I am starting to like former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper

[Brent]

Like all conservatards, Harper is a supporter of mass immigration. But, lately he has been rethinking that. Trudeau took up the open borders several notches from Harper.

This is what he had to say about the current state of immigration in Canada.

It took former prime minister Stephen Harper to say what many Canadians are thinking these days about the war in the Mideast — and the response to it in Canada — that our current political leaders lack the moral courage to say.

First, that the hate-filled demonstrations against Jews that have been going on for more than a year across Canada are in part the result of failed immigration policies that indiscriminately allowed Jew haters and others whose beliefs are antithetical to Canadian values to immigrate to our country.

"We must stop cultivating Jihadists, antisemites, Khalistanis, Tamil Tigers and other divisive groups," Harper said last week in Toronto at a gala event organized by The Abraham Global Peace Initiative, where he was given the Defender of Israel Award, as reported by the National Post.

"When it comes to our immigration system, we are going to have to ask ourselves some hard questions about how we screen people.

"We cannot start imposing age-old hatreds onto our streets. We need to do something about this — we cannot let it continue."

[Thiel]

Harper was a remarkably pragmatic leader. He was like a John Turner or Paul Martin Liberal. Trudeau is the most ideological uncompromising leader of any developed country.

[Brent]

Harper was a remarkably pragmatic leader. He was like a John Turner or Paul Martin Liberal. Trudeau is the most ideological uncompromising leader of any developed country.

Any former pm looks good compared to what we have now.

[Brent]

Trump's cabinet really hates Trudeau.

U.S. administrations usually don't have strong opinions about Canada. Not this time
Whenever the United States has picked a new president, the new administration could usually be relied upon not to have any strong opinions about Canada.
When Ronald Reagan was inaugurated in 1981, he represented a strain of hawkish, free market conservatism that was the ideological antithesis of the Canadian leader, Pierre Trudeau. Nevertheless — at least at first — the two got along great. "Went to Parliament hill to meet P.M. Trudeau. Discovered I liked him," wrote Reagan in his diary during a 1981 state visit to Ottawa.
That is not decidedly not the case with the incoming administration of Donald Trump. As Trump fills out his cabinet, it's becoming clear that his appointees have vocal opinions on Canadian politics — and see the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as the emblem of everything they oppose.
When the new administration takes office on Jan. 20, 2025, it could well represent the first time that a White House has been filled with staffers who not only know the name of the Canadian prime minister, but don't like him. 
Below, a cursory summary of Trump picks and their not-tremendously sunny views of the Trudeau government.

J.D. Vance, vice president:
One of Vance's best friends is a Canadian — and a member of the House of Commons, no less. Conservative MP Jamil Jivani met Vance at Yale Law School, where they bonded over similarly chaotic upbringings. As a Senator for Ohio, which has extremely strong trade links with Canada, Vance was also a regular at Canada's Washington, D.C., embassy.
But Vance's speech at the Republican National Convention contained a warning seemingly tailor-made for Canada on the issue of defence. "Together, we will make sure that our allies share in the burden of securing world peace. There will be no more free rides for nations that betray the generosity of the American taxpayer," he said.
Vance could have been mentioning any number of countries that have gotten complacent under the U.S. security umbrella, but that's particularly true of Canada. Canada has been one of the only outliers in a global rearming push spurred by the war in Ukraine, and it was only a few months ago that a bipartisan coalition of 23 U.S. senators wrote Ottawa to demand that it stop skimping on its NATO commitments.

Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence:
A former Hawaii congresswoman who left the Democratic Party in 2022, Gabbard released a viral video in 2023 calling out Trudeau as the symbol of an illiberal tide overtaking both Canada and the United States.
Calling the Canadian leader "anti-freedom" and "anti-democracy," Gabbard highlighted a statement made by Trudeau at the 2022 Emergencies Act inquiry in which he said it was unacceptable to use "protests to demand changes to public policy."
"This statement by prime minister Justin Trudeau is very revealing about what democracy means to him, and frankly how democracy in his mind does not include free speech," said Gabbard in the video, which has been viewed more than 400,000 times.

Tom Homan, 'border czar':
Homan is the one name on this list most likely to pursue action that will have a direct impact on Canada. Although it's the U.S./Mexico border that has served as the conduit for more than 7 million illegal entries over the past four years, the number of illegal border crossings from Canada is also at all-time highs.
In just the last 12 months, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has recorded nearly 200,000 "encounters" of people illegally entering the U.S. from Canada. This is compared to just 30,000 encounters recorded as recently as 2021.
It was an interview that Homan gave with a local news outlet in New York State that has already been cited by Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. In it, Homan calls the northern border an "extreme national security vulnerability" and says a Trump administration will need to put pressure on the Trudeau government "to enforce whatever immigration laws you have."
In February, Homan gave his more candid view of Trudeau in an interview with True North correspondent Harrison Faulkner.
After a lengthy pause, he said, "You need to find a better man. He's terrible."

Marco Rubio, secretary of state:
A Florida Senator since 2011, Rubio hasn't been quite as exuberant in criticizing the Trudeau government as some of the other names on this list. But in recent months, whenever Rubio's senatorial duties have publicly involved Canada, it's usually been to flag his northern neighbour as a security risk.
In August, Rubio put his name to a letter demanding that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas do more to secure the northern border against the entry of suspected terrorists, making special mention of a new Canadian visa program bringing in thousands of Gazans. "The possibility of terrorists crossing the U.S.-Canada border is deeply concerning given the deep penetration of Gazan society by Hamas," it read.
In September, Rubio was among several U.S. lawmakers who penned a letter to Trade Minister Mary Ng urging Canada to stop importing so many goods manufactured by slaves. Specifically, the letter said Canada was doing little to screen for Chinese imports made with Uyghur forced labour.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., secretary of health and human services:
Another import from the Democrats, Kennedy has a weakness for conspiracy theories and this has paired quite comfortably with his framing of the Canadian federal government as a bastion of creeping autocracy.
Kennedy was an early supporter of Freedom Convoy, posting "go truckers!" to his X.com account even before the anti-mandate protest had arrived in Ottawa.
When Kennedy kicked off his run for the presidency in 2023, one of his first statements was a lengthy essay referencing the Trudeau government's use of the Emergencies Act to freeze the bank accounts of Freedom Convoy organizers.
Wrote Kennedy, "it's not outlandish to imagine that even here in America, your bank account could one day be frozen because of your politics, or comments you've made on social media."

Mike Waltz, national security advisor:
Waltz, a former Florida congressman, will enter the White House having already endorsed Trudeau's likely replacement.
 
"This guy is going to send Trudeau packing in 2025 (finally) and start digging Canada out of the progressive mess it's in," Waltz wrote of Poilievre on X.com in May.

The only other time Waltz appears to have weighed in publicly on Canadian politics was in 2021, when he praised the House of Commons for recognizing China's Uyghur genocide, but said it was "shameful Justin Trudeau abstained from the vote."