OTTAWA -- Donald Trump's protectionism means a huge opportunity for Canada, former Quebec premier Jean Charest says.

The election of a U.S. president who promised to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement and who opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership will make Canada more appealing to the rest of the world than it did prior to last Tuesday, Charest said in an interview with Evan Solomon, host of CTV's Question Period.

"For Canada this is a huge, a new opportunity... For countries like China, for the Middle East, looking to be part of North America, we're a better place to be," Charest said.

"For Europeans with whom we now have a trade deal, we are the landing strip for investment in North America."

Last month, Canada signed a massive deal with the European Union to eliminate virtually all tariffs on Canadian exports, a $20 trillion market with 500 million consumers - a deal Charest was instrumental in kicking off when he was premier. The Americans had been in talks with the EU since 2013, but Europe's top trade official said Friday she didn't realistically see the talks resuming any time soon, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Despite the EU deal, there's increasing concern in Canada about the future of NAFTA. The U.S. is by far Canada's biggest customer: 73 per cent of Canadian exports will go to American customers this year, according to Global Affairs Canada. The Canadian government also estimates $1.6 million in goods and services cross the Canada-U.S. border every minute.

"I think the biggest challenge for us is our trading relationship with the United States, and if Canada's trading relationship with the United States is a challenge, then Ontario's is very much at the heart of that," Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne said on CTV's Question Period.

Dependent on each other for jobs

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made the right move by offering to discuss the trade deal, which has been in force since 1994, she added.

"It's important that he reach out to Donald Trump and establish some of the parameters of that discussion," Wynne said.

The Ontario premier says the threat to Canada's trade relationship puts the onus on the provinces and territories to work with their counterparts at the state level.

"We will work very hard to strengthen those relationships because it's not a one-way street... it's not just that we are dependent on the United States," Wynne said.

"There are thousands of jobs in Michigan and thousands of jobs in Ontario that are dependent on one another. So that is a reality that president-elect Trump is going to discover."

Some oft-cited examples make that point. A North American car, for example, crosses the border repeatedly as it's being built, while beef sold in America could come from cattle born in the U.S. and raised on the northern side of the border.

Jerry Dias, head of Unifor, the country's largest private-sector union, says NAFTA was supposed to improve wages, but it hasn't, even in Mexico.

"I understand why the workers in the rust belt are furious about the trade deals because it is crystal clear that Mexico has undermined the standard of living for American and Canadian workers, so they're frustrated," Dias said.

'Not as easy as slapping on tariffs'

Charest echoed Wynne's point about interdependence, noting that imposing higher tariffs on Canadian or Mexican goods would impact the cost of American products. A quarter of Canadian exports to the U.S. are made in America, he said, while 40 per cent of Mexican exports to the U.S. are made in America.

"So, for Mr. Trump it's not as easy as slapping on tariffs and saying the problem is solved," he said.

Trump's criticism of NAFTA was aimed at Mexico rather than Canada, Charest noted, but "we very well could get side-swiped," he warned.

Protecting Canada will mean appealing to Trump's business sense, says former foreign affairs minister Peter MacKay.

"They need our softwood lumber, they need our energy, they need our co-operation on NATO, NORAD, a lot of security issues," MacKay told Solomon.

"So we have to tailor our message and I suspect that [Canadian] Ambassador [David] MacNaughton will be relaying those messages early and calling for an early meeting between Prime Minister Trudeau and president-elect Trump."

Charest says Trump has to follow up on his commitment to renegotiate NAFTA, but he doubts "it will just be ripped up."

"I think if both countries, Mexico and Canada, are wise, they will line up as solutions for [Trump] by offering to do things that will allow him to meet his commitment and avoid a disaster for him and for us," the former premier said.