Federal gov’t looks to set up system for cannabis

WASHINGTON — Ever since Donald Trump was elected last fall, Canada’s government has been clinging to a strategy of lowdrama, under-the-radar conversations about trade that keep investors calm in the choppy waters of a NAFTA renegotiation.

The U.S. president has stopped co-operating.

Trump delivered his strongest-ever broadside at America’s northern neighbour Thursday, piling atop his complaints earlier in the week about Canadian dairy and adding fresh gripes for good measure — this time about energy and lumber.

“We can’t let Canada or anybody else take advantage and do what they did to our workers and to our farmers,” Trump said in the Oval Office.

“Included in there is lumber, timber and energy. We’re going to have to get to the negotiating table with Canada very, very quickly.”

This is the same president who recently played down irritants with Canada — he said he just wanted to do a little trade tweaking. Suddenly, he’s tweaking Canada’s nose — twice in a week, with his second twist even more forceful than the first.

Canadians will soon learn whether it’s just pre-negotiation bluster or a harbinger of hardball: Trump promised more details within a couple of weeks about his government’s plans for the North American Free Trade Agreement, with discussions likely to start later this year.

He provided no rationale for his complaints.

On energy, Canada provides the U.S. more than one-third of its oil imports — and does so under a stable, locked-in ratio guaranteed in NAFTA. On lumber, cheaper Canadian wood has reduced the cost of U.S. homes but also caused recurring legal spats with the U.S. industry that alleges product-dumping.

On dairy, he offered a scintilla of detail.

Trump made it obvious his complaints from earlier this week in Wisconsin were specifically about recent rule changes on milk classification,

Union members at the Vancouver Sun and the Province approved a new collective agreement with Postmedia on Wednesday that will save 21 jobs at the two publications.

Postmedia Network Inc. announced it would lay off 54 people at Pacific Newspaper Group, its British Columbia subsidiary that oversees the two newspapers. That followed 38 voluntary buyouts at PNG in January, which Unifor said taken together with the layoffs would have amounted to a 42 per cent reduction in staff levels.

Under the terms of the new CBA, all non-advertising employees agreed to work nine days every not on the longer-term issue of Canada’s supply-management system.

“Canada, what they’ve done to our dairy farm workers, is a disgrace. It’s a disgrace,” he said. “Rules, regulations, different things have changed — and our farmers in Wisconsin and New York state are being put out of business.”

It was a far cry from the tune Trump was singing in February.

After meeting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, he lauded the bilateral trade relationship, saying it required only tweaking. He told people he was pleased with the meeting, and even gave Trudeau a friendly shout-out in his primetime speech to Congress.

In an interview Thursday with Bloomberg, the prime minister sounded resigned to a future filled with presidential mood swings.

Asked about Trump’s remarks earlier in the week about dairy, Trudeau acknowledged the likelihood that the message from the White House might occasionally switch from one day to the next.

Indeed, he actually cast the topsy-turvy messaging as a positive thing. He called it an opportunity — a sign the president listens to the people he speaks with, and keeps an open mind to changing his views.

“(Trump is) a little bit unlike many politicians,” the prime minister two weeks, thus taking a 10 per cent pay cut in order to save their colleagues’ jobs. Advertising staff will also see a 10 per cent salary cut, but will still have to work the same full-time hours with the opportunity to make up the reduction in pay through commission.

Unifor Local 2000 members voted 82 per cent in favour of the new agreement at a meeting held Wednesday evening.

“I voted yes to save jobs even though it’s frustrating to get paid 10 per cent less despite working for a profitable newspaper,” said Vancouver Sun crime reporter Kim Bolan.

“I hope (Postmedia President and CEO Paul) Godfrey really does invest in journalism instead of continuing the cuts.” said, acknowledging the magnitude of his understatement amid laughter from the crowd.

“As politicians we’re very much trained to say something and stick with it. Whereas he has shown if he says one thing and then actually hears good counter-arguments or good reasons why he should shift his position, he will take a different position if it’s a better one, if the arguments win him over.

“I think there’s a challenge in that for electors, but there’s also an opportunity in that for people who engage with him.”

Canada has ample reasons to engage.

U.S. policy-makers have decisions to make that will affect the northern neighbour on multiple fronts including: NAFTA, softwood lumber, the possibility of a U.S. import tax, and Buy American rules.

Already the uncertainty has caused some businesses to pause investments in Canada, according to the Bank of Canada.

In an effort to soothe those concerns, the Canadian government repeatedly portrays NAFTA negotiations as no big deal, just another adjustment to an agreement adjusted several times already.

While Trump’s “America First” attitude has yet to show up in any successful legislation, it has appeared in numerous executive actions,

The agreement, which Postmedia has the right to reopen after 18 months, also protects members from further involuntary layoffs and introduces a modified benefits package.

“This is a good example of management and the union working together to find efficiencies within the collective agreement that allowed us to preserve content and invest in our editorial products,” Godfrey said in a statement.

“Because of the hard work done by the bargaining committee we were able to find ways to preserve as many jobs as possible and keep strong local voices in the Vancouver Sun and Province,” said union president Brian Gibson in a statement.

While the news is a positive sign including the order he was signing in his office Thursday as he complained about Canada.

That order sets a timeline for his administration to study possible tariffs on foreign steel. Ironically, one of Trump’s guests in his office for the signing ceremony was the head of the United Steelworkers union — Leo Gerard, a Canadian, born in Sudbury, Ont.

Trump’s gripes about Canada came at the end of his remarks about steel. He prefaced them by saying, “I wasn’t going to do this,” then launched into complaints about Canadian dairy, wood, and energy and its impact on the U.S.

The Canadian government responded with a statement from Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland.

On dairy, Freeland said, Canada buys five times more than it sells to the U.S.; on lumber, Canadian producers have always prevailed in past court cases, and a protracted dispute would only drive up U.S. housing costs.

And as for oil, she described the stable supply from Canada as a job-creating lifeblood of the U.S. economy.

“Our government will always defend Canada’s interests,” she said.

“Any increase of trade barriers between our countries would significantly impact jobs in the United States, as well as in Canada.” for journalism in Vancouver and British Columbia, Postmedia said earlier this month that it will continue to pursue cost-cutting after the company cut 20 per cent of its total salary costs through buyouts and layoffs in recent months.

The company lost $26.5 million in the second quarter of its 2017 fiscal year, with revenue decreasing 13.5 per cent year-over-year to $180.8 million for the three months ending Feb. 28.

Savings from the salary cuts, which took place across the company in late 2016 and early 2017, were already evident in the quarter: Postmedia spent $76.7 million on compensation for the threemonth period, around 15 per cent less than the $90 million it spent in the same period a year before.

Ottawa is planning to set up a cannabis tracking system to collect information about marijuana products from licensed producers, distributors and retailers — just one of a host of proposed changes to be ushered in alongside legalization.

Health Canada says the proposed system, which would not track individual cannabis users, would allow businesses and regulators to trace all products and address recalls.

The tracking would also help to ensure cannabis is not being diverted to illegal markets, the department said, given the government’s stated and oft-repeated goal of limiting organized crime’s footprint in the pot trade.

“Mandatory product track-andtrace systems are common features in other jurisdictions that have legalized cannabis for non-medical purposes,” the department said.

The specific requirements of the system still need to be developed, Health Canada added, noting similar systems are used in the U.S. to gather information about cannabis products.

The department did not say how much the proposed system would cost — only that it intends to offset such costs through licensing and other fees.

The government legislation did not offer any specifics on tax measures for marijuana, which was sure to be difficult to miss Thursday on Parliament Hill as aficionados gathered to mark the annual April 20 pot celebrations known as 4/20.

However, not everyone is cheering the government’s legalization efforts.

Alex Newcombe, a 31-year-old medicinal marijuana user, said he is disappointed by the Liberal legislation introduced last week.

“It is not anything other than prohibition 2.0,” Newcombe said, who is especially upset that the federal Liberals have not taken steps to decriminalize the drug in the interim.

“(Prime Minister Justin Trudeau) could decriminalize it at a moment’s notice,” he said. “He’s the one stopping it at the moment — we’re calling him out on it.”

The federal government has said repeatedly it has no plans to decriminalize marijuana until legalization is in place — a goal it hopes to achieve by July 2018.

Trudeau, who admitted to smoking pot after becoming an MP, told Bloomberg on Thursday that Canada’s legalization strategy is built around a recognition that marijuana is “not good” for the developing brains of young people.