Poilievre Urges Carney to Seek Tariff-Free Deal With US Using Access to Proposed ‘Energy and Minerals Reserve’ as Leverage

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre speaks to supporters on election night in Ottawa in the early hours of April 29, 2025. Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is asking the Liberal government to adopt various proposals from the Tories in order to seek the removal of U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods, including establishing a Strategic Energy and Minerals Reserve that would be available only to countries that provide tariff-free market access to Canada.

“This would strengthen Canada’s hand by making secure access to our critical minerals a reward for free and fair trade,” Poilievre said in a letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney on Aug. 9.

He said the Conservatives have proposed policies that would “unleash” Canada’s resources and industrial base, secure borders, and confront forced-labour products making their way into Canada from abroad, for which Washington has imposed tariffs on Canada.

The Tory leader said he is writing the letter because there has been reporting that Ottawa is making “even more concessions” to the United States. Some media reports, including CBC News, reported last week based on anonymous sources that Canada is preparing to meet some of U.S. demands such as dropping counter-tariffs on autos and making some changes to the dairy supply management system in exchange for getting tariff relief.

The United States recently imposed additional 50 percent tariffs on US$20 billion worth of Canadian products, citing concerns about Canada’s retaliatory auto tariffs, supply management, and provincial bans on U.S. alcohol. Canada has said that measures such as its autos counter-tariffs are in response to Washington’s sectoral tariffs such as those on Canadian auto, which Ottawa says violate the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA).

In his letter, Poilievre criticized Carney for other “concessions” in trade negotiations with the United States.

“You dropped the Digital Services Tax and Netflix Tax, removed Canada’s retaliatory tariffs, and handed the United States half of the net toll revenue from the Gordie Howe International Bridge before Canada has even recovered its construction costs,” Poiliever wrote. “Worse, you have lost ground with American tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum doubling and broadening, and tariffs on lumber tripling.”

The Carney government rescinded the Digital Services Tax (DST) in June 2025 as part of its negotiations with the United States. The tax was a 3 percent levy on certain digital-services revenue that tech companies earned from Canadian users, including revenue from online marketplaces, advertising, social media, and certain user data sales.

More recently, the government dropped a levy on large foreign streaming services such as Netflix that was required to fund creating Canadian content. Carney said the measure is meant to help reduce costs for Canadian, and wasn’t done under pressure from the United States.

As for the Gordie Howe International Bridge, Canada financed the approximately $6.4 billion crossing between Windsor, Ont., and Detroit, Mich. The original agreement called for Canada to collect the tolls for the first few decades until it recovered its costs, after which the revenue would be split with the United States. However, after Washington initially blocked the opening of the bridge earlier this year, the two sides reached a new agreement under which they will share net revenues for the first 15 years.

Canada has removed or reduced most of its retaliatory tariffs against the United States but continues to maintain tariff measures on some U.S. products, including autos, steel, and aluminum, in response to U.S. sectoral tariffs.

During a visit to the Rio Tinto aluminum production facility in Saguenay, Que., on Aug. 6, Carney said multiple options are being discussed in trade negotiations with the United States, and that Canada wants a broader arrangement.

“We’re interested in a more comprehensive deal, more global deal that addresses the strategic sectors, as well as aluminum, where there’s a win-win deal that should be there—steel, automobiles, forest products, and a series of what are called derivative products,” he said.