PM pitches tariff stance during visit to province

REGINA For the second stop of his three-city Canada Day tour, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met Regina steelworkers and posed for selfies with their kids.

“I’m glad to be here to remind everyone that Canadians stand up for each other,” he said at the park and pool by the Evraz steel mill Sunday afternoon. “That’s what we do and I’m glad to do it.”

Trudeau has been visiting Canadian workers as his government hits back against U.S. tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum. Canada Day on Sunday was the very day Canada’s countermeasures took effect, making it more expensive to import 235 American products.

The prime minister’s first stop, at a canning and food processing plant in Leamington, Ont., saw him greeted with an impromptu rendition of the national anthem and waving Canadian flags.

The Regina visit was more subdued.

Regina Mayor Michael Fougere was on-site to welcome the prime minister. Hundreds of people greeted Trudeau as he glad-handed with workers in Evraz T-shirts. Selfies abounded, before the prime minister took questions from the press.

He said he had no plans on that day to visit the protest camp across from the Saskatchewan Legislative Building. But he said Ralph Goodale, the federal public safety minister who accompanied him to Evraz, has already engaged with the campers — who have been protesting over Indigenous rights for about 125 days.

“I understand there are a significant amount of provincial issues they’re concerned about,” Trudeau said. “But we recognize that a truly nation-to-nation relationship around reconciliation requires that all levels of government step up and work together. We look forward to working with all orders of government and with Indigenous people on this.”

A staff member accompanying Trudeau said that the prime minister was deterred from the meeting by scheduling constraints, and not from any lack of interest in meeting those at the camp.

The Evraz workers were instructed not to speak to the press, according to one steelworker and an event organizer. But one said he was neither pleased nor dismayed with the prime minister’s visit.

After his visit to Regina, Trudeau carried on to Dawson City, Yukon, for a Canada Day barbecue.