Canadian lawmaker Charlie Angus on Saturday bashed “Shark Tank” investor Kevin O’Leary after he claimed he’d meet with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to help broker a deal to create an “economic union” between the United States and Canada.
“As Mar-a-Lago moves to Washington, we’re watching a grifters parade,” said Angus, a member of the left-leaning New Democratic Party who serves in the Canadian Parliament, in an interview with Ben Meiselas of the MeidasTouch Network.
“We’ve got loser billionaires like Kevin O’Leary coming down to talk to Trump and saying he’s going to cut a deal to sell out Canada. We’ve got losers on Fox talking about taking over, making us the 51st state. We all know what that’s about — this is all about diversion.”
Angus said Trump is coming into office and bringing “maximum chaos and havoc” to Americans so he’s looking for a “punching bag.”
“And there’s these nice, quiet Canadian neighbors that they’re threatening to take over…,” said Angus, who urged Canadian politicians to “stand up to the bully” in Trump in a recent op-ed for Canada’s National Observer.
“But the thing is, Donald, it’s not going to work and what you’re doing is you’re creating chaos for your own people.”
Angus has sharply criticized Trump’s “deranged” attacks on his country including his threats to impose a 25% tariff on all goods entering the U.S. from Canada, him mocking Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a “governor” and speculating what life would be like if Canada became “our 51st state.”
O’Leary, a native Canadian who is among businessmen that have cozied up to Trump since his election win, baselessly claimed in a Fox Business appearance last month that at least half of Canadians are “interested” in an economic union for the two countries and “erasing” the border between them.
Just 6% of Canadians indicated that the country should join the U.S. in a survey published last month by the Angus Reid Institute, a not-for-profit public opinion research group in Canada.
In other appearances on the network, O’Leary emphasized that Canadians don’t want to give up their sovereignty but such a deal could include a common joint currency, “a couple” seats on the Federal Reserve Board for Canadian bankers and an “EU-like passport” for the two countries.
O’Leary added that nobody wants Trudeau to help negotiate a deal between the countries so he wants to go to Mar-a-Lago himself to help get it done.
“I’ll start the narrative. The 41 million Canadians, I think most of them will trust me on this deal,” O’Leary said.
He told the network Friday that Trudeau and other Canadian officials who Trump recently met at Mar-a-Lago are about to be “wiped off the face of the map” in that country’s November election and suggested that the U.S. President-elect should “wait” on moving forward with his ideas.
Angus, in his interview with Meiselas, invited O’Leary to “go to the states.”
“We’ll wrap you up in ribbons and bows and we’ll call it even because the guy’s a grifter,” he said.
Check out more of Angus’ interview on the MeidasTouch Network below.