Ontario, Saskatchewan to boost trade ties
Premiers sign memo, say they want to break down barriers
The premiers of Ontario and Saskatchewan want to take the lead on breaking down interprovincial trade barriers across the country — and have agreed to start making changes in their own backyards first.
Doug Ford and Scott Moe have signed a memorandum of understanding to promote free trade between their jurisdictions. Currently, about $11 billion worth of goods and services are exchanged between the two provinces.
“We’re going to blaze a new trail,” Ford said Tuesday in the legislature.
Following the deal with Saskatchewan, “you’re going to see all the other provinces hop on board. We talk about the USMCA (the new NAFTA) deal — and we can’t even get trade down within our own country.
“But under our leadership, we’ll make sure that happens.”
The opposition criticized Ford on Tuesday for not sending representatives to attend a recent meeting with other provinces on the issue.
New Democrat MPP and trade critic Taras Natyshak said Saskatchewan only amounts to about 5 per cent of Ontario’s total interprovincial trade.
So why were they “the only two provinces to skip a meeting of interprovincial
ed States.”
The effect of the U.S. and China tariff tiff, which has been ongoing since last May, has raised concerns about slowing global economic growth, rattling equity markets and putting downward pressure on the price of oil.
“If global consumption and demand for oil remains as robust as it is, we’re going to get walloped and be back to the $1.40 (a litre) by the summer,” said McTeague.
Earlier this month, the Parisbased International Energy Agency (IEA) in its Oil Market Report forecast a growth of 1.3 million barrels per day in global oil production for this year and 1.4 million in 2019. That was a reduction of 110,000 barrels a day over both years forecast by the agency a month earlier, but later revised because of “a weaker economic outlook, trade concerns, higher oil prices and a revision to Chinese data.”
The IEA said even though U.S. sanctions on Iran don’t take effect until November, global oil supply has been cut back to two-year lows with sinking Venezuelan output and decreased production in other parts of the world upsetting a fragile global balance between supply and demand.
“As we move into 2019, a possible risk to our forecast lies in some key emerging economies, partly due to currency depreciation versus the U.S. dollar rais- ing the cost of imported energy. In addition, there is a risk to growth from an escalation of trade disputes,” the IEA reported.