At a press briefing on Friday, Canadian PM Mark Carney was asked about an upcoming meeting with President Trump.
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00:00For me to try and squeeze some more reporters in, but to my colleague's point, the White House's public position has continued to be that Canada should be the 51st state.
00:07You yourself have said that Donald Trump is trying to break Canada.
00:11Considering all that, how can you expect good-faith negotiations when you travel to Washington next week?
00:15Look, I think the – first, I've had the direct conversation with him on whatever day it was, Tuesday, I guess it was, a couple of days ago,
00:25and we agreed to have those negotiations. Very clear discussion between us, as I said, very constructive.
00:32And I would say the time allocated to our meeting and the seniority of the – I mean, he's the president, so that's as senior as you get,
00:39but the other members of his administration who will be assisting at those meetings suggest the seriousness of the discussions.
00:47Again, we are not – do not expect white smoke out of that meeting.
00:52There will be white smoke probably later somewhere else in the world this month, but do not expect that.
00:58So that's the first thing, is just the level of – you know, the direct dialogue, the discussion, the level of people there.
01:06The second point – I'll make it quickly, and thank you for restricting the question so others can get in –
01:11is that he respects, as others who are good negotiators, and he's one of the best negotiators, they respect strength.
01:21That's why we're building Canada strong. There's lots of reasons to build Canada strong.
01:25But the point is – and I will make this point repeatedly – we have more than enough to do here at home.
01:30That point about we can give ourselves more than the Americans can take away is absolutely right.
01:36We can have a bigger boost to our economy, to incomes, to jobs, by focusing on building one Canadian economy,
01:44by building these nation-building projects, by focusing on getting productivity up,
01:48by reducing government waste, by driving investment in this country.
01:52And so that is a good in and of itself. We're going to focus on that while we have these negotiations with the Americans.
01:59And if the negotiations with the Americans take longer, so be it.
02:04We've got more than enough to do here.
02:07Kyle Duggan, the Canadian Press.