Liberal Leader Mark Carney is committing $5 billion to develop major infrastructure, including railways, highways, and airports, meant to strengthen Canada’s trade sector.
Carney made the announcement on March 28, one day after U.S. President Donald Trump announced 25 percent tariffs on the auto industry, with more tariffs yet to come, on top of the other ones he had announced previously.
The Liberals said they will put the funds in a Trade Diversification Corridor Fund, which will be used to develop infrastructure to help diversify trade.
The party said the fund will also create jobs and economic growth, and will cover projects at ports, railroads, inland terminals, airports, and highways.
The goal is to diversify trade from the United States, according to a Liberal Party news release.
Port Cooperation
The second part of the Liberals’ plan is to get Canadian ports to better coordinate with each other, the release said.
“Due to the current limits on cooperation in the Canada Marine Act and the Competition Act, ports must compete with each other even in areas in which they don’t specialize,” a Liberal Party handout said.
Related Stories
The Liberals say allowing ports to complement each other will grow trade and the economy.
Lastly, the party said it will focus on boosting security at the borders and ports, including better container and cargo screening; adding new scanners and other digital solutions, including AI; and adding workers.
“These measures will help stop the flow of drugs like fentanyl and precursors, illegal guns, and auto theft,” the release said.
Conservative Plan
Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre has said Canada needs key changes to strengthen its economy and trade capability.
“It’s time to build a Canadian economic fortress that will allow us to be stronger, self-reliant, sovereign, and stand on our own two feet and stand up to Trump,” Poilievre said in a March 28 post.
Poilievre says he would focus on developing trade within Canada and to other countries, as well as remove barriers to energy projects development.
“By blocking pipelines and LNG plants, slow-rolling resource projects, capping our oil and gas sector, the Liberals have made us too reliant on the Americans,” Poilievre said in a campaign video.
“My government will repeal the entire carbon tax, the energy cap, the anti-pipeline law C-69. We will bring the hundreds of billions of dollars back to our economy, and we will start selling between Canadians and overseas so that we are stronger, self-reliant, sovereign, to stand on our own two feet and stand up to the Americans.”
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says his party would focus on building infrastructure, including roads and hospitals, to stimulate the economy and work on an east-west “clean energy grid” built by Canadian-sourced materials.
“The government needs to undertake a massive building plan, building more of what we need here and getting shovels in the ground faster, using public land and Canadian products to do it,” the NDP says.
