Parliament must “take a stand” against Canadian companies that move jobs to the United States to bypass Trump tariffs, the nation’s largest private sector union said.“This is the fight of our lives,” Lana Payne, Unifor national president, told reporters Tuesday, per Blacklock’s Reporter. “We must take a stand now.”“Corporations need to understand every move they make will have consequences. No company should have the false idea they can move jobs south and then get a free ride shipping products back to Canada.”Payne in a May 16 letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney and cabinet proposed penalties under the 1985 Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act. The legislation was used in 1996 on behalf of Canadian mining giant Sherritt International Corporation that faced US sanctions for doing business in Cuba.“The Act prohibits Canadian companies from complying with certain US sanctions against Cuba and to report to Canada’s Attorney General any communication received in respect of such measures,” a Library of Parliament analysis said at the time. “The exact legal effect of these provisions varies.”.Payne on Tuesday said the Act could be enforced against outsourcing.“Violations could result in up to $1.5 million in fines for corporations,” she said.“We think it’s a powerful tool.”“We think it can be used to send a message to corporations that you just don’t get to shift production south of the border without there being punishment or penalties.”“We cannot be in the situation where we are watching jobs leave this country because of trade aggression from the US. There are any number of things we can do as a country. Utilizing this piece of legislation is one.”.Federal agencies to date have not calculated the full economic impact of US and Chinese tariffs here. President Donald Trump at a May 6 White House summit with Carney said he had no interest in Canadian goods.“We want to make our own cars,” said Trump.“We don’t really want cars from Canada. We put tariffs on cars from Canada. At a certain point it won’t make economic sense for Canada to build those cars.”“We don’t want steel from Canada because we’re making our own steel and we’re having massive steel plants being built right now as we speak.”“We really don’t want Canadian steel and we don’t want Canadian aluminum and various other things because we want to be able to do it ourselves. Because of past thinking of people, we have a tremendous deficit with Canada.”Canada’s trade surplus with the United States totaled $102.9 million last year, by Statistics Canada estimate. American buyers account for 76% of Canadian global exports.
