Protesters brave wind chill to support Greenland

Protesters hold signs and Greenlandic flags in front of the U.S. consulate in Winnipeg on Jan. 31, 2026. (Harrison Shin/CTV News Winnipeg)

Winnipeggers stood up for Greenland on Saturday, braving wind chill to voice their opinions.

Protesters gathered in front of the U.S. consulate at 201 Portage Ave., voicing condemnation of what they described as U.S. President Donald Trump’s “aggression against Greenland.”

Candice Bodnaruk, a co‑organizer of the protest, pointed to the sign she was holding — reading “Trump: Hands Off Greenland” — to describe the general sentiment of fellow protesters.

“To back off, to stop threatening sovereign states, to stop threatening people’s livelihoods … and to follow international law,” Bodnaruk said.

She said Trump’s intention was to “own those resources.”

“He wants to make deals for those resources — all the minerals there,” she said.

“Those minerals are in great demand by tech companies that want to use them for their data centres — whether it be Amazon, Google or Facebook.

“They were looking at countries like Greenland, Canada and Venezuela — all these countries, those places where they can basically pillage, mine, drill for oil without any kind of acknowledgement or protections for the local population.”

In a Canadian context, Bodnaruk said that while Canadians may not see a military invasion by the U.S., the threat still exists in other ways.

“They are, as we’re seeing time and time again, trying to break our economy (and) our social programs. This Bombardier example — this recent example — is a perfect example,” she said.

With three years remaining in Trump’s administration, Bodnaruk said it was important not to stay on edge all the time.

“This is going to be a long fight ahead … we can’t just be panicking and not sleeping every time (Trump) makes an announcement,” she told CTV News. “It helps my mental health — and I think for a lot of other people too — to come out to community and groups that share ideas.”

Trump called for the U.S. to take over Greenland, a Danish territory, to counter threats from Russia and China. His calls were met with rejections from Greenland, Denmark and European allies.

On Wednesday, U.S. secretary of state Marco Rubio said the technical talks between U.S., Denmark and Greenland regarding Arctic security deal is in progress.

- With files from The Associated Press