Toronto Mayor John Tory is pictured during a media event outside Union Station in Toronto on July 3, 2018.Tijana Martin/The Canadian Press
Toronto Mayor John Tory is launching a pro-free-trade offensive, writing letters to 26 U.S. mayors as precarious NAFTA talks continue in the face of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum and threats of a broader trade war.
Mr. Tory pledged to wage the letter-writing campaign in a speech last month, just after the divisive Group of Seven summit in Charlevoix, Que., when Mr. Trump called Justin Trudeau “weak” and “dishonest” on Twitter as the dispute over the President’s tariffs intensified.
Toronto’s mayor is also taking his pro-trade message to a reception on Thursday night being held by the U.S. Consul-General in Toronto at the Royal Ontario Museum, a day after the U.S. Independence Day holiday. Mr. Tory says he hopes he can encourage any business leaders and U.S. expats in attendance to help make the case for the benefits of trade with Canada back home.
While Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson announced recently that he would skip a similar event hosted by the U.S. ambassador in the capital because of the President’s “puerile attitude,” Mr. Tory says he believes he can make more of an impact by attending.
“We thought it was better to attend and try to politely articulate these views,” Mr. Tory said, adding that he would stress both that a “trade war” was a bad outcome and “how diminishing and how inappropriate the quotes about our Prime Minister and about our country were.”
Mr. Tory’s letters, dated June 28, are being sent to mayors of many major U.S. cities, including New York’s Bill de Blasio and Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel, but also leaders in smaller centres such as Columbus, Ohio, and Louisville, Ky. Mr. Tory said the letters were being sent to mayors he has met and to those in cities identified by the city’s economic development office as having significant trade with Toronto.
In the letters, Mr. Tory argues Canada and the United States have both benefited from the North American free-trade agreement: “No two nations depend on each other for economic prosperity as much as Canada and the United States and this relationship is a model for the world.”
He points out specific businesses based in each city that have significant operations or trade with Toronto, and urges the mayors to express “vocal support” for a “renewed” NAFTA to “citizens, businesses and elected officials at your State Legislature and in Congress.”
Mr. Tory says he hopes his efforts will make a difference in Washington: “I hope that all these mayors … will take the opportunity to tell officials, people in Congress, senators, governors, whoever they can talk to, that this is not the best way to deal with your friends and it’s not the best way to resolve issues.”
Mr. Tory said he also plans to hold a roundtable for U.S. business leaders in Toronto in the hopes of enlisting their support for the cause.
Jeff Gray