No longer a joke: Ministers say Trump's threats to absorb Canada need to be taken seriously
Trump said Tuesday he'd be willing to use 'economic force' to join countries
Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc said Wednesday that U.S. president-elect Donald Trump's assertions that Canada should become the 51st state should be taken seriously, after he initially dismissed them as a joke.
"The joke is over," LeBlanc told reporters in French.
"The president and his allies continue to repeat this — we know it's not going anywhere — but the fact that he's repeating it, it's not very constructive."
LeBlanc joined Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on a trip to Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in late November after the president-elect threatened to hit Canada with hefty tariffs.
Following the meeting, Fox News reported that Trump said if Canada can't handle the economic effects of a punishing 25 per cent tariff on its goods, it should become the 51st state of the U.S.
When asked at the time about Trump's comment, LeBlanc said it wasn't meant to be taken seriously.
"In a three-hour social evening at the president's residence in Florida on a long weekend of American Thanksgiving, the conversation was going to be lighthearted. The president was telling jokes, the president was teasing us, it was, of course, in no way a serious comment," LeBlanc said in December.
But since that November meeting, Trump has repeatedly referenced Canada as the "51st state" and Trudeau as "governor" in various social media posts.
The president-elect repeated his assertion that the U.S. should absorb Canada during a press conference on Tuesday and that he would consider using "economic force" to make it happen.
"That would really be something," he said in Palm Beach, Fla.
"You get rid of the artificially drawn line and you take a look at what that looks like and it would also be much better national security."
Though he said he was not considering military force on Canada, he remarkably did not rule out that option to have the U.S. take back control of the Panama Canal and acquire the Danish territory of Greenland.
Trump's latest comments sparked a more forceful response from Trudeau than he has given in the past weeks.
"There isn't a snowball's chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States," Trudeau wrote in a social media post on Tuesday.
Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey said Wednesday that even if Trump was joking, it's a joke that shouldn't be dismissed.
"His history has been to create chaos in an attempt [at] humour. But then often those become policy statements and reality," Furey said of the president-elect.
Furey said it was "unacceptable" that the U.S. would "threaten" Canadian sovereignty the way Trump has.
"Sovereignty comes at an incredible price — a price paid by blood," Furey told reporters Wednesday.
"To try to take that away is going to come at a significant cost."
A number of federal cabinet ministers said Wednesday that Trump's comments should be taken seriously.
"When president-elect Trump talks, we need to listen and we need to take him very seriously," Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly told reporters.
"I never take his threats lightly. At the same time, we can't take the bait," she said.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller said "there's no chance in hell" Canada would become part of the U.S.
"They'd have to find us on a map first," Miller quipped.
"It's silly. It's unbecoming of a president, any president who would say that. But we do have to take it seriously."
Backbench Liberal MP Ken McDonald said he still thinks Trump's comments are a joke and a way for the president-elect to get attention.
"There's no way they're going to take over Canada, I mean I'd die on the cross fighting for that one," McDonald told reporters Wednesday.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
