Michael Higgins: Just how bad was this deal?

Prime Minister Mark Carney always said he would walk away from a bad deal and has now done so.

But as the prime minister urges us to rally round the flag — again — he also needs to give Canadians full details as to why the trade talks with the United States collapsed.

The Liberal government is pointing out that it was U.S. demands that led to the collapse of the latest round of trade talks. It may well be that it was the uncompromising American president and his negotiators who brought us to this point where we are about to engage in potentially catastrophic tit-for-tat tariffs.

But how exactly did we get here and why? How is it that Carney suspended trade talks after reports that we were close to a deal? It is not enough to point fingers. What Canadians need are the full details of what was being offered and why it was rejected.

In a late statement Friday night, the prime minister addressed none of those concerns.

“Canada has what the world wants. And we will not allow any nation to determine our future. We will set our own course to keep building Canada strong for all,” said the prime minister in his statement.

In a press conference Saturday, he repeatedly made the same refrain.

“We can’t control the storm that blows in from Washington,” he said in his introductory remarks. “We can, however, chart a new course by building Canada strong at home and diversifying our trading relationships abroad.

“We are masters in our own home and an excellent partner abroad.”

He later said, “Canadians will always take care of each other. We know we’re stronger together. In the last year and a half, Canadians have met this moment with resolve, with purpose, with strength.”

So here we are, back in Elbows Up territory. At least one good thing to come out of this trade war is that it will unite a majority of the country.

In his statement and his press conference, Carney said he decided to walk away from the trade negotiations because of unrealistic demands by the Americans.

“There were some things we wouldn’t do. We were not prepared to compromise Canada’s sovereignty or to undermine our key industries. We were not prepared to accept any compromise on our sovereignty, protection of the French language and our culture,” he said.

When pressed on specifics, Carney gave a few examples of friction between negotiators.

One was the auto sector. Earlier this week, the CBC reported that the U.S. was considering reducing auto tariffs down from 25 per cent to 15 per cent. But Carney said the U.S. wanted to limit the level of tariffs to cars only and exclude medium and heavy autos and light trucks. This would have made Canadian production “uneconomic,” he said.

Another major sticking point, said Carney, was the U.S. introducing at the last minute language that would have restricted Canada’s ability to make trade deals with other countries.

That was simply “unacceptable,” said the prime minister.

A third example, said Carney, was that the U.S. made “efforts to restrict our protections of our language, our culture, and in effect, our sovereignty.” The prime minister did not clarify what those efforts were or provide specifics details.

“In short, they asked too much and they offered too little,” said Carney.

Not surprisingly, the U.S. blamed Canada for the collapse of the talks.

The New York Times quoted U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer as saying, “Tonight, Canada declined to finalize the trade deal under the terms agreed earlier this week, despite the U.S. offer to Canada to receive the best treatment of any major exporter to our market.

“New demands and walk backs of other commitments by Canada have upended the careful balance reached in the past days.”

Carney can expect that the majority of Canadians will be fully supportive of his decision to walk away if America was negotiating in bad faith or simply trying to bully us into a bad deal.

But it is Canadian workers who will bear the brunt of this decision and transparency demands the government release full details of the negotiations, the offers and counter offers, the last minute demands, as well as what we were prepared to concede and not.

Trump’s 50 per cent tariffs could lead to up to 90,000 job losses, predicted University of Calgary economics professor Trevor Tombe this week. But with Canada pledging to impose retaliatory tariffs on a dollar-for-dollar basis, the economic fallout will worsen, he tweeted on Saturday after the deal collapsed.

Meanwhile, Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, said in a statement, “The impact on small businesses will be immediate and significant.”

Canadians who are going to suffer the consequences have a right to know just how bad of a deal was on the table.

National Post