{"id":29243,"date":"2026-05-02T15:29:37","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T15:29:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/29243\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T15:29:37","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T15:29:37","slug":"ontario-premier-doug-ford-talks-tariffs-quotes-reagan-in-michigan-university-grad-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/29243\/","title":{"rendered":"Ontario Premier Doug Ford talks tariffs, quotes Reagan in Michigan university grad speech"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ontario Premier Doug Ford delivered a commencement speech at a U.S. university Saturday, touching on the close ties between Canadians and Americans, as well as the risk imposed by tariffs.<\/p>\n

Dressed in a black cap and gown, Ford addressed hundreds of graduating students at Saginaw Valley State University’s (SVSU) commencement ceremony in University Center, Michigan, located about 150 kilometres northwest of Detroit.<\/p>\n

Throughout his address, Ford touched on the strained relationship between Canada and the U.S., even going as far as quoting a former president.<\/p>\n

“Just listen to what the great U.S. President Ronald Reagan, had to say about countries that impose tariffs: ‘Markets shrink and collapse, businesses and industries shut down and millions of people lose their jobs.’,” said Ford.<\/p>\n

“That\u2019s what we risk in the U.S. and Canada if we don\u2019t get back to working together.”<\/p>\n

He also referenced working for his family printing business and rise in politics to highlight the importance of teamwork, relationships and loyalty.<\/p>\n

“These are the attributes that will make you succeed. Just as they made our two great countries succeed, working together for so many decades,” he said.<\/p>\n

His speech comes just months after theprovince spent $75 million\u00a0<\/a>on an anti-tariff U.S. ad campaign that resulted in President DonaldTrump halting trade talks<\/a>\u00a0with Canada.<\/p>\n

Trade talks resumed last month<\/a>\u00a0when Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc met with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

Ford also received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from the university Saturday.<\/p>\n

The university\u2019s president, George Grant Jr., called the premier a friend and thanked him for fostering strong relations in the Great Lakes region, on both sides of the border.<\/p>\n

Canada-U.S. relationship has been ‘shaken and undermined’: Ford<\/p>\n

CBC News reached out to SVSU on why Ford was chosen as the commencement speaker and for more information on the honorary doctorate.<\/p>\n

Ford himself addressed the question many may be wondering about “why a Canadian politician is [in Michigan] today delivering [U.S. students their] commencement address.”<\/p>\n

“Like many Canadians, I\u2019ve spent years living and working in the United States,” he said, adding he spent 20 years establishing his family’s printing business in Chicago.<\/p>\n

Ford went on to credit his brother Rob for his start in politics and for his cellphone policy.<\/p>\n

He said Rob would answer calls day and night from constituents as councillor and mayor. That openness and easy access has also helped garner him success in politics, said Ford.<\/p>\n

\"Premier<\/p>\n

(Saginaw Valley State University)<\/p>\n

Ontario recently passed an omnibus budget bill <\/a>that included a retroactive FOI law that would shield Ford and cabinet members \u2014 along with their offices \u2014 from public access to documents, with Ford admitting that part of the rationale is to kill a request from Global News to obtain his cellphone records.<\/p>\n

Ford wrapped up his address by speaking on the “shaken and undermined” relationship between the two bordering countries over the past year and a half.<\/p>\n

“Protectionism has never worked in the history of the world and it won\u2019t work now,” he said.<\/p>\n

He urged graduates to go out into the world building their lives on the principles of teamwork, good relationships and loyalty. Those values also helped the U.S. and Canada forge a strong bond over many decades, said Ford.<\/p>\n

“Our economies are too closely linked,” he said. “We can\u2019t unscramble that egg. We can only make the omelet larger.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ontario Premier Doug Ford delivered a commencement speech at a U.S. university Saturday, touching on the close ties…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17,13622,13621,4079,9195,13620],"class_list":{"0":"post-29243","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-canada","9":"tag-commencement-ceremony","10":"tag-commencement-speech","11":"tag-doug-ford","12":"tag-president-ronald-reagan","13":"tag-saginaw-valley-state-university"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}