MONT-TREMBLANT, Quebec (AP) — A Quebec nationalist party said Tuesday it will work with other opposition parties in Canada's Parliament to topple Prime Minister Justin Trudeau' s minority government.
Trudeau’s Liberals have only 153 seats in the 338-seat House of Commons and must rely on an opposition party to pass legislation. With the parliamentary election approaching and Trudeau hoping for a fourth term, his party has been trailing the Conservatives in polls with Canadians feeling frustrated by the rising cost of living, coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet said Trudeau's “days are numbered” after the Liberals failed to meet his demand to boost old age security payments for seniors. However, the party will need the leftist New Democratic Party and the Conservatives — who are eager to force an election — to take down Trudeau’s Liberals.
The NDP has been supporting Trudeau's Liberals but their leader recently announced it would decide based on each proposed bill.
Trudeau said last week he will lea d his Liberal Party into the next federal election — which could come any time between this fall and October 2025 — dismissing a request by some members of his own party not to run again. The party recently suffered upsets in special elections in two districts in Toronto and Montreal that it has held for years, raising doubts about the prime minister's leadership.
The Conservatives have also been leading in the latest Nanos Research poll 39% to 26%, with the NDP following at 20%. The poll of 1,047 respondents has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, according to the Canadian public opinion and research company.
“The NDP does not want an election now because it fears struggling to retain the seats it currently holds," said Nelson Wiseman, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto. “The party’s upside is still limited. It is hoping that the unpopular Trudeau stays and that it overtakes his Liberals in the polls."
Trudeau channeled the star power of his father in 2015 when he reasserted the country’s liberal identity after almost 10 years of Conservative rule. But the son of late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau is now in trouble.
No Canadian prime minister has won four straight terms in over 100 years.
Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet listens to a reporter question in the House of Commons foyer Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024, in Ottawa. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP)
Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet speaks with reporters in the Foyer of the House of Commons, in Ottawa, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP)
Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet speaks with reporters in the House of Commons foyer Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024, in Ottawa. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP)
NUUK, Greenland (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump has turned the Arctic island of Greenland into a geopolitical hotspot with his demands to own it and suggestions that the U.S. could take it by force.
The island is a semiautonomous region of Denmark, and Denmark's foreign minister said Wednesday after a meeting at the White House that a “ fundamental disagreement ” remains with Trump over the island.
The crisis is dominating the lives of Greenlanders and "people are not sleeping, children are afraid, and it just fills everything these days. And we can’t really understand it,” Naaja Nathanielsen, a Greenlandic minister said at a meeting with lawmakers in Britain’s Parliament this week.
Here's a look at what Greenlanders have been saying:
Trump has dismissed Denmark’s defenses in Greenland, suggesting it’s “two dog sleds.”
By saying that, Trump is “undermining us as a people,” Mari Laursen told AP.
Laursen said she used to work on a fishing trawler but is now studying law. She approached AP to say she thought previous examples of cooperation between Greenlanders and Americans are “often overlooked when Trump talks about dog sleds.”
She said during World War II, Greenlandic hunters on their dog sleds worked in conjunction with the U.S. military to detect Nazi German forces on the island.
“The Arctic climate and environment is so different from maybe what they (Americans) are used to with the warships and helicopters and tanks. A dog sled is more efficient. It can go where no warship and helicopter can go,” Laursen said.
Trump has repeatedly claimed Russian and Chinese ships are swarming the seas around Greenland. Plenty of Greenlanders who spoke to AP dismissed that claim.
“I think he (Trump) should mind his own business,” said Lars Vintner, a heating engineer.
“What's he going to do with Greenland? He speaks of Russians and Chinese and everything in Greenlandic waters or in our country. We are only 57,000 people. The only Chinese I see is when I go to the fast food market. And every summer we go sailing and we go hunting and I never saw Russian or Chinese ships here in Greenland,” he said.
Down at Nuuk's small harbor, Gerth Josefsen spoke to AP as he attached small fish as bait to his lines. He said, “I don't see them (the ships)” and said he had only seen “a Russian fishing boat ten years ago.”
Maya Martinsen, 21, a shop worker, told AP she doesn't believe Trump wants Greenland to enhance America's security.
“I know it’s not national security. I think it’s for the oils and minerals that we have that are untouched,” she said, suggesting the Americans are treating her home like a “business trade.”
She said she thought it was good that American, Greenlandic and Danish officials met in the White House Wednesday and said she believes that “the Danish and Greenlandic people are mostly on the same side,” despite some Greenlanders wanting independence.
“It is nerve-wrecking, that the Americans aren’t changing their mind,” she said, adding that she welcomed the news that Denmark and its allies would be sending troops to Greenland because “it’s important that the people we work closest with, that they send support.”
Tuuta Mikaelsen, a 22-year-old student, told AP that she hopes the U.S. got the message from Danish and Greenlandic officials to “back off.”
She said she didn't want to join the United States because in Greenland “there are laws and stuff, and health insurance .. .we can go to the doctors and nurses ... we don’t have to pay anything,” she said adding "I don’t want the U.S. to take that away from us.”
In Greenland's parliament, Juno Berthelsen, MP for the Naleraq opposition party that campaigns for independence in the Greenlandic parliament told AP that he has done multiple media interviews every day for the last two weeks.
When asked by AP what he would say to Trump and Vice President JD Vance if he had the chance, Berthelsen said:
“I would tell them, of course, that — as we’ve seen — a lot of Republicans as well as Democrats are not in favor of having such an aggressive rhetoric and talk about military intervention, invasion. So we would tell them to move beyond that and continue this diplomatic dialogue and making sure that the Greenlandic people are the ones who are at the very center of this conversation.”
“It is our country,” he said. “Greenland belongs to the Greenlandic people.”
Kwiyeon Ha and Evgeniy Maloletka contributed to this report.
FILE - A woman pushes a stroller with her children in Nuuk, Greenland, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)
Military vessel HDMS Knud Rasmussen of the Royal Danish Navy patrols near Nuuk, Greenland, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Juno Berthelsen, MP for the Naleraq opposition party that campaigns for independence in the Greenlandic parliament poses for photo at his office in Nuuk, Greenland, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Fisherman Gerth Josefsen prepares fishing lines at the harbour of Nuuk, Greenland, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A woman walks on a street past a Greenlandic national flag in Nuuk, Greenland, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
