BREITBART | Published January 14, 2025
Canadian Liberals are scrambling to fill the power vacuum left by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation, using a great deal of tough talk intended to convince voters that the party can stand up to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump in a potential tariff and border security conflict.
Trudeau announced his resignation on January 6, using a maneuver known as “prorogation” to force the legislature out of session so he could remain as a lame-duck “caretaker” prime minister until March.
One of the major reasons Trudeau lost the confidence of the Liberal Party was his struggle to handle the incoming U.S. president. Trudeau was already unpopular with the public for a host of reasons, and his unpopularity dragged his party down in some painful special election losses, but the last straw for many of his Liberal colleagues was the election of Trump.
Trudeau did his best to talk tough in an interview with MSNBC on Sunday, assuring viewers that Canada does not want a trade fight with the Trump administration but is ready to rumble if Trump makes good on his tariff threats.
“As we did last time, we are ready to respond with tariffs as necessary. We are the number one export partner of about 35 different U.S. states, and anything that thickens the border between us ends up costing American citizens and American jobs,” he said.
Trudeau also insisted Canada is doing a decent job on border security, despite Trump’s accusations to the contrary.
“Less than 1% of the illegal migrants, less than 1% of the fentanyl that comes into the United States, comes from Canada. So we’re not a problem. We’ve actually responded to his request for us to do more with billions of dollars worth of investments to even further strengthen the security of our borders,” he said.
Trudeau’s foreign minister, Melanie Joly, chimed in with a threat to restrict Canadian energy imports to the United States if Trump imposes tariffs.
“What I can tell you is, everything is on the table,” Joly told CTV on Sunday morning.
Joly’s threat was immediately shot down by Danielle Smith, premier of the oil-rich Alberta province, who said her administration would not “support a tariff war with our largest trading partner and closest ally.”
“Alberta’s government believes that the pathway to strengthening this relationship is to double our oil production and increase exports of crude oil to the U.S., enabling them to export even more light oil to the rest of the world,” Smith said, after journeying to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida to meet with the president-elect.
Smith said she held a “constructive dialogue” with the returning American president and seemed convinced that “diplomacy” would be more effective with Trump than confrontation.
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SOURCE: www.breitbart.com
RELATED: Canada PM Justin Trudeau blames ‘political right’ and social media for global ‘anti-incumbency movement’
Trudeau faced record low approval ratings in 2024 due to high inflation
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau discussed his resignation on MSNBC on Sunday. (MSNBC screenshot)
FOX NEWS | Published January 14, 2025
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau argued Sunday that social media and the political right exacerbated “culture wars and division” to promote an “anti-incumbency movement” worldwide.
MSNBC host Jen Psaki asked Trudeau about his decision to resign, announced on Jan. 6, and whether it had to do with a global trend of turning against incumbent leaders or his own low approval ratings.
Trudeau conceded it was “probably a bit of everything” but claimed there was “still a lingering frustration towards incumbents” from social media influence, despite the good work he had done.
“Where I lean in on is all the good things we were able to do,” Trudeau said. “We put forward policies that are going to make a difference for decades to come in Canada. And I think right now we’re seeing a time in politics where emotions and social media are carrying an awful lot of weight in how people feel about things.”
Psaki pressed on the criticism that Trudeau’s Liberal Party as well as the U.S. Democratic Party were “out of touch with the public” and whether there could be lessons from his term to counter that perception.
Trudeau urged progressives to stay focused on the economy and touted Canada as a success for ensuring “fewer barriers for minorities and women and vulnerable people to participate in the workforce.”
“You can easily turn that into a woke argument that says, ‘You’re just working for minorities and women, and you’re not taking care of the economy,’” he conceded.
“Well, the capacity of the political right and, quite frankly, social media to gin up that kind of dynamic can fall into culture wars and divisions that actually don’t stand up to the hard economic truth of the growth we’ve been able to create in Canada is part of the challenge we have,” Trudeau said.
“And that’s part of the challenge we’re facing as a world right now where people are very much in a place where affordability, where reasonable answers, where medium- and long-term policies aren’t what they want to hear about.”
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SOURCE: www.foxnews.com
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