In addition to a new year, January 1 brought new import tariffs to Canadians, which will affect thousands of imported products, which may lead to higher costs. This comes after 72 countries were removed from Canada’s “General Preferential Tariff” list.
While Canadians are likely to see increased prices, experts say consumers won’t even notice these additions. However, the government will, as it hopes to bring in an additional $300 million per year since cutting the tariff list down from its previous level of 176 countries.
Among those countries that lost preferential status are China, India and Brazil.
According to a spokesperson for Finance Minister Joe Oliver, cutting the list down was necessary to provide benefits to businesses, reports CTV. This was a move to create fairness for Canadian companies who were competing against products from other countries with privileged access to Canada’s market.
