Wayne Gretzky has drawn the ire of a Canadian politician for his strong connection to incoming US President Donald Trump.
The NHL legend has supported Trump over the last election cycle, attending his Mar-a-Lago residence during his victory celebration late last year. Since then, Trump has made repeated remarks urging Canada to become the 51st US state and has even called on Gretzky to make a bid for the prime minister’s position.
This has rubbed some Canadians the wrong way, with Timmins NDP MP Charlie Angus having some strong words for The Great One in a recent podcast episode of Toronto Mike’d.
“When Donald Trump announced that he wanted to run Wayne Gretzky as this puppet candidate, I thought that’s what [Russian President Vladimir] Putin does,” Angus said on the podcast. “This isn’t what you do in a democracy and Wayne Gretzky should be ashamed of himself, absolutely ashamed of himself.
“Don’t bother coming back to Canada if you’re even willing to consider being a puppet candidate… Wayne, you failed us.”
Angus is one of the longest-tenured MPs in Canada, having first been elected to the position back in 2004 and re-elected in the six federal elections since. Multiple other politicians around the country have also come out against Trump’s comments about making Canada a US state, including former conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Gretzky has yet to comment publicly on Trump’s insistence that he run, with the only response coming from that same social media post, in which the president said that the legendary hockey player “had no interest” in doing so.
The next Canadian federal election is slated to happen at some point this year, but it doesn’t seem likely that Gretzky would have a chance to run for any of the major parties even if he wanted to. Both the Conservatives and the NDP have leaders in place for the upcoming election. While the Liberals will be finding a replacement for current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Gretzky’s closeness with Trump seems to rule them out as a possibility.