Canadian businessman and TV personality Kevin O’Leary has volunteered to lead the charge in making Canada the 51st state of the U.S., but many Canadians aren’t standing with him.
In a Fox News interview posted to his personal X account on Wednesday, O’Leary appeared to vouch for Canadians, suggesting that citizens are interested in joining forces with its southern neighbours.
“There’s 41 million Canadians sitting on the world’s largest amounts of all resources, including the most important, energy and water. Canadians over the holidays have been talking about this. They want to hear more,” O’Leary said on the broadcast.
“What this could be is the beginning of an economic union. Think about the power of combining the two economies and erasing the border between Canada and the United States,” he added.
His remarks come just weeks after Trump toyed with the idea during an intimate dinner meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Read More
The Shark Tank investor urged that Canadians don’t want Trudeau spearheading the deal, and instead offered to visit Mar-a-Lago himself, the Florida estate where U.S. president-elect Donald Trump resides, to “start the narrative.”
“I like this idea and at least half of Canadians are interested,” O’Leary said.
“The 41 million Canadians, I think most of them would trust me on this deal.”
Several Canadians have expressed otherwise, with many offended by O’Leary’s comments on social media.
“Canada is not yours to negotiate away,” one X user replied to his post.
“Uh, sorry dude, you’re misrepresenting the mood + public perception in [Canada], and no one is asking you to “start the narrative.” The only narrative is how unproductive and unpopular a 25% tariff on Canadian exports to the U.S. will be for our U.S. neighbours and Trump himself,” another user on X said.
“None of us want to be American,” another user wrote.
O’Leary’s post comes one day after Trump continued to provoke Trudeau, where he referred to the prime minister once again as a governor and insisted that there would be perks for Canadians if both countries came together.
Read More
“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,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Minutes later, the president-elect also wrote that he met with Canadian former professional hockey player Wayne Gretzsky. Trump said he urged Gretzky to run for the role of prime minister, a title which he says would soon be changed to “Governor of Canada.” Although the hockey icon apparently showed no interest in campaigning, Trump encouraged Canadians to launch a movement to motivate him to seek office.
“It would be so much fun to watch,” Trump added.
