TORONTO — Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre left for New York Wednesday night to make the case for Canada as President Donald Trump answered Ottawa’s new counter-tariffs with fresh bans and 50% duties. A senior Conservative source told CTV News the trip carries the blessing of the Prime Minister’s Office and that Poilievre will stay through Friday to attend ceremonies marking the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.Poilievre plans interviews with American outlets to “promote Team Canada” after Canada’s retaliatory tariffs on $27.6 billion in U.S. goods took effect at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. That night Trump signed executive orders banning Canadian alcohol, motorcycles and dairy products and adding 50% tariffs on golf carts, desks and mattresses.The opposition leader wanted to travel south earlier, the source said, but the PMO advised the timing would be unhelpful and his office waited.Poilievre spent the Labour Day weekend in Regina pressing Prime Minister Mark Carney to release the text of the trade deal Canada walked away from and an analysis of what the counter-tariffs will cost households and small businesses. “He has admitted that tariffs will be a tax on consumers,” Poilievre said. “We just want him to release that analysis.”.WATCH: Ottawa's counter-tariffs hit Ontario shelves as Ford backs Carney.He repeated that Conservatives want tariff-free trade, not another round of tit-for-tat duties, and that Canada should use its leverage with the American public rather than treat retaliation as the goal.Poilievre made a similar swing through Michigan, Texas and New York in March — paid for by the Conservative Party and skipping Washington — to argue for an integrated auto sector and Canadian energy. He told audiences then that neighbours who buy far more from each other than they sell should not be taxing steel, aluminum, autos and lumber.The latest visit lands as Ontario manufacturers added jobs in August even as the province shed 18,000 positions overall and economists warned tens of thousands of Ontario jobs sit in the path of the trade fight. Queen’s Park has backed Carney’s counter-tariffs while Premier Doug Ford tells agencies to buy Canadian.
