A former Liberal cabinet minister and leader of a major Canadian business group says Donald Trump's impending presidency poses an economic threat to Canada that's on par with the 9-11 attacks on the United States.
John Manley, the president of the Business Council of Canada, says the Liberal government needs to respond to Trump's anti-trade rhetoric in order to keep goods and people flowing across the busiest border in the world.
Earlier this week, Trump released a YouTube video vowing to withdraw the U.S. from the 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership.
He was silent on the future of the North American Free Trade Agreement, but has repeatedly called it a disaster that either needs to be scrapped or renegotiated.
Manley, a Liberal cabinet minister during 9-11, says the TPP is now dead and can't be resurrected, but he says he has urged the government to move quickly to preserve Canada's trading relationship with the U.S. under NAFTA.
Manley says lessons can be learned from the Smart Border agreement, which he helped broker with then-U.S. homeland security secretary Tom Ridge after 9-11 to improve security without impeding the flow of $2 billion a day in two-way trade.