Canada is trying to win the hearts and minds of Americans with an ad campaign against U.S. tariffs targeting 12 Republican-voting states.
Speaking on CNN Friday morning, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said the federal government paid for ads on digital billboards along key highways in red states — states where the majority voted for President Donald Trump — including Florida, Nevada, Georgia, New Hampshire, Michigan and Ohio.
“Canadians are sending the message that there’s no winners in a trade war. There will be job losses on both sides of the border, particularly in the U.S.,” Joly said in an interview with CNN’s Pamela Brown.
The government also launched a television ad campaign at home. It is voiced in English by Rick Mercer and in French by Remi-Pierre Paquin with music by Vancouver rock duo Japandroids.
The ad, which has been posted to the federal government’s social media accounts, features footage from across the country as well as archival video of hockey games and key moments in Canadian history.
“Canada, it’s time for more us,” the ad begins. “We’re more than just a place on a map. We’re an attitude — one with more empathy than ego.”
“The more we choose to stand up as our most flag-flying, maple-leaf-buying, local adventuring selves, the more we are the True North, unbreakable, strong and free,” Mercer can be heard saying.
It’s time to <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/ChooseCanada?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#ChooseCanada</a>. 🇨🇦<a href=”https://t.co/QpzS8MNI13″>https://t.co/QpzS8MNI13</a> <a href=”https://t.co/TmYyKTvtrZ”>pic.twitter.com/TmYyKTvtrZ</a>
—@Canada
CBC News did not immediately hear back to a request to know how much the government is spending on the ads. They come only days before Prime Minister Mark Carney is expected to ask the Governor General to dissolve Parliament and call a federal election.
The federal Conservative Party launched an attack ad against Carney on X Thursday.
On CNN, Joly said Ottawa was turning to “hard-working” Americans to pressure their lawmakers to remove U.S. tariffs already in place on steel and aluminum and prevent the wide-ranging tariffs planned for April 2.
This winter, following Trump’s initial tariff threats citing border security and illegal fentanyl, the Canadian government pulled out all the stops to increase the RCMP and Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) presence along the border. Joly said it’s clear that didn’t work.
“We saw that all the work we were doing in good faith was not necessarily having an impact on President Trump himself,” the she said.
Brown asked Joly to react to Trump’s annexation threats, most recently made in an interview with Fox’s Laura Ingraham this week, when the president said Canada was “meant to be the 51st state” and called it “one of the nastiest countries to deal with.”
“Americans and Canadians are best friends, are best neighbours, best allies. We never started this trade war,” Joly responded.
A day after U.S. President Donald Trump again called for Canada to become the 51st state, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly wrapped the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting in Quebec by telling U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio: ‘Canada’s sovereignty is not up to debate, period.’
Joly said “the rhetoric coming out of the White House is — how can I say — absurd,” and added that Canada was beginning to turn to other allies in Europe and the United Kingdom for trade and defence. Earlier this week, Joly confirmed to CBC’s Power and Politics host David Cochrane that Canada was in talks with the European Union to be part of a new defence production partnership.
Canada has already retaliated with a 25 per cent tariff on nearly $60 billion worth of U.S. goods, and is threatening more counter-tariffs if Trump follows through on his plans to tax more imports on April 2.
Joly said she has been in touch with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who she met at the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting in La Malbaie, Que., last week.
