Miller: We’ll know more about Trump tariffs at the same time as Canadians

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Marc Miller speaks to reporters on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Dec. 5, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Patrick Doyle

Immigration Minister Marc Miller says that with just days to go before U.S. President Donald Trump’s 30-day tariff reprieve expires, there’s been no indication whether Canada can avoid the levies.

“There’s no certainty on this,” Miller told CTV’s Question Period host Vassy Kapelos in an interview airing Sunday. “It’ll be hanging over our head until we know, and we’ll probably know at the same time Canadians know.”

Trump has threatened a slate of tariffs, all set to come into force within the next month. The first is a sweeping 25 per cent tariff across the board on Canadian goods, with a 10 per cent tariff on Canadian energy.

Originally set to be implemented on Feb. 1, at the time, Canada secured a pause on those levies until March 4 — pending progress on border security promises and a suite of other measures — in an 11th-hour deal between Trump and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Efforts by the Canadian government to fully stave off those tariffs continue, including a delegation of officials that made the trip to Washington this week.

Trump, however, is adamant the date is immovable, repeating his often-cited reasoning for the tariffs: the fentanyl crisis.

“We cannot allow this scourge to continue to harm the USA, and therefore, until it stops, or is seriously limited, the proposed TARIFFS scheduled to go into effect on MARCH FOURTH will, indeed, go into effect, as scheduled,” he wrote in a social media post Thursday.

Miller — who took part in the trip to Washington alongside the RCMP commissioner, the newly appointed fentanyl czar, and other officials — told Kapelos he believes Canada’s message is “being received loud and clear” by the Americans.

“The challenge, I think, is we have no guarantees as to what the outcome will be on Monday or Tuesday,” Miller said. “And I don’t necessarily think that was the intention of the meetings, to get some hard and fast guarantee based on the exchange of information, and the work that we do to make sure that we’re both taking care of our common border.”

“The challenge I face is I can’t take any of that for granted, and I need to be able to leave it all out there and fight for Canada as much as I can,” he added, categorizing the meetings between officials as “good,” and “productive.”

When pressed on that assessment of the meetings, when factoring the ways in which the American administration continues to threaten Canadian sovereignty, Miller said the federal government believes free trade with the U.S. is a “win-win,” and it must continue to present the “proof points” of that to Trump’s administration.

He said if and when Trump does impose those likely devastating tariffs on Canadian imports, Canada is ready to respond, to fight back, and “perhaps prepared to dig in for four years.”

“I don’t want to play games with Canadians, and my job is not to take that for granted and to think I can just sit at home and do nothing,” Miller said, when asked whether he believes Trump’s tariffs are truly contingent on border security. “And if I don’t think it’s about the border, I don’t have the luxury of just presuming that it won’t be.”

“We need to go and talk to the people that have Mr. Trump’s ear,” he added, pointing to last week’s trip to the White House.

You can catch the full interview with Immigration Minister Marc Miller on CTV Question Period this Sunday at 11ET/8PT.