recently declined. That indicates the potential for a near-term dip in energy input costs, he said. Contractors have largely benefited from input price stabilization in 2024. As of October, contractors expect their profit margins to expand through the first quarter of 2025. …“The next administration’s trade policy increases uncertainty regarding construction material costs,” said Basu. “Beyond the implications of potential tariffs, input prices may rise in the short term if purchasers rush to import materials prior to the implementation of those policies.”
WASHINGTON – US single-family homebuilding tumbled in October as Hurricanes Helene and Milton depressed activity in the South and permits rose slightly, suggesting that a rebound was likely to be muted by higher mortgage rates. Single-family housing starts, which account for the bulk of homebuilding, plunged 6.9% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 970,000 units last month, the Commerce Department’s Census Bureau said on Tuesday. Data for September was revised higher to show homebuilding rising to a rate of 1.042 million units from the previously reported pace of 1.027 million units. Single-family starts dropped 10.2% in the South. Permits for future construction of single-family housing gained 0.5% to a rate of 968,000 units. …Mortgage rates initially fell as the Federal Reserve started cutting interest rates in September. They have, however, erased that decline on strong economic data and concerns that Trump’s policies could reignite inflation.
VERNON, BC — Tolko Industries continues to dispute a $75,000 fine after a logging road it built is claimed to have caused a landslide. In question is a logging road constructed by Tolko Industries in 2011. It’s alleged the road ultimately led to a landslide in May 2017 resulting in the administrative fine. Following the issuance of the fine in 2022, Tolko launched an appeal. Most recently, legal wrangling between Tolko and the province is centring around a variety of documents, including slide inspections. The 
IDAHO — Deep in Idaho’s Clearwater Mountains, along the beautiful Lochsa River, is a stand of ancient cedar trees. These trees stand hundreds of feet tall and are hundreds of years old. They were standing long before Europeans arrived in these mountains. …It’s no accident that these old cedar trees are still standing. They remain standing because they are on public lands. Public lands, in which every American has a stake. Surrounding forests, not on public lands, tell a far different story. …Idaho sold off about one third of the land it received from the federal government upon statehood. …We in the West know what state or private ownership means for forests. Stumps, and lots of them. Both entities manage forests to maximize dollars generated. In contrast, public lands mean trees hundreds of years old, superb wildlife habitat, clear, clean water, and unmatched recreation opportunities. And our heritage. 
OREGON — The state’s in-house banker looked at the repayment promise that the Oregon Department of Forestry offered in exchange for a $60 million loan and said, “No.” …The ODF approached the treasury for a loan last month after a record-setting wildfire season left the agency with a stack of unpaid invoices. It is often the case that the department, which leads the state’s response to wildfires, hires contractors to do the work, then bills the federal agencies that own the land where many fires occur. This year’s fire season, which saw nearly 2 million acres burn, cost $133 million—more than twice the previous high and far more than the agency budgeted. …Treasury officials worried about the ODF’s reliance on future funding from the Legislature… as one legislature cannot obligate a subsequent legislature. …Forestry spokeswoman Joy Krawczyk says her agency will now ask lawmakers for the money instead.
Member states close the door to further tweaks to the new deforestation rules pushed by unusual right-wing majority in the European Parliament. EU diplomats have rejected European Parliament amendments to the Commission’s proposal to push back the entry into force of the bloc’s new deforestation rules by one year. Instead, member states insist on adhering to the original text. …Among the amendments, MEPs sought to introduce a new classification for countries posing “no risk” of deforestation, alongside the existing categories of low, standard, and high risk. However, in a meeting of EU ambassadors, member states reaffirmed they want to stick to the original proposal. “Opening the text would only generate legal uncertainty and huge time constraints,” the source continued. An interinstitutional meeting between MEPs and EU countries to hash out the divergences might take place as soon as tomorrow.
Author and climate scientist Thomas Pedersen says British Columbians should be proud of the lead the province took with its carbon tax. Despite facing possible elimination, it remains an elegant solution to a global threat, he says. In his recently released book The Carbon Tax Question: Clarifying Canada’s Most Consequential Policy Debate, the former executive director of the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions provides an engaging political history of B.C.’s pioneering effort and takes aim at cynical politicians offering simplistic slogans aimed at killing carbon pricing. “A single province on the westernmost side of Canada stepped up and showed all nations that fair, redistributive, broad-spectrum carbon pricing could be done and done well, without economic harm,” Pedersen wrote. …The book arrives as politicians at both ends of the spectrum have soured on carbon taxes.
OTTAWA — Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Sari Essayah visits Canada with a delegation of the Finnish forestry and bioeconomy actors on 24–28 November. Minister Essayah will deliver the keynote speech at the Scaling Up Bioeconomy Conference. In addition, the Minister and the business delegation will visit the province of Quebec. …In Ottawa, Minister Essayah will meet with federal ministers of Canada, members of the Standing Committee on Natural Resources of the Parliament of Canada and management of the Natural Resources Canada (NRC). The main topics are the outlook of and cooperation in bioeconomy, sustainable forestry and forest management. …In the province of Quebec, Minister Essayah will meet the province’s management to discuss the opportunities in the bioeconomy sector. Finnish expertise in forest and bioeconomy will be showcased at Quebec Forest Industries Association and the local companies.
