‘Give your head a shake!’: Canada’s former leader tells Donald Trump

Jean Chretien, who was Canada's Prime Minister from 1993 to 2003, joined a chorus of officials from the northern US neighbour who say Trump's remarks are no longer a joke and may undermine America's closest ally.

Vancouver: President-elect Donald Trump’s remarks that Canada should become the 51st State drew condemnation and a patriotic outburst on Saturday from a former Canadian Prime Minister who offered blunt advice to the incoming US leader – “Give your head a shake!”

Jean Chretien, who was Canada’s Prime Minister from 1993 to 2003, joined a chorus of officials from the northern US neighbour who say Trump’s remarks are no longer a joke and may undermine America’s closest ally.

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Canada would never agree to become part of the US, Chretien wrote in an article published in The Globe and Mail newspaper, celebrating his 91st birthday.

He extolled his nation’s love of independence and said Trump’s remarks amounted to “totally unacceptable insults and unprecedented threats” to Canadian sovereignty.

“To Donald Trump, from one old guy to another, give your head a shake!” Chretien said. “What could make you think that Canadians would ever give up the best country in the world — and make no mistake that is what we are — to join the United States?” Trump has tossed expansionist rhetoric not just at Canada but also at other US allies, with arguments that the frontiers of American power need to be extended to the Danish territory of Greenland, and southward to include the Panama Canal.

And while many European leaders have been measured in their response, Canadians have not held back.

“If you think that threatening and insulting us is going to win us over, you really don’t know a thing about us,” Chretien wrote in the article. “We may look easy-going, mild-mannered. But make no mistake, we have spine and toughness.”

The US imports approximately 60 per cent of its crude oil from Canada, which is also the top export destination for 36 US states. Nearly USD 2.7 billion worth of goods and services cross the border each day.