(LifeSiteNews) – Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre, and likely soon be the next Prime Minister, said the nation will “never” become a U.S. “state” in a firm rebuke to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who threatened to annex Canada by “economic force.”
In a statement posted Tuesday to X, Poilievre shot back at Trump’s loose remarks that Canada would become the 51st state, saying he will “put Canada first.”
“Canada will never be the 51st state. Period. We are a great and independent country,” Poilievre wrote in his statement.
“We are a great and independent country. We are the best friend to the U.S. We spent billions of dollars and hundreds of lives helping Americans retaliate against Al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks. We supply the U.S. with billions of dollars of high-quality and totally reliable energy well below market prices. We buy hundreds of billions of dollars of American goods.”
Poilievre added that when it comes to Canada on the world stage being perceived as weak, it’s due to “Our weak and pathetic NDP-Liberal government has failed to make these obvious points.”
“I will fight for Canada. When I am Prime Minister, we will rebuild our military and take back control of the border to secure both Canada and the U.S. We will take back control of our Arctic to keep Russia and China out,” he wrote.
Trump, speaking Tuesday from Mar-a-Lago, said rather brazenly he was considering using “economic force” to make Canada the 51st U.S. state.
He claimed that there is a $200 billion trade deficit between Canada and the U.S. regarding spending on “subsidies” and the fact the U.S. military is there to also “protect Canada.”
Trump’s remarks set off a firestorm of commentary on X from leftist and right-leaning Canadians alike.
However, Canadians are firmly opposed to the idea of their nation ever becoming a new U.S. state. A recent poll show that Canadians overwhelmingly reject the idea of Canada ever becoming the “51st state” as Trump said. In total, 82 percent are opposed to the idea, with 13 percent being in favor.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who announced Monday that he intends to resign as Liberal Party leader and thus PM, had this to say regarding Trump’s comments.
“There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States. Workers and communities in both our countries benefit from being each other’s biggest trading and security partner,” he wrote Tuesday on X.
As for Trudeau, he was approved by Governor General Mary Simon to prorogue parliament until March 24. This means, for the time being, he is still serving as PM, but all parliamentary business has been stopped.
The Liberal Party will now hold a leadership race to choose a new leader, who will by default become Canada’s next Prime Minister.