The Tariff Story Is Also a Talent Story

At midnight Monday, Canada imposed dollar-for-dollar counter-tariffs on $27.6 billion in goods imported from the United States. The immediate story is about trade, sovereignty, and Canada’s response to new American tariffs. But concealed within that story is another one.

A tariff war is disruptive on both sides of the border. Our American friends and neighbours must navigate what comes next, just as we do. Workers, families, businesses, and communities in both countries will feel the effects, included increased prices and reduced affordability.

Our economies have grown together over generations. Supply chains cross the border repeatedly. Canadian companies employ Americans. American companies employ Canadians. We build things together, sell to one another, learn from one another, and have long treated each other as trusted partners.

Tariffs disrupt those relationships. They change where companies invest, what they produce, whom they employ, and which skills they need. Some jobs may disappear. Others will change. New opportunities will emerge as businesses find new suppliers, develop new products, automate, diversify, and seek new markets.

The question for both countries is not only how we protect our industries. It is how we help people navigate what comes next.

• Can a displaced worker see where their capabilities might be needed elsewhere?

• Can a young person understand which industries are growing before choosing an expensive educational pathway?

• Can colleges, universities, apprenticeship systems, employers, and employment services respond quickly enough when demand changes?

• Can communities recognize transferable talent before people are forced to leave?

• Can employers find the people they need to adapt and grow?

This is what I call the Missing Bridge. Canada and the United States both have education systems, labour-market information, employers, training programs, employment services, and extraordinarily talented people. What we too often lack is dependable infrastructure connecting them—before disruption becomes unemployment, before skills become obsolete, and before human potential is lost.

Trade policy matters. Industrial policy matters. But neither can succeed without a human-capability strategy. Resilient countries must be able to connect talent with opportunity and aspiration with possibility—not eventually, but while their economies are changing.

Tariffs may protect some industries. Only people, equipped with career agency and supported by responsive career-development systems, can build what comes next. That is true on both sides of our shared border.

AI Acknowledgement: This post was conceived and written by me with creative and editorial assistance from my partner, ChatGPT.