Barrie ranks 19th out of 41 Canadian cities in terms of vulnerability to United States tariffs, according to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.
Its business data lab’s American tariffs exposure index research looked at Statistics Canada export numbers in light of U.S. President Donald Trump's initial threat to impose 25 per cent across-the-board tariffs on all goods entering the country from Canada.
“It will have a fairly significant impact on Barrie,” Barrie Chamber of Commerce CEO Paul Markle said of the tariffs. “I think if you consider the number of businesses that are actually exporting into the States, that starts to really wreak havoc with our manufacturers, in a lot of different industries, that rely on products going south of the border.”
The business data lab says 90.3 per cent of all of Barrie’s exports go to the United States. That had a value of $766.8 million in 2023, according to the lab, and Barrie has 276 exporters to the United States.
Norm Smith, professor of economics at Georgian College’s Barrie campus, said this city’s vulnerability has much to do with industry here that manufactures automotive parts.
“We’re all going to be hurt by this (American tariffs),” he said. “It’s just how much and when, if this goes through, but … it hasn’t gone through yet.”
Trump delayed those levies until at least March 4 in response to border security commitments from Canada.
But he has since signed executive orders to impose 25 per cent tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports into the United States, including from Canada.
“A wait-and-see attitude this late in the game isn’t really the answer,” Markle said. “Most of these (Barrie) businesses, if you talk to them, have already been making sure that their supply chains have been strengthened and they don’t have all their eggs in one basket.
“Continue developing new markets, so south of the border is lessened,” he added. “We need to consider a path to negotiating terms rather than getting into a trade war with the U.S.”
Meanwhile, Smith said Canada also needs to give itself other trade options.
“Even if this comes about, we have to look east and west, to Asia from the west coast, we have to look at Europe from the east coast and just realize we still have partners in the States,” he said. “There are good people who don’t want these tariffs.
“It goes against all my training in economics. I was always taught in the Great Depression, one of the causes was tariffs,” Smith added. “All these barriers are basically a beggar-thy-neighbour strategy. Thinking that somehow if your neighbour is worse off, you’re better off.”
“We need to eliminate these inter-provincial trade barriers to have more products going east and west,” Markle said. “We need to diversify overseas.”
Smith said: “But it’s not an economic argument that we are in, it’s a political argument."
He said there are better ways to deal with something that’s coming our way, other than panicking, and that Canada still has friends in the U.S. that will offer support and are as offended as Canadians about tariffs, and Trump’s talk about making Canada its 51st state.
Smith says that attitude has even extended to hockey. Canadian fans in Montreal booed during the American national anthem at the 4 Nations Face-Off game involving Canada on Feb. 15.
“When we boo their anthem, we’re not booing their anthem and their hockey team, we’re booing the guy at the top and those who have enabled this behaviour,” Smith said. “That’s why we are booing.”
Canada and the United States play for the 4 Nations Face-Off championship tonight in Boston.
According to the Canadian Chamber’s business data lab, Saint John, N.B., Calgary, Alta., and Windsor, Ont., are the Canadians cities most vulnerable to U.S. tariffs.
Sudbury is the least vulnerable Canadian city, followed by Kamloops and Nanaimo, B.C.
Toronto, Canada’s largest city, is 27th most vulnerable.
To determine the risk level of the 41 largest cities in Canada, the business data lab developed a U.S. tariff exposure index that reflects both a city’s American export intensity and its dependence on the United States as a key export destination.
— With files by the Canadian Press