From: brewnoser2@gmail.com   
      
   thestar.com - March 10, 2021   
      
   Documents reveal the Trudeau government warned Donald Trump not to cut off   
   Canada’s supply of critical COVID-19 masks — or else   
      
   OTTAWA—At the height of the global scramble for critical COVID-19 medical   
   supplies like N95 masks and ventilators, Justin Trudeau’s government   
   privately warned the Trump administration not to go down a protectionist road.   
   Or else.   
      
   New documents show the Liberals warned the U.S. that if it did, important   
   Canadian exports to the U.S. would also be on the line.   
      
   In April, Canada was caught off-guard when then-president Donald Trump invoked   
   the Defense Production Act to order a halt to American exports of 3 million   
   much-needed specialized medical masks made by 3M and other medical supplies   
   like ventilators to    
   Canada and Latin American markets.   
      
   Publicly, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada would not retaliate, that   
   his government was working to ensure the U.S. understood trade in essential   
   medical supplies goes both ways across the border.   
      
   However previously unreported emails among a massive pile of documents tabled   
   with the Commons show senior officials in the Prime Minister’s Office and   
   Canada’s ambassador in Washington, Kirsten Hillman, worked out a hardline   
   strategy for a key phone    
   call between chief of staff Katie Telford and “JK” — Trump’s   
   son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner.   
      
   It was Friday night, April 3, just hours after Trudeau had publicly reminded   
   everyone that nurses and health professionals co-operate across the border at   
   Windsor and Detroit.   
      
   But in private, the message delivered to Kushner was punchier, not just how   
   “highly integrated” the cross-border supply chains are. There was an   
   implicit warning.   
      
   Brian Clow, head of the Canada-U.S. policy team at the PMO, in an email to   
   Telford said she needed to make clear to Kushner: “Supplies go both ways.   
   Don’t get in the way of that.”   
      
   Hillman wrote the key message should be: “The U.S. is not immune to the   
   impact of a disruption — you rely on Canada for personnel, critical   
   components, materials, and finished products.”   
      
   Clow wrote Telford could pitch a “Canada-US medical supplies zone. As we   
   both build up our production capabilities, it is in our mutual interest to be   
   working together and sharing.”   
      
   Hillman spelled out “concrete examples” to put to Kushner to show it’s a   
   two-way street.   
      
   A senior Canadian official told the Star Wednesday the list “was used” in   
   the Telford-Kushner conversation and in other conversations that Canadian   
   officials had with counterparts in the U.S., and said while there was no   
   explicit threat, there was an    
   “implicit” warning in the phone call — that Canadians would expect   
   Ottawa to retaliate — and that it “definitely” had an impact in helping   
   to reverse the U.S. restrictions.   
      
   In an email, Hillman said 1,500 to 2,000 health-care workers live in Windsor   
   and commute to Detroit every day “and many others cross from Quebec to work   
   in upstate New York.”   
      
   The year before, she said, Canada had exported $6.6 billion in medical   
   supplies to the U.S. “including test kits and medical devices” that   
   Hillman said are “related to fighting COVID-19.” The pandemic began to   
   unfold only in 2020 and so it is not    
   clear which test kits she meant.   
      
   Then Hillman listed about a dozen Canadian exports to back the Trudeau   
   government’s argument that the U.S. relies on Canada for “critical   
   services, energy security and food security” including:   
      
   : Gloves, gowns, N95 respirators and face masks made by Quebec-based Medicom   
   that helped the U.S. to “offset the effects of an export ban China   
   instituted amid its fight with the new COVID-19.”   
      
   : A point-of-care COVID-19 test developed by Spartan Bioscience of Ottawa that   
   the U.S. had “expressed strong interest in purchasing.” (The Canadian   
   company later stumbled when its test kit didn’t function as expected and had   
   to be re-engineered    
   and reapproved by Health Canada.)   
      
   : 3M Canada makes filters in Perth for the company’s “high level   
   containment laboratory suits,” and its Brockville plant produced filters for   
   “N99 masks.” Hillman underscored that the filters and lab suits are   
   required by biocontainment    
   laboratories and pharmaceutical companies in the crisis, as well as the fact   
   that the N99 industrial masks “have applications for military gas masks.”   
      
   : Several Canadian manufacturers retooled to make thousands of ventilators   
   that “would be manufactured in Canada and then sent to the U.S. to support   
   their needs,” while several Ontario companies switched from producing   
   fabrics for use in aircraft    
   and trains to making “medical masks, gowns, tents shelters & mattress   
   covers” also key to the U.S. fight   
      
   Then there was medical research vital to efforts on both sides of the border,   
   Hillman said, including:   
      
   : Canadian vaccine development efforts (though none had been, nor have since   
   been, authorized).   
      
   : U.S.-based Gilead, which was conducting a clinical trial of the experimental   
   drug remdesivir as an antiviral treatment, had operations in Edmonton, Hillman   
   wrote. (Remdesivir has since been assessed as an effective treatment in the   
   fight against COVID-   
   19).   
      
   Critical Canadian supplies to the U.S. included:   
      
   : NB Power “is the electricity provider to northern Maine,” and there are   
   “at least three hospitals in northern Maine that would get their electricity   
   through NB Power,” Hillman said.   
      
   * Canada is the source of much-needed tin to the U.S. food canning sector, and   
   America is “in fact short of tin and needs Canada’s ArcelorMittal Dofasco   
   (AMD) to make up their shortfall.” Hillman said Kushner should be reminded   
   “Canada is the #1    
   export customer for U.S. agriculture and agri-food trade” and that   
   “reliable two-way supply and delivery will be key to ensuring food security   
   during the crisis.”   
      
   The 3M company was dismayed as well by the Trump administration’s move to   
   restrict exports, and lobbied the administration in tandem with Canada to be   
   allowed to fulfil its contract obligations.   
      
   A senior Canadian official told the Star Wednesday that the support of the 3M   
   company was crucial.   
      
   Amid the fight, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters, “It   
   is really a wild west when it comes to buying medical supplies right now. This   
   is a global pandemic and every country in the world is doing its best in a   
   truly fierce    
   competition to get medical equipment.”   
      
      
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