Globe Climate: Tariffs, blueberries and groundhogs

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Good afternoon, and welcome to Globe Climate, a newsletter about climate change, environment and resources in Canada.

Canada’s famous rodents are split over spring’s arrival on Groundhog Day.

In Ontario, Wiarton Willie did not see his shadow on Sunday morning. The tradition holds that if a groundhog doesn’t see its shadow on Feb. 2 then springlike weather isn’t too far away.

But both Nova Scotia’s Shubenacadie Sam and Quebec’s Fred la marmotte saw their shadows, predicting a long winter ahead.

Looks like it’s just another example of uncertainty that lies ahead for Canadians. More on that below.

Now, let’s catch you up on other news.

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Noteworthy reporting this week:

1. Ostriches: A Federal Court justice has given a reprieve to 400 ostriches on a secluded B.C. ranch that were ordered killed over fears of spreading the avian flu
2. Politics: Carney promised to scrap carbon fuel charge if he becomes prime minister
3. Policy: Ottawa unveils changes to disaster management funding
4. Agriculture: One of the U.S.’s largest cable providers is buying up Canada’s greenhouses
5. Rats!: Climate change is driving up rat populations in Toronto and beyond, study finds
6. History: A chance discovery reveals one of PEI’s earliest inhabitants, and even deeper Mi’kmaq roots on the island
7. From The Narwhal: Federal government advised Ontario to reroute Highway 413: documents

A deeper dive

Tariffs could hit Canada in unexpected ways

This week’s deeper dive zooms in on The Globe’s weekend reporting around trade, and how tariffs may affect Canadian agriculture, farmers and food.

We’ve seen them before. Tariffs are usually placed on categories of products, such as dairy or aluminum, to protect a domestic industry. (Psst. Before getting into the weeds, here’s a primer on tariffs.)

Starting tomorrow, the U.S. has said it will impose 25-per-cent tariffs on Canadian goods and 10-per-cent levies on Canadian energy. In response, Canada plans to impose 25-per-cent tariffs on $30-billion worth of American imports, and will produce a full list of products to be affected.

In 2018, the first time that Donald Trump was U.S. President, he slapped tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum. At the time, as the largest supplier of steel and aluminum to the United States, Canada retaliated. Resources are kind of our thing, as you’ve heard in this newsletter many times before.

Now tariffs are back, in a bigger way.

This time, the food supply chain is one of the largest supply networks at risk, said Joy Nott, partner for trade and customs at consultancy KPMG Canada.

Already, some Canadian food companies are planning to expand production to U.S., despite the abundance of raw commodities here in the north (yes, including maple syrup).

In terms of exports, approximately $4-billion of fruits and vegetables are sent south of the border annually. Americans will immediately see higher prices and less variety, said Massimo Bergamini, the executive director of the Fruit and Vegetable Growers of Canada, pointing to Ontario’s greenhouse sector, a major supplier of year-round vegetables to cities across the eastern seaboard.

One example that shows how complicated it can get is the simple blueberry from British Columbia, reports Erica Alini.

Blueberry growers are in a stressful position while they await new bushes. About a third of the province’s blueberry acreage is in need of replanting owing to issues with diseases, pests and aging, said Paul Pryce, executive director of the BC Blueberry Council.

The problem, he says, is that many nurseries are in Oregon.

Many B.C. growers are expecting shipments of the younger bushes in the spring. Canadian countertariffs would significantly drive up the cost of those U.S. plants, Pryce said. Even government support to help growers with the costs of replanting likely wouldn’t be enough to help them absorb the financial shock, he added.

Pryce also said that a similar issue faces growers who import seeds from the U.S. (Think also of the needed fertilizers, pest-control products, farming and nursery equipment.)

See what I was saying about uncertainty ahead? If you weren’t already trying to do so, now is a good time to buy local.

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What else you missed

• Two federal cabinet ministers sued over delay in protecting B.C.’s orcas
• Vancouver expected to see 10 to 20 centimetres of snow as Arctic air invades region
• Amazon rainforest advocates fear Trump administration unwilling to help after its approach in Colombia and Panama
• Study says climate change made conditions that fed California wildfires more likely, more intense
• $5-million climate program to help B.C.’s tree fruit growers in extreme weather
• U.S. Senate confirms Doug Burgum as Interior Secretary after Trump tasked him to boost drilling
• Atomic scientists adjust ‘Doomsday Clock’ closer than ever to midnight, citing global tensions, climate change

Opinion and analysis

The Editorial Board: A manifesto for Canadian voters in 2025 (and beyond)

Green Investing

Climate alliance loses last big Canadian bank as RBC withdraws

Royal Bank of Canada has withdrawn from a global alliance of financial institutions formed to direct capital to meeting climate targets, making it the last of the country’s big banks to quit the group.

With the move, RBC joins numerous Canadian and U.S. banks that have bailed on the Net-Zero Banking Alliance in the past two months, fearing political backlash, legal action and loss of business in the United States after President Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

The Climate Exchange

We’ve launched the next chapter of The Climate Exchange, an interactive, digital hub where The Globe answers your most pressing questions about climate change. More than 300 questions were submitted as of September. The first batch of answers tackles 30 of them. They can be found with the help of a search tool developed by The Globe that makes use of artificial intelligence to match readers’ questions with the closest answer drafted. We plan to answer a total of 75 questions.

Photo of the week

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Guides and Explainers

• Want to learn to invest sustainably? We have a class for that: Green Investing 101 newsletter course for the climate-conscious investor. Not sure you need help? Take our quiz to challenge your knowledge.
• We’ve rounded up our reporters’ content to help you learn about what a carbon tax is, what happened at COP29 and just generally how Canada will change because of climate change.
• We have ways to make your travelling more sustainable and if you like to read, here are books to help the environmentalist in you grow, as well as a downloadable e-book of Micro Skills - Little Steps to Big Change.

Catch up on Globe Climate

• Canadian environmental policy, meet Trump
• Does 2 Billion Trees ring a bell?
• The potato farm of the future
• On thinning ice

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