MTG Canada Tarriff

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

EDIT 7.16.2018 : You may wish to read the CBC article on this subject written by Darren Major who had interviewed Dave Teller over at Wizard's Tower in Ottawa.  Article linked right here.

Should you, like us reside and play in Canada, then this may be of interest to you.  The bottom line is, that you should expect to pay a bit more to buy Magic: the Gathering cards.

On May 31, 2018, the United States had announced tariffs on imports of certain steel and aluminum products from Canada at the rates of 25% and 10%, respectively.   Taking into consideration feedback received from Canadians through over 1,000 submissions during public consultations, on July 1, 2018, Canada had imposed countermeasures (surtaxes) against (Canadian) $16.6 billion in imports of steel, aluminum, and other products from the U.S., representing the value of 2017 Canadian exports affected by the U.S. tariffs. 

Listed within Table 3 (‘Other Products’) on the countermeasures response from the Canadian Department of Finance Page, and subject to a 10 per cent surtax, one is able to find this line item -

• 9504.40.00 - Playing cards

There had been some early speculation that Magic: the Gathering cards could be construed as a type of collectible card, such as hockey or baseball cards.  This however is not the case, as the Magic: the Gathering card is integral to play the game, and thus is quite solidly considered a playing card.  This has reportedly been confirmed to a Canadian gaming store owner by Wizards of the Coast as well as that store’s supply distributor.

It had been suggested that Wizards of the Coast had worked closely with Canadian distributors to get Core 2019 Prerelease and Release product shipped across the Canadian border before the tariffs go into effect on July 1st, the day the new tariffs had taken place.  Just how much product may have landed in Canada before this date is unclear at this time.

Looking into the future, we hope that this new tariffs will be dismissed soon and relations with our American cousins will normalize.  What may be hindering this is that at one point in the not too distant past, the American Constitution gave Congressional power “to lay and collect taxes, duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States”, whereas the current trend is to shift this to the executive branch.  The current American regime also has a number of loop-holes to employ such as the clause in the 1974 Trade Act, to impose restrictive tariffs where there is “an adverse impact on national security from imports”.
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