Hello, it’s good to be back. I want to start this press conference, being our first press conference of 2025, by taking a moment—because it’s my first public opportunity to do so—to say that we join the world in mourning the loss of a great human being, the late Jimmy Carter.
He demonstrated through his life’s work and actions a consistent commitment to service, compassion, and caring for his fellow human beings. I don’t think any of us will forget the moment we first saw a retired former president and a former first lady take up 2x4s and hammers to build homes for the homeless.
Jimmy Carter continues to be an inspiration, and we will watch his state funeral, recognizing that while the world has lost a great human being, Heaven has gained someone who deserves their heavenly rest.
I am here today to talk about a different president—President-elect Trump. As the leader of the Green Party of Canada and as someone who is honored to be Canadian, I want to say that I deeply value the leadership of my fellow opposition party leaders, as well as the Prime Minister, who leads his party. Despite our political differences, we share one important thing—we are Canadians.
Now, we are facing an unprecedented situation. President-elect Trump has astonishingly decided that one of his first orders of business is Canada-bashing. This is unique. Looking back at previous U.S. presidents, I cannot think of a single one who believed that insulting their largest trading partner was a good way to start a relationship. But never mind—we must prepare.
Today is January 3rd, and in 17 days, he will be inaugurated. We have been promised an onslaught of punishments and abuses—maybe, maybe not. But as Canadians, we must ensure we protect our economy and our society. That is our job. What he does is up to him. Canada must stand together, remain firm, and negotiate from a position of strength.
The threats of 25% tariffs on everything, and the bizarre rhetoric about Canada, are deeply concerning. That a president-elect would suggest seizing parts of sovereign countries—taking back the Panama Canal or maybe buying Greenland—is not serious policymaking. Yet, we must take very seriously the fact that President-elect Donald Trump has Canada in his crosshairs.
Historically, Canada has been the U.S.’s biggest trading partner, a great ally, a good neighbor, and a true friend. That is what Canada has always been to the U.S., and what the U.S. has always been to us.
The tariff threats are real, but we have to negotiate from strength. That means, from the start, making it clear that we will not go it alone or cut out Mexico. If we are renegotiating trade agreements, we do so from a position of strength, backed by clear evidence.
Back in the 1988 election, I stood with John Turner in opposing the free trade deal with the U.S. because we feared Canada would be subsumed. However, as a country, we have since recognized that creating a North American economic trading unit with Canada, Mexico, and the United States has, for the most part, been to our mutual advantage.
If anything, Mexico got the worst of it, which is another reason we cannot cut them loose now. The government of Mexico, led by Claudia Sheinbaum, deserves our full support. Working together makes us stronger.
We know that isolationism and protectionism—though now central to Trump’s playbook—have never been Canadian strengths.
We believe in cooperation, multilateralism, and negotiating from strength. We will listen to President-elect Trump’s concerns, but we will also challenge falsehoods, such as the claim that our border is allowing fentanyl and criminals to pour into the United States.
We will present the evidence that proves otherwise. We do not need to cower; we need to point out that trade is not a zero-sum game.
The fact that the U.S. buys more from Canada than we buy from them does not mean they are “losing.” In reality, American consumers benefit from access to high-quality Canadian goods at competitive prices—especially given the current exchange rate. This is not mercantilism.
The trade rules developed through multilateral agreements have facilitated liberalized trade worldwide, from Canada-Europe deals to agreements with Asia and the broader North American region. These relationships matter.
Interestingly, a recent column in The Economist playfully suggested that Canada should join the European Union, given our shared values. Of course, geography dictates that we remain deeply tied to North America, and we will continue to negotiate from strength. The goods and resources we sell to the United States, such as Canadian potash for American agriculture, are essential to their economy. Some provincial leaders may try to freelance on trade policy—Doug Ford, for instance—but the reality is that we are not about to cut off U.S. energy supplies. We are trading partners, not combatants.
The interconnected nature of North American trade must be emphasized. Yet, as much as Donald Trump throws out wild ideas—mentioning the Panama Canal, Greenland, and other absurdities—it is time for Canadian leadership to push back. If Trump believes Canada should become the 51st state, the answer is a firm no.
Former Quebec Environment Minister Clifford Lincoln recently wrote an excellent letter to Trump in The Montreal Gazette, rejecting the idea that Canadians would be “happy little clams in a magnificent MAGA ocean.” News flash: Canada is not aspiring to be a 51st state. We are already a sovereign country and a proud nation.
Whenever global rankings highlight the best places to live, Canada consistently ranks in the top 10—often in the top half—while the U.S. does not make the list. Even U.S. News & World Report, when assessing factors like affordability, healthcare access, and safety, ranks Canada ahead.
Our Olympic athletes do not stand on the podium singing about being somewhere below Puerto Rico in global rankings. They proudly sing O Canada, standing on guard for our nation. So no matter how many photos Donald Trump posts of himself striding through Swiss mountains with a Canadian flag, we are not intimidated.
I read a lot, and I’ve come across people who know Trump’s business tactics. They say this is his approach—humiliation before negotiation.
I take offense at the notion that Canada should strive to be the 51st state. We are a G7 country, an independent, sovereign nation. We are multilateral, a proud member of the Commonwealth, and fully engaged on the world stage.
And I must say, I also take offense at Trump’s suggestion that Pierre Poilievre wasn’t good enough to lead the Conservatives. And Wayne Gretzky? Yes, he is The Great One, a legend in hockey. He skates to where the puck is going—but that puck is not headed toward MAGA. It’s on Canadian ice.
Mr. Trump, before making public pronouncements that Gretzky should run for prime minister, perhaps take a moment to familiarize yourself with how Canada’s government works. We have a Westminster parliamentary system and a constitutional monarchy. No one runs for prime minister the way they run for president.
We elect Members of Parliament, and our prime minister is chosen based on parliamentary representation. We do not handpick billionaires or celebrities to lead the country if they haven’t been elected. Our system is different from that of the United States, and if Mr. Trump needs a refresher, he might want to glance at his grandchild’s history book—perhaps at the year 1776—for some clarity on why our governments differ.
I don’t want to belittle Mr. Trump, but if he wants a deal, how about this? No, Canada does not want to be the 51st state. But maybe California would like to be our 11th province. How about it? California, Oregon, Washington—you share our geography, and you already participate in a carbon trading system with Quebec. There’s been academic discussion about Cascadia—a concept where the Pacific Northwest could form a stronger regional alliance.
Governor Gavin Newsom of California, Governor Jay Inslee of Washington, Governor Tina Kotek of Oregon—why not put it to a referendum? Here’s what you’d get:
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- Universal free healthcare. No more one-year-olds falling off the Medicaid rolls, forcing parents to launch GoFundMe campaigns to get their child medical care.
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- Gun safety. We already have strict gun laws, and as a result, we have significantly lower gun violence. Recent statistics show that in the U.S., 5.9 people per 100,000 die in fatal gun incidents. In Canada, that number is 0.88 per 100,000.
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- Protected reproductive rights. Under Canada’s universal healthcare system, women have the right to an abortion.
And why stop there? Mr. Trump, if you’re worried about Democratic strongholds, we could help. Maybe Vermont would like to join as well? We’d be happy to welcome Bernie Sanders as a proud new citizen of the great province of Vermont. New Hampshire? Maine? Our Maritime provinces already have deep cultural and economic ties with those states.
But enough joking around. The bottom line is this: President Trump, Canada is a sovereign nation—and it always will be.
Canadians don’t tend to boast. We’re not jingoistic, and we don’t bully. That’s something we share with the late Jimmy Carter. We believe in service, in cooperation, and in making the world better. We can always improve, but we love our country.
And make no mistake: Canada is a nation. It is not, and never will be, the 51st state. So let’s put an end to that notion—permanently. If it was meant as a joke, it was never funny.
It ends now.
Media Q&A:
Q: Thanks. So you’re saying that Canada needs a strong leader to push back on the next president’s musings. With the position the prime minister is in right now, do you think he’s capable of being that leader?
Sure, because we’re a country—we’re not, as I said before, a republic with a president. Our head of state is not our prime minister. Our head of state, actually—and a lot of Canadians will find it a continual anachronism—is King Charles III. We are not a country that relies solely on a prime minister for leadership.
We can pull together. We have 10 provinces, three territories, five different parties in Parliament, and of course, in the Bloc Québécois, Quebec as well. We are in this together to have a unified front, ensuring that the United States understands we are not looking to become the 51st state.
So, obviously, to your question—obviously, Justin Trudeau’s position is tenuous, but that doesn’t mean Canada’s position is tenuous.
Just picking up on that, over the holidays we saw growing calls for the prime minister to resign. You’ve served alongside him for quite some time. I’m wondering what your advice would be to him right now—do you think he should resign?
That’s a really important question. As leader of the Green Party of Canada, I’m not leaving. I’m not going anywhere. I’m going into the next election to win as many seats for Greens as possible.
I think the Prime Minister obviously has to consider his role as leader of the Liberal Party, but I do think that’s an internal question for Liberals, and that’s why I’m hesitant to weigh in on it. I’m not in his shoes.
That said, the resignation of Chrystia Freeland, and the circumstances under which she was dismissed from his cabinet right before the fall economic statement, call into question Justin Trudeau’s judgment.
That’s both an interpersonal matter and a leadership issue—how you treat your cabinet members, caucus members, and colleagues. But ultimately, it’s up to the Prime Minister as leader of the Liberal Party, and it’s up to the Liberal Party to decide.
I do think it’s important to note that the Reform Act, which I supported, was originally a private members’ bill by Michael Chong back in the days of Harper. The goal there was to reduce the power of the Prime Minister, and we’ve seen that power grow and grow. I think that’s a key question for Canadians, regardless of who’s in that office.
But the Liberal Party as a caucus rejected the chance they should have seized after the election to say, because it’s a caucus decision right after every election, under the Reform Act which amended the Parliament of Canada Act, every caucus has an opportunity to decide if they want their caucus to be able to do what is taken for granted in every other Commonwealth country: that the caucus of elected members of Parliament can remove a leader who is no longer their choice.
That’s how Margaret Thatcher was replaced with John Major. That’s how, in Australia, Rudd came back into power after Julia Gillard lost her support within the caucus. For some reason, we allowed ourselves to be Americanized to the extent that political parties choose their leaders and the caucus has a reduced role.
I certainly think Liberals should think about, at the end of the next election, supporting the Reform Act and adopting it. It’s ironic that only the Conservative Party chose to be the most respectful for grassroots democracy.
It goes without saying that within the Green Party, that’s the way our system works because we’re a grassroots party and the leader doesn’t have powers over MPs.
That’s why we don’t have whipped votes.
We’re a very different party. But for the others, you really ought to look at adopting the Reform Act so you don’t find yourself ever again in a situation where demonstrably the caucus is no longer supporting its leader and they don’t know what to do.
I believe earlier you mentioned that party leaders would need to come out and be more clear that Canada would never become a 51st state. I think P actually, before Christmas, had come out and said that.
But just regarding this press conference, earlier you mentioned talking about Canada negotiating from a position of strength, but then you referenced Doug Ford’s statement toward the United States and said that Ontario would never cut power to the United States.
Q: Is that compromising Canada’s bargaining position in a certain respect by saying that the things the premier is saying would happen as a consequence of tariffs won’t actually come to pass?
Look, we are in a situation right now where I think the premiers have stepped up. Chrystia Freeland’s resignation letter also highlighted this. The premiers have stepped up. I question how helpful it is for Danielle Smith to be currying favor at Mar-a-Lago. I question whether it’s—frankly, in terms of climate action, it would be a great idea to not send unprocessed goods to the United States.
We could improve our productivity enormously as a country if we didn’t send any raw resources as exports—raw logs, raw bitumen. We should be processing here first and only exporting value-added products. But that’s another whole conversation.
Doug Ford is famously Doug Ford, and if he’s going to freelance a bit, he gets the US’s attention, and most Canadians, I think, like it, but it’s not a real negotiation position.
And just, we’ve heard a lot of talk about a Team Canada approach, particularly from the federal government—holding conferences like this where party leaders are speaking directly to the Trump Administration as you’ve done here.
Can that not come off as a bit antagonistic toward the Trump Administration?
Oh, I hope so. I really do.
Q: So how does that help Canada’s bargaining position?
I don’t think Donald Trump is acting as a president-elect should act, given the importance of the trading relationship, the historic alliance, and the allyship of the United States and Canada through two world wars, shared struggles, and many imperfections.
It’s so out of keeping with the respect that one would give the office of President of the United States to see a president-elect decide to make jokes that are so disrespectful.
So, I think that, to the extent that Donald Trump notices anything the leader of the Green Party of Canada says, I’d be astonished.
But I’d also be pleased because I think a lot of Canadians want to hear someone say clearly and out loud, as I referenced a former minister of the environment from Quebec, whom I’m honored to say is an old friend, Clifford Lincoln. God bless Clifford for saying clearly in the Montreal Gazette, “Look, thanks Mr. Trump, but no thanks. We do not want to be the 51st state.”
More Canadian leaders need to stand up and say it really clearly. It’s not a funny joke. It’s not funny at all. We’re a sovereign nation, and maybe we should get Donald Trump some free tickets to go see Come From Away. We are a good neighbor and a good friend of the United States of America, and we always will be, no matter who’s rotating through the Oval Office.
But that doesn’t mean you can denigrate us and think that humiliation is a tactic for trade negotiations. Respect, mutual respect, evidence-based decision-making, and understanding the mutual benefits, the symbiotic relationship that our economies have when we function at our best—that’s in Canada’s interest, and it’s also in the United States’ interest.
Q: Would you want an election now, or as soon as possible, for a new mandate to deal with the Trump Administration?
I think not, because what happens with an election is that there is then only a caretaker role for whatever government is in place during the time that the Trump White House is forming. Obviously, we’re going to have an election sooner than later, but your question was “as soon as possible.”
I think we’re going to look at each confidence vote as it comes up, and as Greens, as I said, we don’t have whip votes, but we’ll discuss whatever confidence vote there is. Personally, I haven’t voted confidence in a Liberal budget since they bought the Trans Mountain pipeline. That’s another question altogether.
But the question of whether we function best as a country in dealing with a newly inaugurated President Trump if we’re in the midst of an election—probably not.
Q: Have there been other meetings with party leaders, like we saw last month, where the Prime Minister brought all the party leaders together to update them on the relationship with the United States?
No, we’ve had meetings like that, but they’re relatively rare. The last meeting I thought back to this because Candice Bergen was leading the Conservative Party the last time we’d had everybody all huddle together.
And last month, all the party leaders met in person. That’s the first time, and we haven’t had an update since. I hope we’ll do that again. I thought it was very productive.
Q: Have you conversed with the Minister on U.S. relations since that meeting, even one-on-one?
Trying to think back… Um, only no, not anything you could call a full conversation, but we do run into each other and suggest how we might do a better job, some Team Canada ideas, what we could do together to make it really clear to the United States that we are a solid and reliable trading partner and that multilateralism and an economic order with rules is in everybody’s interests.
Trump is an outlier in returning to positions that are essentially a mercantile view of the world—isolationism and protectionism. There have got to be people who are within earshot of Donald Trump to acquaint him with what benefits the U.S. has accrued, what benefits the world has accrued from reducing isolationism and protectionism, and moving toward multilateralism and an understood trading regime that has rules.
Q: Have you had any assurances from this government that they are looking to closely work with Mexico in the face of a new Trump Administration, or do you think they’re pivoting away from Mexico?
Everything I’ve heard from them suggests that they’re not pivoting away from Mexico. But I wanted to make it very clear, and I did in that meeting with the other leaders, that we have to support Mexico’s role because Mexico has a trade office in Canada. There’s an awful lot of Canadian goods, resources, farmers, and workers in Canada who also benefit from our trading relationship with Mexico.
I mentioned that Mexico probably got the worst of it out of NAFTA because of the hit on their agricultural economy, the loss of so many Mexican farmers who lost their farms due to corn dumping from the U.S. and all of that, and the maquiladora creation hurt Mexican labor standards and the Mexican environment.
At this point, especially with an incoming new Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, who needs a lot of support, Mexico’s society is in the throes of too much influence from organized crime and violence. Claudia Sheinbaum, if people don’t know, is a climate scientist and former mayor of Mexico City.
She brought in really important climate policies. She’s a strong ally on other issues too, and we need to make sure that we’re not cutting Mexico loose or throwing Mexico under Trump’s bus if Trump comes into office.
Q: If Trump drops a tariff that we’ve been hearing about for a while, what should Canada do next in reaction?
I think the playbook from the first Trump Administration is a good one to go to. We worked hard on U.S. allies where we knew we had them—governors from states that would be hurt and were hurt by increased tariffs on Canadian goods.
We worked hard to make the case and brought in some countervailing tariffs of our own that were targeted and sent the message clearly. We worked through it, and then we ended up with a renegotiated KUSMA that landed Canada in a better position than the first NAFTA.
And again, Chrystia Freeland’s experience there—heck, if you were a Canadian politician, nothing recommends you more strongly, I think, to the Canadian public than President-elect Donald Trump saying you’re toxic. Chrystia Freeland must have done a heck of a job as a negotiator for Trump to remember her so clearly.
I do think that’s, again, probably a game plan. What we talked about in that room was, who knows whom? Obviously, we’ve all got contacts within our different parties, through different relationships with different people who are in U.S. politics. Canadian politicians tend to know U.S. politicians. North America is bigger than Canada alone, but we do tend to know people who know people, and it’s important that we present a solid front.
Thank you. This concludes the press conference.