After more than a year of trade turmoil, Conservatives are now insisting that Mark Carney owes Canadians an explanation for what derailed a potential trade deal with the Americans last month.

During Donald Trump’s first term as president, Pierre Poilievre was asked about criticism of the Trudeau government for its plan to retaliate against tariffs imposed by the U.S. on Canadian steel and aluminum.

Poilievre was not the one doing the criticizing. Rather, it was the People’s Party of Canada, then a new right-wing political upstart, which had sent out a fundraising email warning that Ottawa’s plan to strike back against the U.S. would only lead to further escalation and higher costs for Canadians.

“There’s no question, I think the government has admitted, that retaliation is costly,” said Poilievre, who was the Conservative party’s finance critic at the time.

“But — what else do we do?”

It was the Americans who hit Canada with tariffs first, he noted. “The only tool in our tool kit to respond to that is retaliation.”

Eight years later, Poilievre’s party is now questioning the cost and effectiveness of retaliation as its MPs seek to define their role in opposition to a Liberal government made popular by its stand against Trump and a growing public appetite to hit back. 

Prime Minister Mark Carney has pointed to that backdrop as a factor in the Liberals’ three recent byelection wins, including in a Quebec riding previously held by the Conservatives, who fell to third place.

But after more than a year of trade turmoil, Conservatives insist Carney owes Canadians an explanation for what derailed a potential trade deal with the Americans last month. They’re calling on his government to release the exact text of the failed agreement, and to detail how much a looming package of counter-tariffs against U.S. goods will cost consumers.

‘I would have just been quiet’

While those around Poilievre — whose office did not respond to a request for comment — say their calls for transparency fall squarely within the Official Opposition’s role of demanding answers for Canadians, others caution the party to tread carefully. 

“And if I was advising them for the last few weeks, I would have just been quiet,” said Fred DeLorey, a longtime Conservative strategist who ran the party’s 2021 election campaign. 

“You don’t need to go out and start attacking the government during this time. Canadians aren’t going to look at that as a positive.” 

Shuvaloy Majumdar, the party’s parliamentary critic on Canada-U.S. relations, told the Star it is not as if Conservatives oppose counter-tariffs. He says they “share the anger” about how Canada has been treated by the Trump administration.

But when it comes to hitting back, they aren’t ready to give a blanket endorsement of the government’s retaliation strategy without more answers. 

“That’s not saying we’re taking counter-tariffs off the table. It’s not saying we’re putting it on the table, but I think we have a lot of questions about how they would be used,” he said. 

The party’s message to Carney, he added, is simple: “Please provide the facts. We haven’t had a lot of transparency from you in a nation-defining negotiation.”

A risk of ‘accelerating conflict’ 

Jamil Jivani, an outspoken Conservative MP from the GTA, warned after the trade talks broke off that retaliation could risk “accelerating conflict” with the Trump administration when Canadian jobs are already on the line. 

Jacob Mantle, a fellow Conservative MP from Ontario with a background in international trade law, is skeptical of counter-tariffs because of their impact on consumers and businesses. He says the economic and political case for them is “weak.” 

“I have not seen evidence that our retaliation has changed U.S. behaviour,” Mantle told the Star. 

“In fact, the opposite appears to be the case,” he said. “I think the government needs to make a persuasive argument that the benefits of retaliation will exceed the expected costs, because it’s just as plausible that this could lead to escalation, and I think the government agrees with my view in part.”

Mantle cited recent changes to the list of U.S. products for which Ottawa had announced counter-tariffs.

Last week, Canada dropped American seafood from its targets amid concerns that Canadian jobs could be lost in facilities that process lobster imported from Maine, and that Canadian seafood could become a target of retaliatory tariffs by the Trump administration. 

During last year’s federal election campaign, Carney quietly removed counter-tariffs on some American imports; months earlier, when he was running for leadership of the Liberal party, he had promised to match U.S. tariffs dollar for dollar. 

That summer, he removed them altogether from goods covered by the Canada-U.S.-Mexico free trade agreement in an effort to kick-start negotiations with the Trump administration, which ramped up talks with Canada last fall before ultimately breaking them off.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business warned last week that Canada’s counter-tariffs would hurt businesses that rely on U.S. imports and distribute American goods, and that those businesses will need access to the billions of dollars of support promised by Ottawa.

Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, has also signalled that the United States would not accept retaliation from Canada.

Tariffs ‘came on us pretty quickly’

Mantle said that while those he speaks with in the business community largely share his view, the “very understandable anger in the Canadian public” probably means that arguments like his are not being widely discussed.

“My view at this present moment is probably a more minority view on counter-tariffs,” he acknowledged. “That doesn’t change the facts of the economics of counter-tariffs.”

The Carney government says it will respond to the Trump administration’s recently imposed 50 per cent tariffs on nearly $28 billion worth of Canadian goods with “dollar for dollar” counter-tariffs on Sept. 8.

The House of Commons is not set to return until Sept. 21, although the Conservatives want it reconvened earlier. Majumdar says the party would be hard-pressed to come up with a position on retaliation without more information and debate. 

“It’s very difficult to do so without all the facts, and I don’t think Canadians would expect us to,” he said. 

Jenni Byrne, a longtime Conservative operative who managed the party’s last campaign, told the Star that she agrees. “How can you support something that you don’t have any information on?” Byrne said.

She acknowledges that Poilievre called for “dollar-for-dollar” retaliation when Trump made his first tariff threats in January 2025, and that he continued to support counter-tariffs during last year’s election campaign, while underscoring how they should not hurt Canadian workers. 

But back then, Byrne said, the Conservatives were responding to unexpected U.S. tariffs that “came on us pretty quickly.”

The main difference now is time, she says, which means the Carney government should be willing to provide more information on the cost of paying a counter-tariff. 

“It is not the same as this being a snap or surprise decision,” Byrne said. “We are 18 months or … almost two years into this same negotiation with the Americans.”

Byrne also defended the skepticism Conservatives are expressing about counter-tariffs, noting that the Official Opposition’s job is to demand accountability for government decisions that result in billions of dollars in new spending and affect the prices struggling Canadians pay.

“That is not unpatriotic, it’s responsible,” she said.

‘Canada is not to blame’

Former Alberta premier Jason Kenney says Poilievre struck the right tone when he put the blame on the U.S. for its decision to impose its latest tariffs, and believes Carney could do a better job involving opposition leaders in navigating the file. 

Still, Kenney sees a need for more caucus discipline, noting that some Conservative MPs — who he did not name — “seem to have a hard time grasping that Canada is not to blame.”

“Sometimes in opposition, you get so focused on the target, critiquing the government, holding the government to account, that you forget to balance it with other more important considerations,” he said. 

“In this case, I think the vast majority of Canadians, including the kinds of voters Conservatives need to win the next election, want to see all parties putting country ahead of party, of patriotism ahead of partisanship.”