Which Canadian Cities Are Most Exposed to Trump’s Tariffs?

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Canadian Real Estate Investor, where host Daniel Foch and Nick Hill navigate the market and provide the tools and insights to build your real estate portfolio. Can Canada's real estate market survive Trump's tariffs? The answer to this question is really complicated. Some Canadian cities could be very vulnerable to tariffs while others might be totally fine.

[00:00:29] And today we're going to dive into this hot button issue that has millions of Canadians concerned, Trump's proposed tariffs and which Canadian cities are most vulnerable and which ones might just be fine. I feel like quite a few of these on the list here surprised me, especially the first and the last cities. So stick around for that.

[00:00:52] And spoiler alert, you've probably had to look up the city to see which province if it's, that it's in, if you are a Tony Toronto like myself. So this comes from a report from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce entitled, Which Canadian Cities Are Most Exposed to Trump's Tariffs? The Canadian Chamber's Business Data Lab crunches these numbers to assess the potential tariff impacts using localized trade data.

[00:01:21] And a lot of scary headlines came from this report, Nick, such as Calgary among Canadian cities that could be most impacted by US tariffs. Five of the top 10 cities impacted by Trump's new tariffs are in Ontario, this new report finds. And Windsor could be third hardest hit city by tariffs, Canadian Chamber of Commerce warns. Well, we all know that headlines, that you just, all you have to do is read the headline and take it from there, right?

[00:01:51] Don't read anything else. So these are quite scary in that case. But look, we know that real estate is a local phenomenon, right? Very highly localized. We're going to discuss the impacts on 41 cities across the country. Yes, you heard that 41 cities. So if you are listening anywhere across Canada, you may hear your city. And if you're questioning whether or not policy can have a big impact on local housing markets,

[00:02:17] well, look no further than Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States, where Washington, D.C.'s real estate markets experienced an unprecedented surge in listings with over 14,825 homes hitting the market due to the Department of Government Efficiency, otherwise known as DOGE, initiating massive federal layoffs. This isn't just a market shift, Dan. It's like an exodus, okay?

[00:02:44] As government employees look to relocate amid these major job uncertainties, there's been a 20% drop in medium sale price in the last three months alone. And there are about 8,000 active listings in D.C., and under 4,000 of them have been listed in the last 30 days. So stuff is happening, and it is happening quickly. And speaking of policy, why don't we do a quick refresher on what's been happening with tariffs, and then we'll dive into these articles and the reports.

[00:03:14] So here's the chronology of Donald Trump's tariffs on Canada over the last few months. So January 29th, the U.S. announced a two-stage tariff plan against Canada and Mexico, citing fentanyl and immigration concerns. On the 31st, Trump states tariffs proceed regardless of Canada's response. On February 1st, executive orders were signed 25% tariffs on Canadian imports, 10% on energy.

[00:03:41] On February 2nd, Trudeau announced retaliatory tariffs of 25% on $155 billion worth of U.S. goods. February 3rd, Trump offers a 30-day pause pending increased border securities measures. And February 4th, tariffs officially set but delayed 30 days to assess Canadian compliance. And since then, we've added tariffs on steel and aluminum imports in the U.S., set to come into effect on March 12th, 2025. Here are the specifics.

[00:04:08] A 25% tariff will be applied to all steel imports from all countries, including Canada and Mexico, without exceptions or exemptions. This tariff is a part of a strategy to address the national security concerns and to support the domestic steel industry. And on aluminum, similarly, a 25% tariff up from the previous 10% for some countries. This increase aims to protect the American aluminum industry from what is perceived as unfair protection globally.

[00:04:36] And worth noting that both of the two places that the U.S. gets the vast majority of their steel and aluminum is Canada. And also, most notably, Trump also mentioned that auto tariffs would be coming around April 2nd. So tariffs on cars coming from Canada to the U.S. Man, like going back, just listening to you read that, that kind of sequence of events from January 29th to February 4th. What a week, holy.

[00:05:05] Okay, so let's jump to this article here from the Toronto Star. Five of the top 10 cities impacted by Trump's new tariffs are in Ontario. Five Ontario cities rank among the top 10 most vulnerable, with Windsor being the most exposed. That's a manufacturing hub in the province of Jordan and a large automaker, auto parts, right? I mean, right across from Detroit Rock City, which was once an absolute thriving metropolis for the auto industry.

[00:05:34] Unfortunately, that's not the case anymore. And this would definitely have a negative impact on Windsor. The impact is then concentrated in other manufacturing heavy regions such as Kitchener, Cambridge, Waterloo, Brantford, Guelph, Hamilton. And the Canadian Chamber of Commerce report highlights the significant economic risk to all these industrial, like the kind of Southern Ontario industrial corridor.

[00:06:00] Here's a quick quote from the president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. The impact on Ontario's manufacturing sector could be severe with five of our cities ranking among North America's most vulnerable to these tariffs. Windsor, as our automotive manufacturing hub, stands to face the greatest challenges. So, not great overall. Yeah, I mean, it all makes sense based on what you just mentioned. And this report, it's worth noting, this report was assuming the first round of tariffs.

[00:06:29] So, 25% on everything except energy and then 10% on energy. But now, again, we've seen that scaled back and we're just looking at steel and aluminum and potentially auto and auto parts. But still similar in my opinion, especially looking at Hamilton with the most recent round of steel tariffs, obviously. Maybe worth looking at the major steel producing cities in Canada and their employment numbers.

[00:06:51] So, Hamilton, Ontario, known as Steel City, home to Arcelor, or DeFasco, Stelco. So, DeFasco is 5,000 employees. Stelco is 2,200 employees, making it Canada's largest steel manufacturing hub with over 7,200 direct steel jobs. Sault Ste. Marie, Algoma Steel, 2,800 workers. Regina, 1,200 employees specializing in steel pipe production.

[00:07:18] And Contreco, Quebec, site of another acelerator or metal long products Canada's operation employing 1,700 workers. So, Hamilton, obviously, by far the most significant steel producing city in Canada and the highest concentration of steel industry jobs, which would explain the high degree of vulnerability to the proposed steel tariffs now.

[00:07:41] And if we want to quickly go through what those markets look like from a real estate perspective, Hamilton's average house price, about 790,000 average monthly rent, about $1,800. Sault Ste. Marie, $330,000 house price, $1,200 average monthly rent. And this is one bedroom rent. Regina, Saskatchewan, very similar to Sault Ste. Marie price and rent wise. And in Quebec, you've got $425,000 average house price and $1,100 monthly rent.

[00:08:11] So, I would say Hamilton, again, just from a real estate side, obviously appears to have maybe the most exposure from at least a house price correction, if not a rent correction, should this have as pronounced of an impact on steel industry jobs as people are predicting. Dan, did I do something to anger you?

[00:08:30] Because you've given me this whole section with Quebec and we all know that my pronunciation leaves Quebec was wanting to say the very least. So, I'm going to really try to do, Dan kind of set me up for failure here, but I'm going to try to do my best getting through this next section here. Because Quebec may be more exposed from the aluminum side of things. And here's some of the major aluminum producing regions. Saguenay, Quebec, the largest aluminum producing re- Thank you.

[00:09:00] Thank you. That's one down a couple to go. The largest aluminum producing region in Canada. It's responsible for one third of Canada's total aluminum production and employs 4,300 workers directly in that aluminum production. And then we have Kitimat, BC, home to Rio Tintos Aluminum Smelter, one of the largest aluminum manufacturing facilities in North America, over 1,100 workers.

[00:09:25] B. Cancourt, Quebec, a location of major Alcoa aluminum smelter with over 1,300 employees. And Bay Comont, Quebec, a site of another significant aluminum production facility with almost 1,000 workers. So, several thousand workers like approaching the 10,000 mark across the country here. Now, Quebec does dominate aluminum production here in Canada with multiple facilities across the province.

[00:09:55] The Saguenay region is particularly known as Canada's Aluminum Valley due to its concentration of smelters and related industries, supporting over 30,000 direct and indirect jobs in the aluminum sector. I guess you don't want to be exposed to aluminum valley ahead of aluminum tariffs, per se. No, no. It's definitely unignorable. I guess Steel City is kind of the same thing.

[00:10:22] It's like you can't argue that Hamilton's not exposed to steel. No, and I kind of like how we've got these little monikers, right? Steel City, Aluminum Valley. I like to think of things like that. Anyways, Dan, just as you went through house prices and rents, I'm going to do the same for these regions in Aluminum Valley and other major aluminum manufacturing and refining areas across the country. First is Saguenay, Quebec, where the average house price is about $315,000.

[00:10:49] The average monthly rent for a one bedroom, get this, $750. Wow. Kitimat, BC, average home price $389,000. Average monthly rent for a one bedroom $1,600. Bicancourt, Quebec, average house price $298,000. Average monthly rent, $800. And Bicancourt, Quebec, average house price of $225,000. Average monthly rent, $700.

[00:11:18] Before you comment on anything, how were the pronunciations there? Pretty good, no, yeah. Not horrible this time, right? Yeah, you've been practicing, I can tell. So, I mean, like, okay, before we move on, what are we thinking? Is this going to raise housing prices, lower rent prices? Like, because these ones, I mean, these are all fairly affordable.

[00:11:40] Even the ones that you went through, Dan Susi, Marie, Regina, you know, Hamilton is the outlier there with the only really expensive, not only house price, but monthly rent. Yeah, and that to me is like really the X factor is a lot of these cities don't necessarily have massively expensive house prices or rents that could fall in a huge way. But auto tariffs, from my perspective, are very much an Ontario story and very much an expensive city story. Interesting.

[00:12:10] So, let's also look at ahead of this April 2nd promise from Trump. And we know, you know, these things seem to change. So, take it all with a grain of salt, but it gives us a lot to talk about, of course. Yeah, this episode might be obsolete by the time you hear it, but hey. Yeah. So, you've got Honda in Alliston, Ontario, which is 4,200 workers. That produces the, I think you'll just enjoy this list simply because you get to learn which cars are made in Canada. So, the Honda CRV and the Honda Civic, 4,200 workers.

[00:12:38] The Toyota, Cambridge and Woodstock plants manufacture the RAV4, Lexus RX and the Lexus NX employing over 8,500 workers across both facilities. Yeah. General Motors, Ottawa and Ingersoll, Ontario. Sorry, Oshawa and Ingersoll, Ontario. In Ottawa, they just manufacture policies. They produce the Chevy Silverado, GMC Sierra and the Bright Drop electric delivery vans.

[00:13:03] This one's interesting because I really can't see GM being stoked to have two of their best selling vehicles in the US just go up 25% in price overnight. And likely no. And the automakers have really already been up in arms about this with like Ford and all of the automaker CEOs basically saying this is going to increase the prices of cars and it'll basically rip a hole in the side of the auto industry.

[00:13:31] So, be prepared for that if this does take place. Sweet. 3,600 workers between those two GM locations. You've got Stellantis, Windsor and Brampton, Ontario. Makes the Chrysler Pacifica, Grand Caravan and various Dodge muscle cars. So, if you're a crypto bro on Instagram, your Hellcat could be going up. The desperately needs a Camaro. 5,800 jobs there across both facilities.

[00:13:58] And then Ford in Oakville, Ontario, which is currently transitioning to electric vehicle production facility, employs approximately 3,400 workers. Most of these facilities are concentrated in Ontario's manufacturing corridor with over 25,000 direct automotive manufacturing jobs explaining the private provinces high vulnerability to auto tariffs. Yeah. I mean, I was just trying to do some quick math there. I was like, this has got to be at least 20 plus thousand people directly affected.

[00:14:26] But then we start thinking of the, you know, we talked about the trickle up, trickle down effect of some of this stuff, right? I mean, 25,000 people directly affected. Is that a hundred thousand people that are, you know, going to experience some kind of trickle up, trickle down effect, right? Like the sandwich shop close by that, you know, all those auto workers go and get their lunches at, you know, the gas stations close by, the gyms close by. Like, you know what I mean? All the things that support that industry, you know, are going to be affected.

[00:14:55] So, you start looking at those numbers. That's what a recession looks like, right? It becomes quite scary. Right. I mean, people like if your consumer expenditure shrinks and the businesses that they were previously spending money at suffer. Yeah. Okay. So, we're back mostly, these are all in Ontario here, right? The most expensive province. So, these aren't, we're not going to be reading the nice affordable home prices and rents that we have. So, hit me with, let's start off in Alliston here, Dan. Hit me with the average house price and one bedroom rent in Alliston. Yeah.

[00:15:25] So, you've got Alliston and Woodstock pretty comparable at $650,000 house prices and rents between $1,700 and $1,800 for a one bedroom. You get to your more expensive cities like your Cambridge and Oshawa where your prices are, you know, closer to $800,000 and your rents are closer to $2,000, about $1950 for a one bedroom. You know, the cheaper ones of the bunch, Windsor and Ingersoll prices in the $500,000, mid to high $500,000 and rents kind of $1,600 to $1,700.

[00:15:52] And then you go to the GTA and you get, let's call it your Uber expensive ones, your Brampton million dollar house and $2,100 a month rent and Oakville $1.3 million house and $2,200 a month for rent. So, not a nice story. Man, Ontario markets are just full of bad news. Can we try to get some good news maybe and discuss which cities have the lowest exposure to tariffs here?

[00:16:22] Because I tell you right now, Brampton, Oakville, not looking so good. Yeah, we can. It's on the list of things to do. Okay, good. I'm not trying to speed up here. I'm just saying this is not good. Yeah. So, let's just go all the way to the bottom of the list. The city that is least exposed to tariffs. I think you'll be surprised if you're listening to this because I found it quite surprising, honestly, and happy because I do have some real estate exposure to this market. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[00:16:48] Because the report says, that was my horrible drum roll. If we had a real producer, we could put drum roll here, but we don't. So, you're going to have to deal with me. Suddenly, Sudbury would be the most resilient city in Canada in the face of U.S. tariffs. Wow. That is a big W for Sudbury. Sudbury ranks as Canada's most resilient city because of its diversified mineral export market. The most vulnerable cities due to their heavy reliance on things like oil or gas or automotive.

[00:17:18] Now, it's not all good news. Even resilient cities like Sudbury would still face significant economic impacts with about $460 million in U.S. exports at stake. Now, relative to other industries, 50% is quite diverse, said Andrew DiCapoa, principal economist at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

[00:17:38] He said that to explain how Sudbury's divided exports markets provide a little bit of a hedge and kind of better protection against the threat of these looming U.S. tariffs. And to really understand this diversification, you could almost look at the job base like we did for a market like Hamilton where they had a ton of steel jobs.

[00:18:00] If you go to Sudbury, you've got 4,000 employees from Valet, the mining company, and that's with their Sudbury operations, which makes them the city's largest private sector employee. But then right after that, you've got 3,800 employees for Sudbury's primary health care facility, Health Sciences North. And then you've got another mining company, Glencore, about 1,300. The city is about 2,000. Laurentian University is 1,000.

[00:18:28] And the CRA deserves an honorable mention here with 2,500 employees at the CRA's Northern Ontario Tax Services office in Sudbury. And I don't think that that's one of the offices that's been like added a bunch of jobs on those like short-term contracts. So I don't even know if, you know, if we see a switch in government, some of those not being renewed would be a vulnerability.

[00:18:49] So even though mining remains Sudbury's largest employer, the diversification into a variety of different sectors and government services helps explain kind of the city's resilience against the tariffs. So now we want to look at who are the most vulnerable to tariffs. So I mentioned in one of the news headlines that Calgary is number two among Canadian cities most vulnerable to tariffs. But there's no overnight solution according to the article.

[00:19:19] It says there's a lot of trade with energy, oil, and gas, and other related products that are tied up in there. And at current, there's not many alternative options outside of the U.S. buyer. So why is Calgary the second most impacted city in Canada? Well, Calgary is the second most vulnerable Canadian city to these tariffs because they have $119 billion in exports to the U.S. And that was in 2023 alone.

[00:19:47] Primarily, you guessed it, energy. 96.6, I call it 97% of Calgary's exports to the U.S., representing 80% of the city's GDP, making the city highly dependent on U.S. trade. And while energy tariffs would be lower, let's say 10%, compared to 25% for other sectors we've been discussing, experts still suggest diversification and new markets are needed as long-term solutions.

[00:20:14] We've heard this time and time again with Calgary, right, Dan, the boom and the bust of the oil cycles. When you're that tied to one particular export, one particular way to make money, and that can be vulnerable and out of your control, it's going to happen. You are not going to replace 400 million U.S. consumer base overnight. It's going to take some time to do that. It's what Brad Perry from the Calgary Economic Development Department said.

[00:20:42] He's the CEO over there, and he thinks that Calgary's got some figuring out to do. Now, last but not least in which Canadian city is most at risk if Trump puts these blanket tariffs on Canada? Hit me with it. St. John tops the list of Canadian cities with the most to lose in a U.S. tariff war. And I had to do some research to figure out why that was. I was not expecting that one.

[00:21:08] I would have guessed Calgary, or to be honest, I would have – this is going to make me look bad, but I would have guessed either like a Calgary or a Sudbury because they're so specific to – you know, I think Sudbury, I think mining. Yeah. Right? But tell me what your research showed us here.

[00:21:25] So, the St. John's extreme trade exposure, which in this index is 131%, makes the local economy highly sensitive to U.S. trade policies, potentially affecting job stability and real estate demand.

[00:21:39] With 96.3% of exports going to the U.S., any trade disruption could impact major employers like Irving's Oil Refinery, which is the largest oil refinery in Canada, potentially leading to job losses and decreased housing demand. The real estate market impact obviously has a high dependence on U.S. trade and could create volatility in the local real estate prices, particularly if tariffs lead to economic slowdown or job losses in key export sectors.

[00:22:08] And the current market uncertainty might create buying opportunities in the St. John's real estate market if you believe in the resurrection of that industry and market and the fullness of time, which realistically should eventually happen. Like, it's not like this is going to go on forever. You know, I've even heard of some people in the auto sector basically saying, yeah, auto manufacturers probably aren't going to do anything simply because it would take them four years to move their auto lines to the U.S.

[00:22:37] And Trump's only going to be here for four years. So, you know, so that could present some opportunity. That's kind of the thing here, right? I mean, like none of this is going to be fast moving, right? Like this stuff all takes time. You know, let's just say, I guess, even if Trump does go more than four years, which I'm not a political expert, I'm not even sure. I know he had a four-year term. I know he's had a break and now another four-year term. I don't know if you could go a back-to-back term here.

[00:23:03] But, you know, moving an auto plant, for instance, you know, first of all, you can't just move mines because they're kind of site specific. But let's say you could move something, you know, one of these steel refineries or one of these auto manufacturing plants. Well, you're talking about, you know, an absolutely massive undertaking. This stuff takes like a decade for even to get a shovel in the ground in some cases, let alone like, okay, now we got to pick up and move somewhere else.

[00:23:32] I mean, it just is so unrealistic. Yeah, I would completely agree. He can't get another term, by the way. So they only can have two terms in the US. Thank you for clarifying. But yeah, I mean, I think that it seems like the problem with that is that the US consumer ends up kind of suffering. Like, not that that really matters to us as Canadian real estate investors, of course.

[00:23:55] But, you know, the reality is if you put a 25% tariff and the US auto industry can't fix that supply chain or make cars cheaper in the US, then they're just going to end up being 25% more and people will buy less of them, which is kind of how it impacts Canada. It's interesting, though, because I mean, the US auto workers union really supported Trump and like heading into the election. And so I think a lot of this is trying to create jobs, you know, and job stability for that.

[00:24:24] But it's funny in that regard, because their labor costs are fixed, right? Like they're really strong unions. So, you know, the automakers also, the reason they haven't already moved this stuff to the US is because it's way more expensive to produce these vehicles in the US. And so even again, if there's either 25% increase or like 25% tariff, some people are saying like, I think the auto workers were saying like a 4% to 6% increase in prices almost immediately in the US.

[00:24:53] And then even if you try and move the whole supply chain to the US, it will get more expensive simply because the labor cost is more there than it is here. So capitalism seemed to be working. And now all of a sudden, we just want to slap some roadblocks on it. Anyway, more capitalism. Interesting to see. It'll be very like, I mean, it's kind of like one of those what a time to be alive moments, right? It's like, I'm just tired of living in unprecedented times.

[00:25:23] Bring me back. Yeah, give me some of that unprecedented stuff. Okay, a couple more things before we, but just before let's finish up St. John's before we move on here, right? I mean, this trade vulnerability could have really when I say the cascading effect, that's a trickle down effect on St. John's. And this could affect both commercial and residential real estate markets, Dan. They could affect vacancy rates, property values, rental market stability overall, which we know has kind of been shaky across the country.

[00:25:52] We've seen vacancy rates go up quite a bit. You know, in recent episodes we've covered. What about new development projects, right? I mean, like if you were banking on St. John's, just doing what St. John's does, you know, and all of a sudden this comes into play. Are you pulling a major infrastructure project? Are you pulling a major housing development or postponing it like we've seen a lot of developers do here in Toronto?

[00:26:18] So, I mean, this could really shake things up and investors are going to have to monitor these trade negotiations closely because it could play a significant role in whatever real estate market you are in and how that market performs. Whether or not anything actually even happens, let's remember that sentiment is the driver of a lot of these things, right? And if sentiment starts to get shaky in this market, what are the ripple effects from that, right?

[00:26:47] I think we're already seeing that right now. It's St. John, by the way, not St. John's. Remember how I prefaced by saying you would have to look up which province it is? I had to as well because I always get it confused, but it's St. John. For anybody who's listening from St. John's and exceptionally concerned that Nick just put a tariff on your city, you're good. I mean, probably not super good. I would never do such a thing, okay?

[00:27:15] Well, maybe let's find out where St. John's is on this list because it's actually not necessarily super exposed. And why don't we just go through the entire list here? We'll start from the top. So, we'll start with the highest risk. I'm going to read the first 10 high risk ones. So, these are red and orange on the list. And then what we'll do is we'll discuss it a little bit and then we'll just kind of keep going.

[00:27:37] So, as you know, we've got St. John, New Brunswick at number one on the list with a tariff exposure index of 131.1%. And the reason I'm giving you that number is because it is so much higher than pretty much everything else on the list. Insane. Calgary in number two on the list is 81.6% tariff exposure index.

[00:28:01] Then you've got Windsor, Cambridge Waterloo, Brantford, Guelph, Saganai, Hamilton, Trois-Rivières, and Lethbridge, Alberta at number 10 at 15.7%. So, again, almost a tenth of the exposure that St. John has, right? I was going to say, yeah, it's almost worth even putting some of the numbers to this stuff, Dan, because starting at 131, jumping down to 80, right?

[00:28:29] And then, I mean, Windsor, that we spent some time talking about, 61%. Kitchener, Cambridge Waterloo down to 43%. And then once we get down to Brantford all the way to Lethbridge, we're kind of between that 15% to just under 30%. So, still quite a big margin, but absolutely nothing like St. John, New Brunswick. And, you know, second place being 50%, basically less at that 81%. Massive difference there.

[00:28:58] Sure. I'm going to go to the next 10, Dan, and then why don't you – and then maybe we'll skip it and then we'll go to, as you've said, the Green Zone, which has a nice ring to it. So, we go to Belleville at about 14%. Drummondville, again, kind of in and around there. Thunder Bay, we're just above 10%. Still Oshawa, just above 10%. Abbotsford and Mission in British Columbia, under the 10% mark.

[00:29:24] St. Catharines, Niagara here in Ontario, just over 5%. Peterborough makes the list at 4.5%. Fredericton, 4.2%. And then we get down to Barrie, Ontario, which this is kind of the tipping point here, Dan, where we're now at a tariff exposure index of 0.7%. Let's not forget, we started this list at 131%, okay? We are now all the way down to Barrie in the 20th slot at 0.7%.

[00:29:54] Dan, maybe give me a couple of the outliers, maybe some of the major markets from that kind of medium risk zone, and then we'll work our way down to the kind of grass is always greener and into the green zone here. Sure. So, from the 20 to 29, you've got cities like Chilliwack, Red Deer, Sherbrooke, Montreal's on that list, actually, and Edmonton as well. It looks like I'm just going to end up reading it because I'm just fascinated by everyone.

[00:30:21] So, you've got Kingston, Quebec, Toronto, Kelowna, Ottawa, Gatineau, and Moncton, New Brunswick. And that's kind of your middle of the road. So, all of these would have a negative tariff exposure index score.

[00:30:34] So, that ranges from negative 1.2% to negative 9.9%, or sorry, negative, let's say, 10%, which means that, again, a lot of these cities probably won't suffer too much and might even benefit slightly as maybe you start getting some people moving back from everyone else earlier on the list that we just mentioned. Everyone's moving out of Calgary and St. John back to Red Deer and Edmonton, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it's interesting.

[00:31:02] If you just kind of pick some of these random ones on the list, there's a lot of cities where I didn't... And this is really one of those points in time where it challenges you to examine your real estate investment thesis a little bit more thoroughly, where you're kind of like, what jobs, what employers in this city am I really depending on to make my thesis correct? Right. Like, so, Fredericton is a good example. Like, I had no idea what the jobs are in Fredericton, even though I've looked at deals there.

[00:31:25] You know, and you've got employers like IBM, Salesforce, Siemens, University of New Brunswick, RBC, Manpower, Marriott International, and the Government of Canada as kind of your largest employers. So, just as an example. So, I mean, I think some of these, especially ahead of at least probably that we can count on four years of economic chaos and volatility. You know, you might want to just... Oh, great. Yeah.

[00:31:51] So, you might want to be really focusing on cities that do have very diverse employment, honestly. Like, I think that that's actually a really, really key theme to take away from this episode. Yeah. I mean, it's something that we've always said, right? We've always said that you don't want to just go to, you know, let's think about like a paper town kind of thing, right? Like an Espanola here in Ontario kind of thing where, you know, or a mining town or something like that.

[00:32:20] But, you know, or even like a Fort Mac where, you know, it can be very boom and bust. And if one thing goes, that one variable that you need to keep doing what that variable is doing to support your thesis, if that changes, which is totally out of your control, as we're seeing here live, how is that going to have a net negative, net positive? Is that going to literally blow your thesis out of the water? I mean, this is really interesting. You know, what tenant profile are you looking for?

[00:32:48] Are you specifically targeting these factory worker, mine worker, short-term stay type of people that are there working for six months and kind of out of there? You know, how much is something like this going to affect your investment thesis? And in some cases, for some of my properties, I see Peter Burr on here, you know, Cornwall didn't make the list, but Subbury's up there, right? Some of the markets I like are exposed. Some of the markets I'm interested in purchasing property and are exposed to this stuff. But what is the tenant profile that I'm investing to, right?

[00:33:18] If I'm investing, if I'm looking to supply housing to retirees, is that going to have much of an effect on this stuff? But if I'm looking to, you know, supply property to, you know, younger workforce that might be directly affected by this, you know, my investment thesis might be out the window if some of this stuff actually comes into play. Yeah. Do you want to give me the tail end of the list here and we can... Wow. I get to read the green zone? Yeah, you do. Amazing. Okay. Here we go.

[00:33:46] We'll start just as the green, just as the yellows kind of turns into green, making that beautiful yellow-green mixture that everyone, it's everyone's favorite color. So I'll start it here just because my hometown, Vancouver, we started about minus 15%. St. John's, Newfoundland in around the same thing. Saskatoon just starting to get green at minus 21.6%. Halifax, Nova Scotia minus 35%.

[00:34:14] Victoria, BC minus 40%. Regina minus 40%. Winnipeg, Manitoba minus 50%. Nanaimo, BC minus 60%. Kamloops, BC minus 78%. And the ringer to close things off. Sudbury, Ontario, the safest place right now for tariffs at a minus 82%. Man, what a list here.

[00:34:40] Starting out 131 in like a deep blood red all the way to a minus 82 and a nice safe green here. Kind of crazy. Yeah, it's interesting. Like, you know, I was kind of just trying to pull lists of them. Like what makes a lot of these economies diverse. And I never thought I'd say this, but this is like one of the moments where you're almost grateful for a bureaucracy. Because it like- Wow, I never thought I'd hear you say those words.

[00:35:08] A lot of these public sector jobs are insulating some of these towns from, like you look at like Kamloops. It's like, you know, the major employers in Kamloops, Interior Health Authority, 4,000 employees. Thompson Rivers University, School District 73, 2,000 employees. City of Kamloops, 1,000 employees. And then there's, then you've got a copper mine, 1,300 and Domtar, which is a pulp mill facility with 400 employees. Go over to Halifax, same story.

[00:35:34] Halifax Regional Municipality, 4,000 municipal employers or employees across departments. Nova Scotia Health Authority, 13,000 employees. National Defense, 11,000 military and civilian personnel. Dalhousie University, 3,500. Halifax Shipyard, I guess that would be Irving Shipbuilding, 2,000 employees in Nova Scotia Power, 1,700.

[00:35:56] So I don't know if you want to try and hit another example from that list, but it feels like, you know, this is like one of those moments where that public-private blend actually ends up being a blessing rather than a curse. Yeah. As long as we don't see, which we could, you know, I think Pierre has obviously mentioned he's pretty serious about small government. Although I think the longer that this stuff goes on with Trump, his chances seem to be diminishing. Like I think, I don't know what's going on, but it seems to be not good for them politically. Yeah.

[00:36:25] But, you know, if we see some shrinking government, then you would actually add another layer of vulnerability to that, you know. And we talked about that in our, in one of our recent episodes, kind of analyzing political outcomes from elections. You know, if, if, if they want to downside, downsize the, the government, you know, cities like Ottawa or the cities who have a lot of bureaucracy end up becoming the vulnerable ones. So. Yeah. No, I mean, look, fascinating.

[00:36:53] This is one of those things that, you know, we've already done an episode on this. It's at the net, the day after we did the episode, we were all fired up about it. Cause we're like, okay, yeah. You know, we catching this breaking news. And then immediately it was like, it's not happening right now. I don't have any final thoughts. I'm, I'm kind of along for the ride with this one, just like everybody else, just trying to understand it and cover it and, you know, put out non-opinionated content on it and just say, Hey, look, this is what's happening.

[00:37:21] This is what's going to happen potentially to the real estate market. Dan, I know you've been following this stuff very closely. Any, any kind of final thoughts? I doubt this will be the last episode that we, that we, you know, actually cover with this, with this subject matter here. But, you know, as, as we've kind of hit another checkpoint in, in whatever kind of crazy game we're playing here, what, what are your, what are your thoughts, your, your, your takeaways from this with, you know, with your real estate lens on?

[00:37:49] I think that it's never been a more important time to actually do your homework and really think through your investments. That's about it. It would be the same way. I mean, it's always been important, but I think people, everyone was saved by interest rates, you know, over the last several decades, pretty much, you know, like whether you're bad at stocks or real estate or whatever, you, you know, if you stayed in it long enough, the interest rates going down would pretty much save your investment thesis. Now it matters.

[00:38:20] Like now you have to be right. The risk is high. The stakes are high. And so the reason we talk about random, obscure things like this on the show is to give you an understanding of what that looks like while you're building your investment thesis. Cause you can't just win with some run of the mill strategy. Like you could in the last 20 years. And, and if you want to learn, honestly, like this is one of the things that I find really interesting.

[00:38:47] We have sort of adopted this teach a man to fish mentality. You know, if you, you give a person a fish, you feed them for a day. If you teach a person to fish, you feed them for a lifetime. We've sort of adopted this teach a person to fish mentality in our program, realist.ca. Okay. And there's a lot of people out there selling you an idea. They're saying, this is the only investment that works. This is going to, this is the best. This is going to work. And I don't think that that's how real estate works. I don't think that there's a one size fits all solution.

[00:39:16] It depends on a variety of things. And all investing is like that. It's subjective. That's why they have disclaimers. Like, you know, when you hear those like disclaimers where it's like, it's, you know, it always depends on your risk tolerance and this and that and blah, blah, blah. It's like the reason that that exists is because investing is very subjective. They can't just say like, oh, hey, here's my fart coin or, you know, here's like my Ohio duplex or whatever. It really depends on you.

[00:39:39] And so if you want to learn how to do it properly and understand yourself and how to invest properly and create a good thesis and learn the skills to be an excellent investor, because that's how you do a very good job at it and make outsized returns. Give us a shout. We teach people how to do that on a regular basis. We've got an amazing group of people, over 100 members who meet twice a week on Zoom calls to chat about it with hundreds of hours of pre-recorded content as well. And so we're always looking for new members.

[00:40:06] We don't really do the pitch on the show that often, but if you want to join us, we'd love to have you in there. That's kind of the last piece I'd like to add, I think. Yeah. Amazing. Okay. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Be sure to stay tuned as we continue to unpack this ongoing tariff drama. And until then, we'll see you on the next one. Thanks so much for listening.

[00:41:02] Nick Hill is a mortgage agent and partner at OWL. Mortgage license number 10317. Agent license M21004037. T-E-Urge前