(LifeSiteNews) — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau seems to have confirmed to business leaders that U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to make Canada the 51st state is legitimate.
During a February 7 meeting at the Canada-U.S. Economic Summit, Trudeau told business leaders that Trump’s plan to absorb Canada into the United States is not a joke but a real goal of the new president, according to footage obtained by CBC News.
“Mr. Trump has it in mind that the easiest way to do it is absorbing our country and it is a real thing. In my conversations with him on…,” Trudeau can be heard saying before the audio from the microphone is cut out.
The CBC News footage of Trudeau’s statements do not show the prime minister speaking, as the camera picking up the audio is in a different room, but the voice on the recording seems to be that of Trudeau.
Following the meeting, CBC News reports that they asked Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon about Trudeau’s hot-mic comments, to which the politician reportedly stated, “Canada is free, Canada is sovereign, Canada will choose its own destiny, thank you very much. But Canada is forever — so Canada will make its choices.”
While Trudeau is slated to resign as prime minister following months of dismal polling figures, polls also show that the vast majority of Canadians, 90%, oppose Trump’s proposition that Canada become part of the United States, suggesting that conservative-minded Canadians are also in objection to such a move.
While Trump’s comments were initially passed off as a joke by many, his persistently referring to Canada as the “51st state” and threatening to use “economic force” to overtake Canada has been met with bipartisan blowback from Canadian officials.
Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre, a frontrunner for prime minister in the next election, has had choice words for Trump, vowing that Canada will “never” become a U.S. “state.”
However, Trump’s threats seem to have some force behind them regardless of public opinion polling, with the president reneging on a 25% tariff on Canadian imports just hours before they were set to go into effect. The tariffs have not been ruled out, but merely paused for 30 days while the two governments work toward a solution.