While left-leaning Canadians are balking at the idea of a Trump take-over, some say they’d jump at the chance to have the Donald in charge.
The US president-elect this week made his strongest bid yet to take over Canada, offering its people a 60 percent tax cut if they agree to join the US and become the 51st US state.
While Trump’s offer was theoretical, many Canadians who are sick and tired of left-leaning Trudeau said they’d welcome him with open arms.
They say they’d appreciate the tax break and other perks from joining the world’s biggest economy.
Maxime Bernier, founder and leader of the right-wing People’s Party of Canada, told DailyMail.com that some Canadians look to Trump after a decade of ‘woke’ liberal rule.
Among the Canadians who have backed Trump’s plan is Bruce McGonigal, who says it would herald an ‘economic boom’ for Canada.
‘We would be able to keep emergency rooms open,’ McGonigal posted on X.
‘The dollars we earn would also have way more value than the weak Canadian dollar.’
Self-styled ‘Maple MAGA’ TikToker Mario Zelaya says Trump’s Canadian tax cut ‘sounds pretty good’
Alberta independence activist Terris Kolybaba says it would be easier to own guns in a Canada that follows US laws
Mario Zelaya, who dubs himself a ‘maple MAGA’, posted that a 60 percent tax cut ‘sounds pretty good.’
Another Canadian conservative, Melissa Rogers, asked: ‘Who can say no’ to Trump’s offer.
Other Canadians seek fewer restrictions on gun ownership, lower immigration, and other policies aligned with the incoming Trump administration.
Terris Kolybaba, from an Alberta independence group, said ‘everything will be cheaper’ if the US joins Canada.
‘You’ll have the rights to bear arms, which you should have: the right to protect yourself,’ Kolybaba told CBC News.
‘Across the border, it’s no problem.’
The survey of 1,520 people by Leger found that 82 percent of Canadians were against becoming the 51st state, while 5 percent said they did not know.
Support for a merger was higher among men, younger Canadians, and those living in the provinces of Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan.
Given the low support for a policy that to many Canadians sounds unpatriotic, no major political party there has endorsed Trump’s plan.
Bernier, a renegade conservative who formed his offshoot party in 2018, says his party is firmly againstc ceding Canadian independence.
But some of his countrymen looking to Trump after years of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s liberal leadership, he told DailyMail.com.
‘The people who are saying yes to that crazy idea coming from Trump, it’s maybe because they are so upset about the Trudeau Government, all the wokeism,’ he said.
They’re worried about ‘open borders, the big deficit, huge taxes and inflation,’ he added.
Still, Bernier said he did not believe support for a merger was growing in Canada.
Trump has in recent days suggested a territorial expansion into Canada, Greenland and Panama, and has mocked prime minister Trudeau by calling him ‘governor.’
On Christmas Day, he escalated his campaigns against the governments of both Panama and Canada.
‘Merry Christmas to all, including to the wonderful soldiers of China, who are lovingly, but illegally, operating the Panama Canal (where we lost 38,000 people in its building 110 years ago), always making certain that the United States puts in Billions of Dollars in ‘repair’ money, but will have absolutely nothing to say about ‘anything,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday.
‘Also, to Governor Justin Trudeau of Canada, whose Citizens’ Taxes are far too high, but if Canada was to become our 51st State, their Taxes would be cut by more than 60%, their businesses would immediately double in size, and they would be militarily protected like no other Country anywhere in the World.
‘Likewise, to the people of Greenland, which is needed by the United States for National Security purposes and, who want the U.S. to be there, and we will!’
Trump recently posted that ‘Canadians want Canada to become the 51st State’ and offered an image of himself superimposed on a mountaintop surveying surrounding territory next to a Canadian flag.
Trudeau has suggested that Trump was joking about annexing his country, but the pair met recently at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida to discuss Trump’s threats to impose a 25 percent tariff on all Canadian goods.
Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, who attended the Friday dinner at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, said Trump’s comments were in jest.
‘The president was telling jokes. The president was teasing us. It was, of course, on that issue, in no way a serious comment,’ LeBlanc told reporters in Ottawa.
Trump made the stark declaration on Sunday night that he would like to purchase Greenland as he announced his pick for ambassador to Denmark, PayPal co-founder Ken Howery.
‘For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity,’ he wrote on Truth Social.
Trump recently posted that ‘Canadians want Canada to become the 51st State’ and offered an image of himself superimposed on a mountaintop surveying surrounding territory next to a Canadian flag
The pair met recently at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida to discuss Trump’s threats to impose a 25 percent tariff on all Canadian goods
Trump expressed interest in buying Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, during his first presidential term.
He was publicly rebuffed by Danish authorities – who reiterated the island was ‘open for business, not for sale’ – before any conversations could take place.
The Danish Prime Minister’s Office said in its own statement that the government is ‘looking forward to welcoming the new American ambassador. And the Government is looking forward to working with the new administration.’
‘In a complex security political situation as the one we currently experience, transatlantic cooperation is crucial,’ the statement said. It noted that it had no comment on Greenland except for it ‘not being for sale, but open for cooperation.’
Trump again having designs on Greenland comes after the president-elect suggested over the weekend that the US could retake control of the Panama Canal if something isn’t done to ease rising shipping costs required for using the waterway linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Panama President José Raúl Mulino responded in a video that ‘every square meter of the canal belongs to Panama and will continue to,’ but Trump fired back on his social media site, ‘We’ll see about that!’
