The studies cover different places, years and reforms. Neither gives the current total cost of Canadian protection. Worker losses and gains need their own count.
What Canada’s own history shows
A StatsCan review reports an estimated 13.8% rise in factory output per unit of labour from Canada–US free trade over 1988 to 1996. The gain includes changes on both sides of the border. Some weaker plants shrank or closed.
That number is for factory work in a past period. It is not a yearly gain. It is not a gain in all of Canada’s GDP. We will not paste it onto today’s tariff bill.
Look at buyers and workers too
A protected steel maker has workers. So do firms that build with steel. A policy that helps one firm can raise costs for many others. Count both sides, plus households, taxes and harm to nature.
Losing a job can be a deep loss for a worker and a town. We want priced help with new work and skills. We do not want a lasting tax on everyone else to keep each firm in place.
How we will test each industry
Compare prices, quality, output per hour and public aid with like firms abroad. Check exchange rates, energy costs, plant size and what each plant makes. A tariff alone does not prove a firm does poor work.
Start with cars, steel, food and home parts. Name the rule, who gains and who pays. Publish the data and the best case against our view. A national cost estimate comes after that work, not before it.
Where we differ with Build Canada
Build Canada’s steel memo asks for more tariffs. We oppose that ask. We want its case about supply risk tested against the cost to buyers and other jobs. Citing a memo does not mean we agree with it.