Charlottetown MP Sean Casey says employment insurance relief will be introduced within weeks to help those who lose their jobs due to tariffs, if those tariffs aren’t lifted.
On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump launched a North American trade war by slapping devastating 25 per cent tariffs on virtually all Canadian goods.
In response, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has slapped tariffs on $30 billion worth of American products and plans to hit another $125 billion in three weeks.
Trudeau has also hinted at possibly expanding EI eligibility to support workers affected by the trade war.
Casey said Islanders won’t have to wait long for help if the tariffs remain in place.
“People, quite frankly, are living month to month and and if they lose their job through no fault of their own, and they don’t qualify under what the EI program allows for, now there’s going to have to be some latitude to accommodate them,” he told CBC’s Island Morning.
Focus on pressuring the U.S.
At the moment, though, Casey said people won’t hear much about individual relief efforts because the focus is on trying to get the tariffs lifted.
“We are solely focused on inflicting pain on the United States to get them to rethink this. So all of the energy is focused on making the duration of this trade war short, as opposed to putting in measures to mitigate in the event that it isn’t short,” he said.
The first round of counter-tariffs targets U.S. products like orange juice, peanut butter, and bourbon, which are usually items tied to certain Republican-led states.
