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The House

Canadian politicians on Trump

We talk to Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr and the interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose (two of the many Canadian politicians in the American capital this week) to talk about the message Canada is trying to send to the new administration.
CBC Radio ·
President Donald Trump takes the oath of office from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20, 2017 in Washington, DC. In today's inauguration ceremony Donald J. Trump becomes the 45th president of the United States. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr in conversation with Chris Hall.

If you were looking for Canadian politicians this week, Washington, D.C., was a good place to look.

The House even ran into the new parliamentary secretary to the foreign affairs minister, Andrew Leslie, on the street. 

Several federal cabinet ministers were in town, whether it was foreign affairs minister Chrystia Freeland, defence minister Harjit Sajjan or natural resources minister Jim Carr.

The big contingent may be because president Donald Trump comes with some many unknowns.

The interim leader of the Conservative party, Rona Ambrose, came to Capitol Hill to make the case for Canada. (CBC)

"There's no track record in politics, so we can't rely on patterns within governance. So what we have to do is judge the administration by the actions that it take," Carr told The House.

"I think there's a willingness to find the sweet spot," he said in terms of finding common ground with the Trump White House.

"It's not going to be perfect, but we enter the relationship with a willingness and an open mind to find where Canadian interests and American interests coincide."

On Capitol Hill, Chris Hall bumped into another familiar face, who was armed with data about the Canda-U.S. economic relationship, interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose. 

"The government and everyone, whether it's MPs, premiers, mayors, legislators... I think it needs to be a full-court press to make sure that everyone here understands the importance of that relationship," she told The House.

"We're literally going into offices with sheets of paper that say on them: here's the statistics for your district, Senator, that says that there's $2.3 billion in goods that are exported from your district into Canada, there are 51 Canadian companies operating in your district, there are 128-thousand jobs to the Canada-U.S. trade market..." she said.

"I don't think they've seen these stats for a bit. So this is good." 

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