For the past year, Justin Trudeau has been foolishly attacking Donald Trump in an attempt to link Trump to Trudeau’s main rival Pierre Poilievre. It’s been a ridiculous campaign that has seen the Liberals invoke MAGA — Make America Great Again — more than 100 times in the last year during their attacks on Poilievre.
Trudeau was doing this knowing that there was a good chance Trump would become president again. Can we really trust him to handle this relationship between Canada and the United States as the U.S. transitions from the Biden administration to the next Trump administration?
Likely not based on the words of his foreign minister, Melanie Joly.
During a Friday afternoon news conference, Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland and Joly spoke to reporters after a meeting of the cabinet committee on Canada-US relations. This is a committee that existed under the first Trump administration but disappeared under Democrat Joe Biden even though his economic policies were at least as protectionist, if not more protectionist, than Trump’s policies.
Both Freeland and Joly spoke about the need for a Team Canada approach to ensure trade access. A reporter asked if Conservative Leader Poilievre would be part of the government’s attempts at a Team Canada approach and Freeland gave a diplomatic answer that would leave the door open.
Then Joly took the microphone and in true Trudeau government fashion put party before country.
“The question is whether Pierre Poilievre will want to be partisan and defend Canada’s interests,” Joly said while clearly scowling at the mention of Poilievre’s name and then walking away without taking anymore questions.
Joly made that statement after saying that she doesn’t want to be partisan and then of course was partisan.
It’s what they have done in the House of Commons, in their social media posts and in their fundraising emails to supporters. Time and again they have tried to say that Poilievre and Trump are tied together, and both are unacceptable.
It’s a ridiculous statement, one that most voters apparently don’t believe based on how well the Conservatives are doing in the polls. Still, the Trudeau Liberals push this message and agenda, not to help the interests of Canada but of their party.
“Pierre Poilievre is focused on importing far-right, American-style politics — and in these turbulent global times, we can’t trust him to put Canadians over politics,” the Liberals said in an email blast to supporters trying to link Poilievre and Trump.
Are these really the people we want managing Canada-U.S. relations as Donald Trump takes office once again.
Over the last year, Trudeau has stood in the House of Commons and declared Poilievre’s party to be “MAGA Conservatives” when they have asked questions about the carbon tax, about housing, and about Ukraine. They have made ads and multiple social media posts about the non-existent Trump-Poilievre link in an attempt to say that Trump is evil and unelectable and therefore so is Poilievre.
A recent poll from Angus Reid though found that Canadians believe that Poilievre is better suited to deal with Trump than Trudeau is. That would mean Trudeau’s desperate antics aren’t having the desired effect with the Canadian voting public.
That doesn’t mean it will go unnoticed by Donald Trump when Justin Trudeau goes looking for favours, for special treatment, for a Canadian exemption from Trump’s planned tariffs of 10% to 20% on all imports.
Justin Trudeau has played a dangerous game with Canada’s economy all to try and score political points. He was doing that before Trump was reelected, we should expect him to continue to do that after Trump’s victory.
For Trudeau, the Liberal party and his own political ambitions come before country.