The Pontiac Chamber of Commerce brought together local business owners, organization directors and municipal leaders from across the Pontiac last Wednesday evening for a discussion about how to make sense of the chaos caused by tariff threats, and how to use this moment of economic volatility to build a more resilient local economy.

The evening’s guest speaker was Pedro Antunes, chief economist with the Conference Board of Canada. He offered his analysis of what the U.S. administration is trying to accomplish with its attack on its longstanding trade relationship with Canada, ultimately concluding the tariff threats are mostly bark, and a little bite.

“The hope that I have is that there is a strategy, and that is to create this anxiety, to create this uncertainty, so that he moves investment even without the bite of tariffs,” Antunes said, reminding the audience that President Donald Trump used a similar strategy when he first entered office in 2016.

“What scares me a little more this time is that the U.S. has a second problem now which is not only this move to try to bring investment home but it’s also the issue of its deficit [ . . . ] They’ve got a problem where they need to raise revenues, and if they’re looking at tariffs to generate their revenues, that’s a really scary thought.”

Antunes said he doesn’t believe the tariffs scheduled for Apr. 2 will be placed on resources, as this would be too damaging to the U.S. economy, but does believe they will still be hurtful.

While leading with a message of hope, Antunes still provided a forecast for how 25 per cent tariffs, combined with 10 per cent tariffs on resources, and counter-tariffs applied by the Canadian government, would affect the Canadian economy.

“A 25 per cent tariff for one quarter, it would be huge. It would shut down most of our manufacturing, at least temporarily [ . . . ] because all of our manufacturing goes back and forth across the border.”

He said the hit to the Canadian economy would be about $35 billion at the national level and 136,000 jobs lost, which he said is about a 1.3 per cent out of the economy, in one quarter.

“The longer we get a tariff, the bigger the hit would be to the point that we end up with a recession [ . . . ] if these tariffs last more than four quarters,” Antunes said. “The point here I’m trying to make is that there’s too much uncertainty about how long these tariffs might last to know how deep the impacts might be.”
Responding to volatility

It’s to help local leaders make sense of and claim agency in relation to this economic uncertainty that the Chamber decided to host Wednesday’s event.

“When there’s volatility, it then challenges every dimension of your business, but we’re all trying to build predictable organizations, predictable systems so that we know where our products, our supplies, our resources, are coming from, we know how to transform and improve them, we know how to sell and distribute them,” said Trefor Munn-Venn, local business owner and board member with the Pontiac Chamber of Commerce.

“And now all those pieces are less clear than before, and with that volatility comes uncertainty and fear [ . . . ] I think the recent volatility is helping to reveal that the greatest economic strength we have is each other. It’s the relationships we have, the partnerships we have, the supply chains we have, to be able to problem solve together. It’s the collective piece that needs to come together.”

Following Antunes’ presentation, Munn-Venn invited attendees to brainstorm ways their businesses and organizations could build resilience into the local supply chain.

“I think at the end of the day, to be able to come together to do that problem-solving, to use that collaboration as an economic asset , this is how we thrive,” Munn-Venn said.

Among the business owners in attendance was Denis LeBrun, who’s been running Bryson Lake Lodge with his family for over 30 years.

“We’re a little nervous because our clientele base is about 25 per cent from the States, which has always been good because we try to have balanced groups coming from different regions,” LeBrun said.

“We’re noticing a lot of Americans are calling us and some are cancelling right now. The [new customers] are too worried about the border problems and they’re feeling not welcome by Canadians.”

In response, LeBrun said he’s spending more time advertising his outfitter business at local trade shows, rather than trying to reach U.S. customers.

“I think it’s going to be like covid, where people are not going to want to travel far and we’re really promoting shop local, fish local.”

Also in attendance was Mansfield councilor Sébastien Denault, also co-owner of Mansfield-based Méo Excavation.

“I feel we need to support ourselves as business people, as contractors, I feel we need to work together to build a stronger economy, instead of turning our backs to our competitors,” he said.

“I wish there were more contractors here who buy lots of stuff exported like aluminum, let’s say for building houses [ . . . ] It’s eye-opening.”