Canada's Conservative leader slams Trump's '51st state' idea

Pierre Poilievre, leader of Canada’s Conservative Party, shot back at President-elect Trump’s idea of making his country America’s 51st state.

“Canada will never be the 51st state. Period. We are a great and independent country,” Poilievre wrote Tuesday in a statement on social platform X.

“We are the best friend to the U.S.,” he continued. “We spent billions of dollars and hundreds of lives helping Americans retaliate against Al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks. We supply the U.S. with billions of dollars of high-quality and totally reliable energy well below market prices. We buy hundreds of billions of dollars of American goods.”

Poilievre’s statement comes after Trump for weeks has publicly mused about the neighbor to the north becoming part of the United States.

On Tuesday, Trump said he was not considering using military force to make Canada become part of the United States but instead intended to use “economic force” against the close U.S. ally.

Poilievre, a likely contender to become the next prime minister, used his statement as an opportunity to pitch his vision for the country.

“Our weak and pathetic NDP-Liberal government has failed to make these obvious points,” he continued in his statement. “I will fight for Canada.”

“When I am Prime Minister, we will rebuild our military and take back control of the border to secure both Canada and the U.S. We will take back control of our Arctic to keep Russia and China out. We will axe taxes, slash red tape and rapidly green-light massive resource projects to bring home paycheques and production to our country.”

“In other words, we will put Canada First,” he said.