Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday addressed Vice President Harris’s loss in the 2024 presidential election, calling it a setback for gender representation in politics, during a gala promoting women in politics.
“We were supposed to be on a steady, if difficult sometimes, march towards progress,” Trudeau said during a gala for a Canadian group focused “on improving gender representation in Canadian politics,” in a clip highlighted by Mediaite.
“And yet, just a few weeks ago, the United States voted for a second time to not elect its first woman president,” he added.
The comment comes as his relationship with Harris’s opponent, President-elect Trump, is coming into focus, with the two meeting late last month at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
On Tuesday morning, Trump mocked Trudeau as the “governor” of the “Great State of Canada” in a Truth Social post, a “joke” that some Canadian politicians didn’t find amusing.
“It was a pleasure to have dinner the other night with Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “I look forward to seeing the Governor again soon so that we may continue our in depth talks on Tariffs and Trade, the results of which will be truly spectacular for all! DJT.”
The president-elect has threatened to put 25 percent tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods, as well as even higher tariffs on China. Leaders of those countries have warned of retaliatory economic measures should he follow through.
Harris in November became the second female Democratic nominee in eight years to lose the presidency to Trump, after becoming the first-ever female vice president.
“Everywhere, women’s rights and women’s progress is under attack, overtly and subtly, but I want you to know that I am and always will be a proud feminist,” Trudeau said during the Tuesday gala. “You will always have an ally in me and in my government.”
Trump initially called his meeting with Trudeau “productive,” saying in a Truth Social post they discussed “many important topics that will require both Countries to work together to address, like the Fentanyl and Drug Crisis that has decimated so many lives as a result of Illegal Immigration, Fair Trade Deals that do not jeopardize American Workers, and the massive Trade Deficit the U.S. has with Canada.”
