Singh pitches EI reform, infrastructure and affordability in tariff response plan

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh makes a health-care announcement during a federal election campaign stop in Edmonton on April 1, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christinne Muschi

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump is setting fire to the North American economy as he promised Canadian workers that the NDP would have their backs during the trade war.

Campaigning in Winnipeg, Singh visited a training facility for unionized trades workers where he outlined what his party will do as Trump rolls out a new set of tariffs on much of the rest of the world.

“Donald Trump represents a storm. He’s an arsonist. He’s setting fire to the economy, his own economy and ours as well,” Singh said against a backdrop of students in hard hats and safety vests.

“He represents a storm, and in that storm, in that difficult time, Canadians know how to weather a storm. Canadians know to get through a difficult time. And we do that by looking out for each other.”

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At a press conference at the White House on Wednesday, Trump presented a lengthy list of tariffs various countries will face under his new trade measures, but did not specify how Canada will be affected.

Singh also met briefly with Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew in Winnipeg on Tuesday. Singh said he and the premier are “on the same page” on the tariff fight and thanked Kinew for all he was doing to “fight back.”

At the training facility in Winnipeg, Singh unveiled his party’s plan to safeguard Canada from Trump’s trade war.

Singh cited previously announced NDP policy proposals such as increasing employment insurance payments, building an east-west electricity grid and putting money collected through retaliatory tariffs into affected sectors like steel and auto manufacturing.

He pitched his party’s plan as worker-focused and aimed at middle-class families who may be affected by the tariffs.

Singh said Liberal Leader Mark Carney’s economic plan involves “sacrifice” for working-class people while “those at the top should make all the money they want.” He also took aim at Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.

“Pierre Poilievre thinks that you weather a storm on your own, fend for yourself. He believes in cutting the services that people need, cutting child care, cutting health care. He thinks that he should cut workers’ rights,” Singh said.

Poilievre has said he would not take away programs like $10-a-day child care or dental care for those who are already benefiting from them.

Singh has argued during the campaign that the NDP is the only party looking out for workers as the trade war intensifies. On Wednesday, he also cited the effects of China’s tariffs on Canada’s agriculture sector.

“Premier Kinew did bring up this concern as well that there’s kind of two fronts going on in Manitoba,” Singh said.

He said Canada needs to “find ways to diversify where we’re selling so we can have more resilience, that we can be less vulnerable ...”

The NDP’s plan includes previously announced affordability promises such as removing the GST from “essentials” like internet and phone bills, home heating, premade grocery store meals and children’s’ clothes, capping grocery prices on staples and expanding health programs like dental care.

Singh was joined Wednesday morning by Manitoba members of Parliament Leila Dance and Niki Ashton. Dance won her seat in a byelection last September in the riding of Elmwood--Transcona after the NDP’s Daniel Blaikie left for a job with Kinew’s government.

Ashton said she’s confident about the party’s track record in the province and singled out Carney, who was asked about his support for Indigenous communities and reconciliation at an event in Winnipeg on Tuesday.

During his visit to the city - which has the largest urban Indigenous population in Canada - Carney talked about affordability measures but the issue of reconciliation was missing from his agenda altogether.

Ashton said Wednesday that Carney’s answer was “pathetic,” and showed that he’s “not a leader who understands the crises that Indigenous people face.”

Later on Wednesday, Singh and Dance visited striking workers from Operating Engineers Local 987 at a construction equipment rental company in the city. They began picketing on Monday.

Marc Lafond, the local’s business manager, said it was “great” to see Singh visit the strikers to encourage them and possibly to move things along with the employer.

“I would encourage the other two political parties, if they’re in and about in Winnipeg, to do the same and then pop by,” he said.

Lafond said the union doesn’t support one party over another and “we leave it to the members to cast their ballot.”

Singh’s campaign continues to push eastward and is set to arrive in Ottawa later on Wednesday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 2, 2025.