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TOP STORY
As the Trump administration continues to muse about slapping ruinous tariffs on Canadian exports, it’s put Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre in the awkward situation of reacting to a U.S. government that would very clearly prefer him as Canadian leader.
U.S. President Donald Trump is not known to have ever uttered the name “Pierre Poilievre” in public, but he is surrounded by cabinet members and allies who have openly expressed their desire to oust Canada’s incumbent Liberal government in favour of one led by Poilievre.
“This guy is going to send Trudeau packing in 2025 (finally) and start digging Canada out of the progressive mess it’s in,” Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, wrote in a May social media post referring to Poilievre.
Billionaire Elon Musk — the head of Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency — has even openly endorsed Poilievre and repeatedly praised the Conservative leader on X.com, the social media platform that Musk owns.
Against all this, Poilievre has been promising to retaliate in any trade war started by Trump, and has begun using the slogan “Canada First” as an apparent counterweight to Trump’s motto of “America First.”
“Canada will never be the 51st state. Period. We are a great and independent country,” wrote Poilievre in one of the most widely circulated responses to Trump’s repeated suggestion that Canada be annexed as a U.S. state.
The Tory leader has also been conspicuously avoiding any public contact with U.S. leadership.
It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for a Canadian opposition leader to have at least some communication with a U.S. administration.
As Progressive Conservative leader Brian Mulroney prepared to take the reins from Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in the early 1980s, he made multiple contacts with the Reagan White House, and even travelled to Washington, D.C.
But Poilievre did not join the stream of Canadian political leaders visiting Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, and has seemed to scoff at the suggestion.
At a November press conference, Poilievre was asked if we would be prepared to go to Mar-a-Lago if invited. “I have not been invited to that so thank you very much,” he replied before walking away.
Upon Trump’s Nov. 5 election win, Poilievre issued a rote statement promising to “work with the President to benefit both countries” — before alleging that the U.S. has been a prime beneficiary of capital flight from Canada.
http://www.facebook.com/PierrePoilievreMP/posts/congratulations-to-donald-j-trump-on-his-election-as-the-47th-president-of-the-u/1110242860463565/
“The U.S. has already taken half a trillion dollars of investment and jobs from Canada under 9 years of Trudeau,” he wrote.
Former diplomats have even opined that Poilievre is being unusually chilly with the Trump White House.
Deanna Horton, a veteran of Canada’s U.S. Embassy, told The Hill Times in December that the Conservatives should properly have opened communication with the president-elect.
“No matter what happens with the election, Canada will still be dealing with the Trump administration for the next four years,” she said.
That same story also quoted Christopher Sands, director of the Canada Institute at the U.S.-based Wilson Center. “I think he’s let it go too long,” said Sands. “The sooner he’s able to make the first connection, the better.”
But Poilievre hasn’t disclosed any public contact with the new White House. However, one of his MPs, Jamil Jivani, made a December visit to U.S. Vice-President J.D. Vance, a longtime friend.
Rather, Poilievre’s communication with the Trump administration has consisted mostly of hypothetically outlining what he would do as prime minister.
In an podcast with Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson that received widespread circulation in the United States, Poilievre said he would negotiate a “great deal” with Trump that “will make both countries safer, richer, and stronger.”
“If you look at the history of President Trump, he negotiates very aggressively and he likes to win, but in the end, he doesn’t appear to have a problem if his counterparty also wins,” Poilievre said.
As the deadline for a potential imposition of 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian imports has ticked closer, Poilievre has also stated that he would endorse retaliation.
“We would unfortunately and reluctantly have to retaliate against tariffs applied to our businesses,” he told CTV News on Wednesday morning. “And then we would go to the grassroots American economic interests that are on our side — the union leaders and business owners in the Midwest that use Canadian energy.”
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He said much the same on an interview last week with B.C.’s CHEK News.
“I would say to President Trump, I will retaliate with trade tariffs against American goods that are necessary to discourage America attacking our industries,” he said.
Candidates for the Liberal leadership have criticized Poilievre’s approach to the Trump administration, with former finance minister Chrystia Freeland making the case that she would be a better negotiator with the Americans, and that the Tory leader would “sell out” Canada.
A recent Ipsos poll finds that 77 per cent of Canadians favour an immediate election in order to give the federal government a mandate to deal with Trump.
Although the poll didn’t specifically ask respondents what kind of mandate they would prefer, every available poll for at least the last six months has indicated that any general election would likely result in a Conservative landslide.
IN OTHER NEWS
At the precise moment that security at the U.S./Canada border is under a microscope due to tariff threats from U.S. President Donald Trump, a U.S. Border Patrol agent named David Maland was shot and killed in a Monday incident just south of the border between Vermont and Quebec. Although as of yet, it’s not clear if the shooting’s proximity to Canada was merely incidental. A suspect killed in the shootout was a German citizen who was legally in the United States.
Stewart Phillip, Grand Chief of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, was one of the most prominent figures in the effort to sink Northern Gateway, a proposed pipeline that would have connected Alberta to the West Coast port of Kitimat. Phillip seemed to reverse himself on the pipeline this week, saying that if Canada doesn’t “build that kind of infrastructure, Trump will.” He then reversed the reversal in a statement on Wednesday, saying he doesn’t support “resuscitating dead projects.”
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