Canada EXPLODES After 58 000 LAYOFFS Are Coming Due To MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY COLLAPSE

We got jobs numbers out this morning showing Canada's economy losing 25,000 jobs. We're playing and gambling with the future of our employees and we don't know really how long this is going to go. I think we're seeing it in the sectors that, you know, we were expecting to see. For example, manufacturing is still suffering job losses and we're starting to see public administration jobs in public administration decline and those impacts obviously more centred in Ontario. Canada is exploding into a full-blown economic shock as 58,000 layoffs loom. What looks like just another adjustment is actually a brutal unravelling of the backbone of the economy with factories stalling, orders vanishing and businesses pushed to the edge. This is a breaking point and the fallout is only getting worse. We need the Canadian government to fight on our behalf. It's not going to happen here in Ottawa. It's going to happen in Washington. We need a timetable. We need to start to work together. I can't just look at this as just another headline. When I hear about 58,000 jobs, I know that that's just the starting point. Once you follow the chain, it's hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk. And at the same time, there's still talk about affordability, like things are stable. But when I look at what's happening inside these factories, it's a completely different reality. Is this a six-month plan? Is this a one-year plan? My answer would be different for each one of those scenarios. Because you have to admit and come up with the reality that what you're asking of us is to stand to the front line of a trade war with the United States. And we are the front line. The part that stands out to me is how invisible this crisis is. Most people don't think about the tool, the mold and dye industry. It sounds technical, almost niche, but this is the layer everything depends on. These companies make the tools that allow other companies to produce goods. Cars, plastics, industrial parts, none of that happens without this foundation. Right now, Canada and the United States, for all the reasons I put down, are the two ugly sisters. And what's leaving is never coming back. So, no, I don't see this as just one sector struggling. If this layer collapses, everything built on top of it starts to break. That's how the system is structured. The hits keep coming from manufacturing, especially in Ontario, the province which saw the largest number of job losses last month, according to Statistics Canada. Overall, Canada's economy lost nearly 25,000 jobs in January, while the unemployment rate fell to 6.5%, a result of fewer people looking for work. What makes it even more fragile is how concentrated it is. Around 80% of this industry is based in Windsor. That creates a single point of failure. If pressure builds there, it doesn't stay local. It spreads across the entire manufacturing network. Their message was blunt. This isn't something that you can patch over. The supply chain is fully integrated. And if tool, dye and mold making goes down, it takes manufacturing and the rest of the Canadian economy. Canada also holds about 25% of all tool, mold and dye capacity in North America. That's a major share. So if that weakens, it doesn't just affect one country, it disrupts supply chains across the continent. If Governor Carney thinks he's going to make Canada a drop-off port for China to send goods and products into the United States, he is sorely mistaken. China will eat Canada alive, completely devour it. Threatening then, if Canada makes a deal with China, it will immediately be hit with a 100% tariff against all Canadian goods and products coming into the USA. Are the two ugly sisters. And what's leaving is never coming back. So I ask the question, how long do you want us to hold the line? On April 6th, a modification was made by President Trump to the 232 tariffs. And it has hit the mold, tool and dye industry hard. And the pressure didn't just build slowly. It hit all at once with the tariff changes in April 2026. Before that, tariffs were only applied to the metal portion of the product. If something sold for $1,000 and only $100 of it was steel, the tariff applied to the $100. Maybe the cost was $10. It was manageable. Warning that such a move would be met with immediate punishment. He claimed China would, quote, eat Canada alive, destroying its businesses, social fabric and way of life if closer ties were pursued. Now, tariffs apply to the full value of the product. That same $1,000 item can now carry a tariff of $300, $400 or even $500. And this is already happening in real cases. One tool that used to carry a $1,500 tariff now faces a $36,000 charge. That's the same product, the same work, completely different outcome. Trump accused Canada of trying to turn itself into what he called a drop-off port for Chinese goods entering the U.S. market. The issue is that these companies don't have large margins. Most operate between 1% and 9%. So when costs jump this sharply, there's no room to adjust. A small profit turns into a loss immediately. I think we're all upset. You know, we launched this truck in 2021. We hit every metric General Motors wanted to with productivity and safety and quality. Our members took these jobs thinking that they had finally a good job with a good collective bargaining agreement. And a few short years later, because of things that are out of our control under the Kuzma trade negotiations that are happening right now, we're losing our third shift. Contracts make it worse. These tools take months, sometimes a year, to build. Prices were agreed under the old system. Companies even agreed to absorb tariffs because they were predictable. Now they're stuck with finished products that they can't afford to ship. Ontario bore the brunt of these job losses, and while some provinces did see some gains, experts say there is a general feeling of uneasiness in the labor market right now. The moment they ship, they trigger tariffs that wipe out their margins. So instead of completing the transaction, they hold the product. That means no revenue comes in, even though the work is done. Today, those Canadian manufacturer and company owners showed up at committee with one goal. Push Mark Carney and the Liberals to get a deal done with the United States before more damage is done, because time is running out. Trump criticized Ottawa for resisting the defense plan, while at the same time choosing to expand economic engagement with China. At the same time, customers are changing their behavior. U.S. companies aren't waiting. They're shifting production, but not necessarily back home. A lot of that work is moving to Mexico, where costs are lower, and the environment is more stable. Sure, the unemployment rate went down. Isn't that great news? Well, it only went down because fewer people are looking for work. So if you've got fewer people in the labor force, you've got a smaller unemployment rate. So it speaks to just the deep and profound uncertainty that has been prevalent in the Canadian jobs market. This is where things stop being theoretical, and they start becoming painfully real. A year ago, these companies were signing contracts under a system that made sense. Prices were calculated, timelines were agreed on, and tariffs were predictable enough to factor into that deal. Many even agreed to absorb those tariffs because they were manageable. Data from Statistics Canada shows job vacancy rates have dropped to their lowest since 2019, meaning fewer job openings sent more competition. Fast forward to now, and those same contracts have turned into financial traps. The work has been done, the tools are built, and everything is ready to ship. But the moment they send those products out, they trigger tariffs so high that the entire job becomes a loss. One example makes it clear. A shipment that was expected to carry around $25,000 in tariffs is now facing closer to $130,000. That's not a small increase. That completely destroys the economics of the deal. So instead of shipping, companies are holding back. They're sitting on finished products because sending them out would cost more than they can recover. Canada and China agreed to reduce tariffs on select Canadian agricultural exports and introduce quotas on Chinese electric vehicles entering the Canadian market. We lost a bunch of part-time jobs but added full-time jobs. So there's like all these little mixes in there, and it speaks to just how mixed the story of the Canadian economy is right now and how it's done a very good job of adjusting to the trade war and the tariffs and all the uncertainty, much better than I think a lot of people had expected it to, but it's still this weight on the economy. You look at the manufacturing sector, lost another 28,000 jobs. At the same time, there's a very clear timeline hanging over all of this. Industry leaders are not speaking in vague terms. They're saying that they have three to six months before they're forced to make serious decisions. So this is not a long-term adjustment period. It's a short countdown. What makes this even more critical is the profile of these people running these companies. Many of them are in their 60s. They've spent decades building their businesses, and they're not in a position where they want to fight through years of uncertainty. Carney had also sharply criticized the United States and Western allies during his address at the World Economic Forum in Davos. That's why business valuations are dropping so quickly. Companies that were stable and profitable are now seen as high-risk or unprofitable, cutting their value significantly. Buyers are not interested in taking on that kind of uncertainty, which means selling is no longer a viable exit in many cases. The reality being expressed is simple. If this situation continues beyond six months, there may not be anything left to save. Carney came out of that meeting with China last week with a preliminary deal to lower tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles coming into Canada in return for lower tariffs on canola products for China. While all of this is unfolding, another shift is happening that could have even longer-lasting consequences. And it's not primarily moving to the United States. A significant portion is going to Mexico, where costs are lower and the business environment is more stable. From a company's perspective, that's a rational decision. But once that shift happens, it does not reverse easily. Supply chains aren't just flexible in that way. Once contracts are signed and production is established elsewhere, the work is highly unlikely to return. What's the immediate impact if we don't get a resolution to the tariffs on industry? And I don't even want to talk about regionally, I'm talking about Canadian industry. What's the immediate impact? How quickly are companies going to close? How many jobs are we going to lose? What's the fear factor on that front, sir? Inside committee discussions, the frustration from industry leaders is clear. Some have described themselves as being treated like sacrificial lambs, expected to absorb the impact of a trade conflict without any clear guidance. Their main request is not complicated. They want to know the plan. Is this a short-term disruption or a long-term shift? The answer to that question determines everything, from pricing strategies to staffing decisions to whether they continue operating at all. MP Lewis, you're absolutely right. When industry leaves, it doesn't come back. We've already seen that in the automotive industry. Once these plants close, they very rarely reopen. So the idea that you're going to be able to, you know, change the minds of these companies once they move, that's likely not going to happen because it's too expensive for us to move industry, especially what we do, which is very highly technical, specialized machines. Instead of clear timelines, they are hearing general talking points and broad strategies that don't address the immediate crisis. In response, some companies are taking matters into their own hands by hiring consultants to engage directly with U.S. counterparts. This reflects a deeper issue. They are being asked to hold the line in a trade conflict, but they have no clear sense of how long that line needs to be held. That uncertainty is not just a challenge. It is accelerating the collapse. What makes this situation even more frustrating is the idea that it can be fixed with subsidies. On paper, that sounds comforting. Governments step in, offer relief funds, create support programs, and it kind of feels like something is being done. But I took a look at what these companies are dealing with, and it doesn't solve the real problem at all. This isn't about companies being inefficient or uncompetitive. It's not that they need better machines or better strategies. The core issue is tariffs, and no amount of subsidy fixes a system where the cost structure itself is broken. I will say that I've taken it upon myself to call every one of my clients every month since the tariffs have started to make sure that we're staying in contact, not only what's being said on that side of the border, but to understand what's really being said behind closed doors. There's a strange loop happening here. Companies are paying massive tariffs, and then turning around to ask the same government for relief to survive those tariffs. It almost cancels itself out. On top of that, they're getting hit twice. They're forced to buy expensive U.S. steel at premium, and they're still being taxed on the final product. So they're not getting support. They're just getting pressure from both sides. At some point, it becomes clear that you can't subsidize your way out of a broken trade relationship. If the foundation is unstable, pouring money on top of it doesn't fix anything. Even if I'm shipping product to Mexico or if I'm shipping it to Canada, it will likely have a final destination of the United States. So we could easily say 90. Sales by volume, I'd probably say that it's probably 80% is U.S. The other 20% is Canadian. This isn't a simple setup. Manufacturing in North America is deeply integrated. A single product can cross the border multiple times before it's finished. Raw material moves. Then it gets processed. Then it gets assembled. Then refined again. And then finally shipped. Back and forth, back and forth. Every step adds value. But now, every step can also add a tariff. So instead of one manageable cost, you get hit again and again and again at different stages. That compounds quickly. A small tariff at each step turns into a massive burden by the time the product is complete. Once you disrupt that flow with tariffs, the whole structure starts to break down. And the frustrating part is that this reality doesn't seem fully understood at the leadership level. But it's being more increasingly difficult to do business in the uncertainty of the environment we're in. The uncertainty is as bad as the tariffs. Now the uncertainty has been backed up by tariffs that make it unfeasible to do business with Canada. That's why the impact doesn't stop at one industry. It spreads. You start with 58,000 jobs directly tied to this sector. But it certainly doesn't stay there. These companies supply other manufacturers who supply other industries. Suddenly you're looking at hundreds of thousands of jobs across the manufacturing sector at risk. And when you zoom out even further, there are about 2.1 million Canadians working in manufacturing overall. So this isn't a small corner of the economy. It's a major pillar. And that brings the question that keeps coming up again and again. Why isn't there more urgency where it actually matters? When most of your output is tied to the U.S. market, the relationship doesn't feel optional. It's essential. So the choice becomes very simple even if it's not easy. Act quickly and stabilize the situation or let it drag on and watch it unravel.