Ian Grossart checks on cattle at his farm just south of Brandon, Man., on April 3.Shannon VanRaes/The Globe and Mail
Standing outside his home on the eastern edge of Brandon Hills in Manitoba, Ian Grossart is trying not to panic: He has no idea what comes next for the grain and cattle farm he runs with Linda, his wife, and their son Zach.
Fears of a global trade war have loomed over the family’s dinner-table conversations for months. “You’re supposed to plan years in advance for crops and contracts,” said Mr. Grossart, whose Howpark Farms sits on 2,000 acres of land near thick forest that carpets the rolling hills. “But how do you plan for anything these days?”
Known as “The Wheat City,” Brandon is Manitoba’s second-largest municipality, where almost every other person is a farmer or connected to one. Many of the more than 350 companies in the city of just over 50,000 people are part of the agricultural sector. The ever-evolving tariffs from the U.S. and China are all anyone seems to talk about. And while many have not been directly affected by levies yet, the uncertainty is already causing frustrations and losses for all of them.
“The problem is that it’s all very cyclical,” explains Matt Berg, president of Brandon-based Livingstone Outdoor, the largest landscaping firm in the province. “Even if you’re not impacted by a tariff today, you still have people who need to buy your products that are already impacted. And they’re not spending their money right now.”
Carney hits back at U.S. with Canadian tariffs on autos
Last month, in response to Canada’s tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, steel and aluminum, China imposed retaliatory tariffs on Canadian agricultural products: A 100-per-cent levy on canola oil, meal and peas, along with 25-per-cent tariffs on pork and seafood from Canada.
This week, U.S. President Donald Trump spared Canada and Mexico from the 10-per-cent baseline tariff he imposed on other trading partners. But Canada still faces 25-per-cent tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos, while further tariffs on other sectors remain possible.
Brandon's mayor Jeff Fawcett stands in city hall on April 3. Mr. Fawcett says it is virtually impossible to cut off trade with the U.S., everyone will need to adjust to a new trading relationship between Canada and the U.S.Shannon VanRaes/The Globe and Mail
Mr. Berg said that leaves businesses in Brandon in a precarious position. His company is not exactly an agricultural business, but almost every client is. So when they feel uncertainty, they’re less likely to spend money.
Brandon Mayor Jeff Fawcett says it feels like the entire city is in “a state of limbo.”
He said tariffs need to be dealt with at a federal level. But in the middle of an election campaign, communication with Ottawa is that much harder.
Many of the more than 350 companies in Brandon are involved in the agricultural sector and the city is home to the Brandon Research and Development Centre, a key research facility for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.Shannon VanRaes/The Globe and Mail
And while it’s virtually impossible to cut off trade with the United States, Mr. Fawcett said everyone needs to adjust to a different kind of trade relationship.
“In the business community here, there’s some that tell me a little shaking of the tree is also maybe necessary. Maybe it will get us thinking a little bit more about how we can do things a bit more sustainably here,” he said.
“Everybody’s trying to figure it out and stay calm.”
With farms peppered throughout the region, the city is home to the Brandon Research and Development Centre, a key research facility for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Sitting about 200 kilometres west of Winnipeg, the city is also known for AgDays – Canada’s largest indoor agricultural trade show, which draws people from across North America every January.
“For a small city like ours, we don’t have a lot of people here. But the people we do have are a big chunk of what provides the whole country with the food it eats,” Mr. Fawcett said.
On Wednesday, ahead of Mr. Trump’s tariff announcement, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew told reporters in Brandon that Mr. Trump’s unpredictability leaves governments across the country with no choice but to keep creating contingency plans.
He was in the city to announce $10-million in new funding for Manitoba’s agriculture sector to withstand any effects of tariffs, topping up $140-million already set aside in last month’s provincial budget for producers and farmers. For other affected sectors, the province has said it is ready to spend at least $500-million should the trade war escalate.
“A lot of people have been feeling that there’s uncertainty. A lot of people have been feeling that the future has a lot of risk because of Donald Trump,” he said.
Mr. Grossart said his farm has built years-long export relationships with the U.S.Shannon VanRaes/The Globe and Mail
On Thursday in Winnipeg, after meeting virtually with Prime Minister Mark Carney and his fellow first ministers, Mr. Kinew told reporters he tuned in closely to watch Mr. Trump’s tariff announcement later on Wednesday.
“Like a lot of people around the world, I was trying to zoom in and read the giant Trump prop,” he said, adding that he wanted to see where Canada was on the tariff chart. “That just speaks to the confusion and the uncertainty that everyone’s facing right now.”
At Mr. Grossart’s farm, which has been in his family for five generations since his son’s great-great grandfather settled on the land after emigrating from Scotland in 1879, the threat of tariffs represent another layer to the challenges he said he deals with every year.
He is used to the unexpected, he said, but he does worry about the future. His biggest concern, currently, is that nobody is willing to sign contracts with specific prices for grain products because they don’t know where the tariffs will end up by fall season.
On top of that, Mr. Grossart said his family has built years-long export relationships with the U.S. because the Prairies “don’t have as many people to eat what we produce, but the States always do.” And even if he diversified his business to other markets, farming parts and equipment almost all come from the U.S.
“I’m trying to keep a cool head over all of this,” he said Thursday. “We have people right now facing far bigger problems than I am.”