Portage-Lisgar MP Branden Leslie says local businesses are looking for certainty as questions continue around Canada-U.S. trade relations and the future of CUSMA (Canada\/U.S.\/Mexico Trade Agreement).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Leslie hosted two roundtable meetings last week, one in Portage and another in Winkler, with Randy Hoback, Member of Parliament for Prince Albert. Leslie says Hoback has been heavily involved in trade issues with the United States and Mexico for nearly two decades and is meeting with businesses across the country this summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have so many businesses in our region that feed directly into the U.S. market, purchase supplies from the U.S. market, but a big chunk of sales for a lot of companies goes down south,\u201d said Leslie.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He says the meetings were intended to give business owners and representatives a chance to share what they are experiencing on the ground, while also hearing from Hoback about his conversations in Washington and with stakeholders involved in trade discussions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Leslie says the ongoing uncertainty is creating challenges for companies that rely on the U.S. market for sales, supplies, or both.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the uncertainty of the tariffs, whether or not they\u2019re going to go up or down, whether or not they\u2019re going to be CUSMA compliant, and the challenges and headaches in forecasting,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you\u2019re doing larger projects or products that take several months to completion, it\u2019s very difficult to forecast six months out, especially when you don\u2019t know the landscape.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Winkler roundtable included representatives from several sectors, including metal fabrication, agricultural equipment, supply chain businesses and cabinet makers. Leslie says those conversations highlighted how wide-ranging the impact of trade uncertainty can be in the region.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While the goal remains tariff-free access, Leslie says many businesses are also making it clear they need a stable agreement they can plan around.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the business side, it certainly was about just get something done,\u201d he said. \u201cWe can deal with some sort of tariffs if required. Obviously, the goal is to have tariff-free access.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Leslie says some companies in Portage-Lisgar send more than half of their product into the United States, while others may send 10 or 20 per cent. Either way, he says the relationship remains critical for the local economy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAmerica is our longest-standing trading partner, is vital to our economy. They\u2019re our biggest customer and we are their biggest customer,\u201d said Leslie. \u201cThe relationship with the United States is not going anywhere, and it\u2019s so vital that we get this right.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He adds that some businesses in the region are using work-sharing programs to avoid layoffs while the uncertainty continues.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a testament to the type of community-minded businesses that we have that they want to make sure that they\u2019re able to keep people on payroll, even if in a more limited capacity,\u201d said Leslie.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Leslie says information gathered from the Portage and Winkler meetings, along with other roundtables taking place across the country, will be compiled and shared in an effort to help move trade discussions forward.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a matter of we\u2019ve got to get this done to make sure that our businesses can have some certainty and continue to thrive,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With file from Robyn Wiebe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Portage-Lisgar MP Branden Leslie says local businesses are looking for certainty as questions continue around Canada-U.S. trade relations…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":783716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,44],"class_list":["post-783715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=783715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}