OTTAWA, June 11 (Xinhua) -- Canada's House of Commons Monday condemned the personal attacks on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau by U.S. President Donald Trump and his surrogates.
The House of Commons unanimously supported to a motion presented by New Democratic Pary (NDP) MP Tracey Ramsey, condemning the U.S. actions given the "longstanding, mutually-beneficial trading relationship."
All lawmakers gave a standing ovation for the government's response to the Trump administration's verbal attacks on Trudeau.
The motion offers a collective parliamentary backing of the Canadian steel, aluminum, and supply management sectors and support for the Canadian government's retaliatory tariffs.
It says that MPs "reject disparaging ad-hominem statements by U.S. officials, which do a disservice to bilateral relations and work against efforts to resolve this trade dispute."
Ottawa has announced dollar-for-dollar retaliation on the U.S. imposition of steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada. These countermeasures amount up to 16.6 billion Canadian dollars (about 12 billion U.S. dollars) in imports of steel, aluminum, and other products from the Unites States, and are set to come into effect on July 1 this year.
The U.S condemnation stems from Trudeau's assertion that Canadians "are polite, we're reasonable, but we also will not be pushed around," a point he had made several times before.
He made this comment at the end of the G7 summit during a news conference on Saturday. Not long after Trump issued two tweets calling Trudeau "very dishonest & weak."
The Canadian lawmakers' solidarity came a day after White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said: "There is a special place in hell" for Trudeau for his "bad faith diplomacy" with Trump, as a dispute over trade escalated.
Trudeau kept silence after the personal attacks. It came in sharp contrast to a roar of disapproval among Canadian politicians, who banded together across party lines to denounce Trump's attack and praise the bilateral and trading relationship between the two neighbors.
While the agreement of MPs who are normally opposed on most fronts was remarkable, the anger spread to pundits, officials, celebrities and ordinary citizens as Canadians vowed consumer boycotts of American goods and brainstormed insults of Trump on social media.
