OTTAWA — Liberal Leader Mark Carney is admitting that U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated his threat to annex Canada to the United States during their call on March 28 despite claiming publicly at the time that Trump “respected Canada’s sovereignty.”

Carney first made the admission on Thursday after Radio-Canada reported that

Trump brought up the idea of making Canada the 51st state

during their exchange last month.

It seemingly contradicted what Carney stated publicly at the time, which was that Trump “respected Canada’s sovereignty” in his public and private comments. That was widely reported and seen as a first step in repairing the relationship between both countries.

“To be clear, as I’ve said to anyone who’s raised this issue in private or in public, including the President, it will never happen,” said Carney in Coquitlam, British Columbia, about Trump’s threat to annex Canada by economic force.

Carney reiterated they had a “constructive” discussion and said they both agreed to begin comprehensive negotiations about a new economic and security relationship between Canada and the U.S. “as sovereign nations” immediately following the federal election.

During the media availability, Carney seemed irritated by the reporters’ repeated questions on why he never mentioned Trump’s mention of the 51st state after his call with him.

“Look, the president says lots of things, but the essence of the discussion and where we moved the conversation to was exactly what I said,” he said.

“We talked about lots of things, okay? And what’s important is the conclusions of the call, the results of the call, and those are exactly the same on the American side and the Canadian side… And those were that it was very constructive,” he added.

Trump had indeed struck a seemingly more respectful tone in his read-out of his call with Carney last month and dialed back his talk of Canada becoming the 51st state. He has also not called Carney the “governor” of Canada, as he usually did with Justin Trudeau.

Last week, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt denied there was a change of stance on the annexation of Canada and said Trump still “believes that Canadians would benefit greatly from becoming the 51st state of the United States of America.”

On Wednesday, Trump

inserted himself into Canada’s federal election

during a signing ceremony inside the Oval Office, saying Canada “would cease to exist as a country” if the U.S. stopped buying its goods and that Canada “as a state, it works great.”

“He has these things in his mind. This is not news,” said Carney. “He raises it all the time. But then the question is, what’s going to be done with it? And does he understand where we stand? More particularly, where do I stand? He is under no illusions.”

Other party leaders chastised Carney for not being entirely truthful on March 28.

“I think what we’ve learned from this phone call with Donald Trump is that Mr. Carney was not being straight up with Canadians,” said NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh.

Singh wondered what else Carney would not disclose if he were elected at the head of a majority government: “If he’s not going to tell us about a phone call, what about the details of the negotiations? And what about what he’s willing to trade away?”

Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet accused Carney of “manipulating” the truth with “little precaution” to give the impression that he is a strong negotiator.

Blanchet was asked if it may have been a deliberate strategy to remind Canadians of Trump’s threat at a time where

Liberal sources are claiming polls might be tighter than anticipated

in key battlegrounds like in Quebec which could cost them their majority.

“I’m not their strategist, I’m not imagining wild conspiracies, but I can imagine that it serves them,” said Blanchet.

“Liberals are (juggling) between pretending that Mr. Carney has extinguished the threat (of Trump annexing Canada) and regularly resurrecting that threat because fear has been their main argument at the start of the Liberal campaign,” he added.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre opted to remain prudent in his comments about the call.

“I wasn’t there. But what’s clear is that we will stand up for our sovereignty, we will never be an American state, and we will focus on what we can control, which is to reverse the disastrous Liberal economic policies that Mark Carney advised Justin Trudeau to take.”

Carney said that Trump reiterating his threat of annexation is underscoring in his opinion just how important the choice facing Canadians on Monday.

“Who can stand up to President Trump, who can build Canada strong, who has the experience in order to do that? That’s the crucial choice that Canadians need to make.”

With files from the Associated Press. 

National Post

calevesque@postmedia.com

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