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(LifeSiteNews) — Canada’s leading taxpayer advocacy group said directly in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent tariffs against the nation, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s counter-tariff response, that they “don’t help people” and just make everything more expensive for families. The group said what needs to be done to help families is for the Trudeau government to “cut” taxes at once.

“Tariffs don’t fix problems, they make everything more expensive on both sides of the border,” said Franco Terrazzano, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation to LifeSiteNews.

“Tariffs don’t help people, cutting taxes helps people.”

Terrazzano said that the “number one” thing the Canadian government should be doing in response to Trump’s tariffs is to cut taxes.

“The number one thing Canadian governments can do is fix our economy and make our economy more competitive and that means cutting taxes and regulations,” he told LifeSiteNews.

“Trudeau’s tax hikes are making Canada’s economy less competitive.”

He said what the Trudeau government needs to do at once is “unleash our economic potential by scrapping the carbon tax, and lowering income and business taxes.”

On Saturday, U.S. President Donald Trump put in place an unprecedented 25 percent tariff on all imports from Canada and Mexico. Canadian oil and gas exports, as well as electricity exports, which the U.S. imports with abundance, were also subject to a 10 percent tariff as well. Of note is that Trump enacted only a 10 percent tariff on goods from China.

On Monday, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo announced that after talking with Trump, tariffs on Mexico have been delayed for no less than one month. As of press time, no such reprieve has been given to Canada.

Trump claimed that the tariffs come in response to “the drugs, fentanyl, and everything else that have come into the country” from Canada and Mexico, as well as “massive subsidies that we’re giving to Canada and to Mexico in the form of deficits.”

Despite his claims, Trump made no mention of the fact of serious drug addiction problems affecting many parts of the United States, where demand for drugs is high.

For context, in 2024, U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized about 21,148 pounds of fentanyl at the Mexico border. By contrast, only 43 pounds of the deadly drug was seized at the Canadian border. The fact remains that a large and significant amount of fentanyl’s originators are from China.

In response to Trump’s tariffs, the Trudeau government on Saturday announced $155 billion in retaliatory tariffs against the U.S., with most of them being against U.S. meat, dairy, and alcohol products.

Polls have revealed that 77 percent of Canadians want an immediate election to deal with the tariff threat.

All of Canada’s mainstream opposition political parties, as well as some MPs, have advocated for counter-tariffs, including, in some cases, extreme retaliatory responses, such as taxing Teslas 100 percent, as advocated by Liberal MP and leadership candidate Chrystia Freeland.

Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada Pierre Poilievre said that what Canada needs is a swift imposition of “dollar-for-dollar” counter-tariffs against the United States.

The People’s Party of Canada, under its leader Maxime Bernier, has advocated for a different response and to not “retaliate” against “Trump’s actions with our own tariffs on imported U.S. goods, as the Trudeau government has already announced with the support of all the other establishment parties – including the Conservatives – and the provincial governments.”

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