By Tom Parkin
January 8th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump again today said Canada should be the 51st state and more than one in five Poilievre Conservative supporters agree, according to a recent Leger poll.
Jagmeet Singh’s NDP supporters most patriotic with 94% rejecting Trump’s annexation, Leger poll says. The good news is a large of majority, 73 per cent of Conservatives, do support Canada.
Supporters of Jagmeet Singh’s NDP were the most patriotic with 94 per cent rejecting Trump’s idea. Among Liberal supporters, 89 per cent rejected U.S. annexation as did 88 per cent of Bloc Quebecois supporters.
The poll, released December 9, showed almost no variation between Canadians living in urban, suburban or rural locations. However, there were regional variations, with a high of 90 per cent of Atlantic Canadians and a low of 74 per cent of Albertans rejecting Trump’s annexation plan.
There was little difference among age groups, with older voters just slightly more pro-Canadian, but there was a gender gap.
With 19 per cent of men and just seven per cent of Canadian women supporting Trump’s annexation, the result echoes the Poilievre party’s gender divide.
Annexation threat sparks debate over “stand up or suck up” strategy
Trump today said he would use “economic force” to annex Canada. He previously announced a plan to add 25 per cent to the cost of all Canadian products entering the United States, which would have a painful effect on exports of oil and gas, autos and auto parts, food, minerals and lumber.
But it would also have a damaging and disruptive effect on U.S. households and businesses using those commodities.
With 19 per cent of men and just seven per cent of Canadian women supporting Trump’s annexation, the result echoes the Poilievre party’s gender divide.
The question of whether to “stand up or suck up” in response to Trump’s pledge to impose sanctions of Canada is up for debate in the run-up to a federal election, which will likely be in May.
With Trump’s inauguration coming soon, BC Premier David Eby, a New Democrat, has said he >will not attend the inauguration event but will participate in the “Team Canada” lobby effort in Washington planned by the federal government.
In contrast, Alberta premier Danielle Smith, a conservative and close Poilievre ally, will attend the inauguration ceremony and has “scored” tickets to Trump’s inauguration after-party, where she will celebrate Trump’s election with his Republicans.
Premiers send mixed messages to Trump while PM weakens
The worst strategy is no strategy due to division, which is where Canada appears to be headed.
Prime Minister Trudeau will meet with premiers tomorrow to co-ordinate strategy, but so far has lacked the political clout to unite provincial leaders.
Already Alberta Premier Smith has set her eye on a tariff carve-out for oil and gas. But as of yet no other premier has suggested a carve-out for industries concentrated in their provinces, such as auto, food or lumber.
A more important finding from the Leger poll is 13% of Canadians “would like Canada to become the 51st state. Parkin being a social democrat columnist would prefer to play politics with the findings. The majority or 87% of Canadians who vote, do not, and that is how democracy works and that is the only poll that counts.
We can all thank “Little Potato” (that’s the name given to Trudeau by Xi Jinping) for trolling Trump prior to him winning the the US Presidential Election. Who in their right mind would offend the potential leader of the worlds strongest super power, our largest trading partner and a New Yorker for that matter. Guess what folks, its now payback time and Trump is a master at it. The more Canadians react, the more Trump will react. My suggestion, stop talking about it, focus on the boarder issues, national defense etc. We are falling for one of the oldest tricks in the book, athletes use it all the time, whisper something in an opponents ear to throw them off their game.
Editor’s note> Michael is absolutely right – ignore Trump – it kills hims; flatter the fool and he will eat out of your hand.
These people who support this idea in a first off questionnaire yes are brain dead. You obviously have no idea what that means, including just the idea and the threat. It really scares me. You can just move there.
Trump is a dangerous man, so he must be taken seriously. He wants Greenland and the Panama Canal, and openly threatens military force takeover – he calls it “annexation”, same language he uses for Canada.
If this idea is in his head, watch out for the economic chaos and excuses he will use to disrupt our close economic ties – remember, he has four years in office and he has no evident restraints in his exercise of power, constitutional and legitimate or not.
It’s really a prelude to economic warfare as an
His prelude talk of using “economic force”, as tariffs, trade embargoes on lumber, oil, gas and whatever Canada exports he chooses, accompanied by all his lies and deluded, garbled thinking about annexation based on US defence spending of $200 billion for Canada, can be used as excuses for progressively crippling our economy, interfering with our politics and elections, sowing disruptive and costlydiscord, and social political propaganda, leading to actual rationalizing excuses for annexation.
I never dreamt that this kind of threat would ever happen in my lifetime. Trump is now my worst nightmare come true. Politically, and personally, it must be taken ultra-seriously – 4 years of this man as President??.
Who is best placed in this election, with 10 years in power, managing the enormous world-altering COVID pandemic, that if you look for the impact evidence on the prices of everything, everywhere, on earth starting in 2020 – including overall global inflation, global food prices spiked and here too, housing prices all over Canada.
The PP party blames all this on Trudeau, but the data shows that everyone was in the boat together and the mass of the inflation in everything spiked about 80% starting in 2020 with Covid, and went straight up to 2023, then down to near where it started in 2024. See Statistic Canada Food Prices portion of CPI.
Don’t forget Canada has much and multiple resources like water, lumber, as two that have already been mentioned. The US badly needs water and Trump can interfere with Canada-US Agreements on Water sharing and Quality. There are already existing first draft plans to ship Great Lakes water to the arid West. He sees Canada as a very valuable piece of property.
This hostile atmosphere, if enacted, would be enormously disruptive and costly in many ways. In this election coming up, PP-Conservatives are campaigning to spend heavily to build up the military, and cut the carbon tax. Both of these actions, including cutting the carbon tax revenue will have to be financed. Then
there is the tariff threat.
Seriously, this Trump tariff is just the start of what will be nothing but a bad situation, at a bad time for it: deluded, garbled thinking in Trump, and the same deluded, election thinking from PP, that he can fix everything and spend on anything new he wants, at no fiscal or program cost.
Regarding my January 8 comment, I wanted to show some real data from official sources to support some of my statements with facts.
file:///C:/Users/vsdfs/Downloads/Canada%20election%20evidence.docx