A majority of Canadians believe that Liberal leadership candidate Mark Carney would be best suited to handle negotiations with U.S. President Donald Trump, beating out all other leadership contenders as well as Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.
According to a recent Nanos Research poll conducted for CTV News, two out of five respondents or 40 per-cent said that Mark Carney would be best at negotiating with Trump.
Poilievre came in second place when asked “Which of the following politicians would do the best job at negotiating with U.S. president Donald Trump?” receiving 26 per-cent of respondents’ support.
Liberal leadership candidate Chrystia Freeland came in third place, with 13 per-cent of the vote, followed by fellow candidate Karina Gould at 1 per-cent.
A cohort of 12 per-cent said they were “unsure” and another group of nine per-cent said the choice made “no difference.”
Canada was granted a one-month reprieve from U.S. President Donald Trump’s 25 per-cent tariffs on all Canadian imports after a series of negotiations took place Monday between Trump and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Before the pause, Canada had announced plans to place retaliatory tariffs on $155 billion of American goods, including alcohol, clothing, appliances, and food products.
The Nanos poll also asked respondents what their thoughts were on retaliatory tariffs.
Nearly three in five Canadians said that the country should respond with retaliatory tariffs, including increases on said tariffs if the U.S. raises theirs, at 58 per-cent.
Only 21 per-cent said that Canada should try and negotiate lifting the tariffs.
A majority of respondents also said they supported the provinces removing all U.S. beer, liquor and spirits from retail outlets at 78 per-cent and 68 per-cent said that Canada should go dollar-for-dollar with retaliatory tariffs on all U.S. goods.
Just over half of Canadians said they would support cutting off energy to the U.S. at 51 per-cent, including oil, electricity and natural gas, while another 25 per-cent said they would somewhat support that response.
Meanwhile, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson travelled to Washington this week to pitch a “U.S.-Canada alliance on energy and minerals” to Republicans “rather than go down a path that will inevitably be lose-lose.”
“As a sovereign democratic nation that must protect its own national interests, the unwarranted imposition of tariffs on Canada would necessarily necessitate a response,” said Wilkinson during his keynote address at an event organized by the Atlantic Council in Washington on Tuesday.
“But this kind of damage to our economies is truly unnecessary and it is ultimately the people of our respective countries who will pay the costs.”
Wilkinson suggested in place of punitive cross-border tariffs, Canada and the U.S. could form an “energy alliance” that would allow both countries to “achieve our shared vision of affordable energy bills for families, strong and secure economies and North America as the world’s dominant energy supplier.”
“That is why our focus is to move beyond this conversation to one about collaboration on the border, on the scourge of illegal drugs, on our economy and certainly on energy and critical minerals,” he said.
While billions of dollars of trade between the two nations is conducted daily, the energy sector is the most dominant area of these dealings, with the bulk of energy being exported to the U.S. from Canada.
Alternative suppliers of similar products like potash, for instance, include China or Russia.
“In the area of critical minerals, typically, the alternative source of supply to Canada is China,” said Wilkinson.
However, once materials are refined, manufactured and processed in the U.S., Canada then often becomes their largest consumer.
“Our partnership is effectively hard-wired,” noted Wilkinson. “Thirty-six states rely on Canada as their number one export market. Canadian consumers and businesses purchase more goods from the United States than China, Japan and Germany combined.”