Which industry in each province is most threatened by tariffs?

Before U.S. President Donald Trump terminated trade negotiations with Canada late Thursday night, premiers were clashing over which tariff-beleaguered industries should be prioritized.

With Ontario’s auto industry pitted against the canola industry of the prairies, and B.C. raising concerns that the lumber industry is not getting the attention it deserves, Team Canada was looking increasingly splintered.

Trump's latest actions have resulted in a more united front across provincial borders. But as tariffs remain, so do those underlying tensions.

Here’s a breakdown of the industries most under threat by tariffs in each province, and what premiers are saying as Canada tries to negotiate new trade relationships.

B.C. Premier David Eby made headlines earlier this month when he suggested the federal government is not prioritizing the lumber industry.

“Steelworkers in Ontario, when their jobs are in trouble … it's treated as a national emergency, and rightly so,” Eby said at an Oct. 14 news conference.

“What we’re asking for today is … that same sense of emergency is shared for the forest sector in this country.” 

Eby made those comments after the Trump administration increased timber and lumber tariffs by 10 percentage points on top of the existing 35 per cent tariff.

Although B.C.’s largest export to the United States is energy and raw minerals, wood products are a “very close second,” according to Trevor Tombe, an economics professor at the University of Calgary.

The forestry industry supports over 100,000 jobs in B.C., according to the B.C. Lumber Trade Council.

Oil and gas is by far Alberta’s largest industry, with petroleum accounting for 81 per cent of Albertan exports to the U.S. last year. 

So far, the industry has escaped many of the harshest direct tariffs from the U.S., Tombe said, but it's still impacted by changes in American trade policy. 

“U.S. trade policy to other countries around the world has been quite considerable, and it has resulted in slower rates of economic growth,” he said. “What that does is lower demand for energy, and that lowers oil prices.”

Non-renewable resource revenue was down $1.4 billion from what had been projected in the Alberta budget, mainly thanks to lower crude oil prices coupled with a stronger Canadian dollar, according to a provincial fiscal update from the first quarter of 2025.