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Pierre Poilievre is making a trip to Detroit Tuesday to pitch a plan for a “real deal” between Canada and the U.S. amid the ongoing trade war.
During a brief stop in Windsor, Ont. before crossing the border, Poilievre said he will be meeting with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
The Conservative leader said he also plans to visit the General Motors plant in Detroit and the Ford Rouge plant in Dearborn, Mich.
Poilievre’s plan would base the automaker’s duty-free access on the value of vehicles it produces in each country.
“The more an automaker makes in Canada, the more it could sell in Canada. The more it makes in the U.S., the more it could sell in the U.S.,” Poilievre said.
“For Canada, that means production would grow between 500,000 and 800,000 automobiles over the next 10 years in order to get that duty-free access.
“Such a rule would repatriate access to both of our countries, which is the stated goal of both our countries.”
His plan, he said, “would massively increase” vehicle production on both sides of the border.
“They would win and we would win,” said Poilievre.
Poilievre’s visit is less than a month until the U.S. midterm elections.
Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers recently denounced Donald Trump’s trade war despite closely aligning himself with the president in the past.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer has told CBC News that there’s a big gap in U.S. manufacturing employment and “autos is a big part of that.”
Poilievre is also proposing a ban on vehicles that contain Chinese and Russian-connected software.
“Canadians and Americans should know that their automobiles are free from dangerous technology that surveils and controls them” said Poilievre.
Taking the GST off Canadian-made vehicles is another move Poilievre said he’d make.
With these changes, he said it would boost vehicle production in Canada to around two million, up from the current 1.2 million.
Poilievre said Canada needs to use its leverage and fold energy, minerals and tariff-free trade into one deal with the U.S.
