Ottawa moved today. After Washington’s 50 per cent tariffs on roughly $28 billion of Canadian goods took effect over the weekend, the federal government unveiled its answer Tuesday morning: counter-tariffs hitting $27.6 billion worth of American products, spread across more than 700 items.
If you work in steel, aluminum, forestry, or manufacturing - or if you’re just trying to figure out what your next appliance purchase is going to cost - this is the announcement that tells you where things stand.
Why it matters: this isn’t a symbolic gesture. It’s a real cost that lands on real Canadian businesses and real American ones, on both sides of a fight neither side is backing away from. And the way Ottawa built this package tells you something about where the government thinks this trade war is headed - not a quick fix, but a long one.
The tariffs come into force September 8.
What’s behind the paywall:
The full sector breakdown - where the heaviest tariffs land, and the specific consumer goods that just got more expensive
Champagne’s own words on the strategy, and the $7.5 billion support package built to cushion the blow
The economist’s number nobody’s talking about yet: up to 90,000 Canadian jobs at risk - and why most of them aren’t even in the tariffed sectors
Why one premier broke from the pack on retaliation, and what it says about the politics of “Team Canada”
The mood data: how Canadians are actually feeling after 18 months of this, in their own words
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