(LifeSiteNews) – People’s Party of Canada (PPC) leader Maxime Bernier said the reason for U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s recent “nonsense” about making Canada the 51st state is due to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s disastrous policies and “woke leftists.”
In an X post on Wednesday, Bernier observed that “Trump’s offensive nonsense about annexing Canada” would not have been possible if the “Trudeau Liberals had not spent the last 10 years literally destroying our country on every level, making us an easy target.”
Bernier noted how the “woke leftists who are faking patriotic outrage today only have themselves to blame after denigrating Canada for decades as a racist, colonialist, illegitimate country with no culture and identity of its own that deserves to be invaded and looted by the riffraff from the whole planet.”
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.
In October, Bernier cautiously said that Trump will “win” the upcoming U.S. presidential election, saying his victory would be good for Canada as well as the fight against “censorship.”
For this part, Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre, who likely will soon be the nation’s next prime minister, had choice words for Trump, who threatened Tuesday to annex Canada by “economic force,” saying his nation will “never” become a U.S. “state.”
Trump’s comments came only a day after Trudeau announced Monday morning that he plans to step down as Liberal Party leader once a new leader has been chosen. He was approved by Governor General Mary Simon to prorogue parliament until March 24. This means he is still serving as prime minister, but all parliamentary business has been stopped.
The Liberal Party will now hold a leadership race to choose a new head, who will by default become Canada’s next prime minister.
The most recent polls show a Conservative government under Poilievre would win a super-majority were an election held today.
Canadian politicos rejoiced at the news, but many observed that he should have actually resigned and called an election at the same time.
Bernier hopes Trump’s Canada remarks is just one of his typical ‘outrageous declarations’
However, in a longer X post on Tuesday, he seemed to change his tune somewhat, noting his distaste for Trump’s remarks made Tuesday in which he said rather brazenly he was considering using “economic force” to make Canada the 51st U.S. state.
He said that he has “always despised” the U.S.’s “militaristic and imperialist attitude of their neoconservative establishment, present in both the Democratic or Republican parties.”
“For decades they’ve invaded, engineered coups, bombed, and killed thousands of innocents in countries that posed no threat to them, under the pretext of ‘protecting the free world.’ They still have 750 military bases in 80 countries to control their empire.”
He noted how one of the “key reasons” he supported the election of Trump was that he “has been opposed to these pointless and costly foreign wars and has promised to quickly end the U.S. proxy war with Russia in Ukraine.”
He noted, however, that it was “extremely disappointing and concerning to now see Mr. Trump acting like a typical arrogant American imperialist, with his increasingly aggressive and outrageous statements about annexing Canada (and Greenland and the Panama Canal), again under the pretext of protecting the free world.”
“Obviously, Canada is in no position to win any war with the U.S., military or economic. We can retaliate and hurt the Americans, but we won’t be able to sustain an economic war for long, given our economy’s complete dependence on theirs,” he noted.
Bernier noted how it is his hope that Trump’s remarks and “habit of making outrageous declarations” is in reality a “bargaining position to force his counterparts to do something or make concessions under threat,” and not the “ravings of an unstable megalomaniac.”
“He wants a better trade agreement, a more secure border, and he wants us to help pay our share of North America’s defence. These are all fair demands that can and should be negotiated in both our countries’ interests. If he is really serious about annexing Canada though, we’re entering a whole different game in trying to deal with a dangerous bully. And there won’t be any easy solution,” he wrote.
Bernier was one of the only Canadian politicians who spoke out against COVID dictates of all kinds.