Electric vehicles and softwood lumber are hot spots in the trade talks between Canada and the US.

Canada’s Commerce Minister headed back to the United States capital to discuss bitter trade irritants, just two weeks after joining Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on his visit to the White House.

Mary Ng met virtually Tuesday with US Trade Representative Katherine Tai to discuss a number of trade disputes, including Canada’s “significant concern” with a proposed tax credit for electric vehicles.

In a reading of their meeting, Ng’s office described the proposal as contrary to the terms of the Agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada, or USMCA.

Ng also opposed the United States following through last week with its plan to nearly double its tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber imports.

He said the decision will hurt Canadian communities, workers and businesses, while only adding to the inflationary pain that American consumers are already feeling.

Ng is in Washington through Friday for a series of face-to-face meetings and has a contingent of opposition MPs, including conservative business critic Randy Hoback.

In a note-taking debate on softwood duties Wednesday night in the House of Commons, Liberal MPs called for a Team Canada approach to the long-running dispute.

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“It is important that we speak as one voice and not capitulate, that we recognize that it is a stronger voice if we come together and say that what is happening is not right,” said Winnipeg MP Kevin Lamoureux, who started the debate to the government side.

But opposition MPs blamed the dispute squarely on Trudeau and what they saw as his inability to establish good relations with three successive US presidents.

NDP MP Charlie Angus noted that Trudeau met with incumbent President Joe Biden last month at the White House and “seven days later we were hit” with new softwood obligations.

“I mean, what did he say that upset them so much that in seven days they doubled our tariffs?” Angus said.

Conservative MP Dan Albas said it was clear for months that the United States was prepared to impose higher tariffs on Canadian lumber, but did nothing to prevent it.

“This government should have known and it should have been acting and it should have been committed,” he said, adding that the liberal government “just doesn’t seem to care” about factory closures and job losses driving through British Columbia.

Conservative MP Ed Fast, a former commerce minister in Stephen Harper’s administration, questioned why the Liberals did not renew a nine-year deal reached in 2006, which expired just before the 2015 election in which the Liberals took office. .

“Today we know that our relationship with the United States is a failed relationship under this liberal government,” he said, adding that Trudeau “has not been able to achieve anything on the bilateral trade front.”

Lamoureux reminded opposition MPs that softwood has been an irritant to trade between the two countries for decades, under both liberal and conservative governments.

He noted that Canada has challenged the legality of the tariffs in the past on Canada-US free trade dispute resolution panels and the World Trade Organization and has won every time. He predicted that will be the case again this time, but admitted that the litigation process will take time.

Meanwhile, Bloc Quebecois deputy Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay said the government should immediately provide loan guarantees to lumber producers to help them cope with the latest round of tariffs.

This Canadian Press report was first published on December 1, 2021.