Donald Trump may just cost Canada's Conservatives the election

Donald Trump may just cost Canada’s Conservatives the election

The President’s bombastic rants leave Pierre Poilievre’s party in an unenviable position

Michael Coren
07 February 2025 12:47pm GMT

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/02/07/donald-trump-may-just-cost-canadas-conservatives-the-electi/

"SNIP..........

Last weekend at a National Basketball Association (NBA) game in Toronto between the Toronto Raptors and Los Angeles Clippers, the US anthem was uncharacteristically booed. It’s becoming something of a trend in Canada since Donald Trump threatened tariffs on Canadian goods being imported into the US, a plan put on hold for a month after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to implement his December plan to spend $1.3 billion on reinforcing the border.

But this hasn’t stopped Trump’s repeated boasts that Canada would benefit from becoming the 51st state. The threatened tariffs are real but the rhetoric about Canada becoming part of its southern neighbour, on the other hand, is utter fantasy. Yet a fantasy that is motivating and provoking Canadians and is particularly damaging to Canada’s conservative party.

Around 70% of the population vote for centre-Left or Left-wing parties, the country has long enjoyed a social democratic culture and a strong welfare system, and almost a quarter of Canadians speak French as their first language.

Canadian foreign policy has more in common with northern Europe than the US, the country is renowned as a peace-keeper rather than a warmonger, it’s part of the Commonwealth with the monarch as its head of state, and has cherished a separate identity from the Americans for 250 years. In fact, what are known as Empire Loyalists, some of the founders of modern Canada, were people who came north during the American Revolution because they insisted on living under the crown.

............SNIP"