It’s Deja vu all over again.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau earned the ‘Wrath of Donald’ during Trump’s first term by making off colour comments overheard by reporters at a G7 summit.
But on Friday, the PM was caught red-handed — or lipped — once more after making candid remarks over Trump’s desire to make Canada the 51st State over a hot mic piped directly to a room full of of attentive reporters.
“I suggest that not only does the Trump administration know how many critical minerals we have but that may be even why they keep talking about absorbing us and making us the 51st state,” he was overheard saying following a press briefing at a Toronto gathering of Canadian company executives, industry and union leaders.
“They’re very aware of our resources, of what we have and they very much want to be able to benefit from those,” Trudeau said in answer to a question from the floor, after media had been ushered out of the room. “But Mr. Trump has it in mind that one of the easiest ways of doing that is absorbing our country. And it is a real thing.”
In the portion of his remarks that were open to the media, Trudeau won applause for stressing the need to drop interprovincial trade barriers.
“It’s about time we had genuine free trade within Canada.”
He further stressed the need to diversify trading partners, adding: “Geography means we’re always going to both benefit and be challenged by trade with the United States.”
Nearly 200 industry and trade association representatives, union leaders, Canada-US advisory council members and executives from a wide crossection of economic sectors attended the meeting.
The names of those in attendance attending were not released, and media access was restricted after Trudeau’s opening remarks.
Among the business leaders in attendance were Teck Resources CEO Jonathan Price, Candace Laing, CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Daniel Tisch, CEO of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, and David Ossip, CEO of tech firm Dayforce. Lisa Baiton of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, and Dan Kelly, CEO of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, were also in attendance. Charlie Angelakos, vice president of global external affairs at McCain Foods, was also on-site.
According to The Globe and Mail also spotted in the audience were executives with Manulife, Power Corp.’s Paul Genest, Hydro Quebec’s Michael Sabia, TIFF’s Cameron Bailey, Navdeep Bains with Rogers, BCE’s president Mirko Bibic, and Rob Prichard, chair of Via Rail’s high-speed division.
There was no immediate response from Trump or administration officials, but if his past reaction is anything to go by, full-on tariffs — or double — could be imposed by noon.
Stay tuned.