A professor at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business is warning about Canada’s ability to withstand a trade war with the United States.

Dr. Ian Lee told Tim Powers on VOCM that Canada is a very small economy compared to the United States.

“We’re $2.5 trillion, they’re between $25 and $28 trillion depending on how you measure GDP, they are the economic super power” says Lee. “So, if we enter a trade war, I want to be really blunt here, we will lose.”

He says the difference between the two countries is that we don’t have a lot of big business. Instead, we have a lot of smaller-sized businesses, many of whom are just hanging on.

He says Canada has to open up those 5-6 economies “that are projected right now, we’re going to have to kill that digital service tax on American digital giants, and we’re going to have to go, like overnight, to 2 per cent spending on national defence.”