Any Canadian response to U.S. tariffs will be regionally fair and equitable and not single out Alberta, Canada's main oil-producing province, Canada's Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said on Wednesday.

If the U.S. follows through on President Donald Trump's threat to impose massive tariffs on Canada as early as Saturday, Ottawa could hit back with retaliatory tariffs within hours or days, according to international trade lawyers.

Canada Liberal Leadership Candidate Chrystia Freeland says Canada should respond now to President Donald Trump's threat of tariffs. She says a list of possible tariffs Canada could impose on the US should be published.

The bank said 2025 growth would be 1.8%, down from the 2.1% it forecast in October. Growth in 2026 will also be 1.8%, down from 2.3%. Annual inflation in 2025 will average 2.3%, up from 2.2% in October, due to less excess supply, stronger oil prices and higher import prices resulting from the lower Canadian dollar.

The Bank of Canada is likely to cut interest rates by a quarter percentage point on Wednesday as officials lay out their analysis of how US tariffs might derail a soft landing for the Canadian economy.

The Bank of Canada on Wednesday trimmed its key policy rate by 25 basis points to 3%, cut growth forecasts and said it was concerned that U.S. tariffs could stoke persistently high inflation. U.S. President Donald Trump is promising to impose a 25% tariff on all imports from Canada on Saturday.

The oft-debated Canada lynx is now teed up as one of the first high-profile Endangered Species Act dilemmas to greet the Trump administration’s Interior Department.

The man U.S. President Donald Trump has chosen to oversee his tariff agenda says hitting Canada with 25 per cent across-the-board duties would be an emergency measure to achieve border security — and could be followed by more tariffs in the future.