A man who poses for photos for tips, dressed up as Mickey Mouse in a Santa costume waves to passers by as he is reflected in a window in Times Square in New York December 12, 2013.

Santa Claus is a Canadian, claimed Canadian Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau on Wednesday. He was talking in reference to Canada's territorial claim on the North Pole. Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister Paul Calandra complained that opposition MPs were not keen on protecting the Canadian nationality of Santa Claus. Mr Trudeau insisted that the claim should be based on scientific evidence.

Mr Trudeau later gave an interview to CBC News Network's Power & Politics hosted by Evan Solomon, where he said that the cartographers should speak about the issue on Canada's claim on the North Pole. The scientific experts should decide it for the country. It is not enough if Prime Minister Stephen Harper feels that the North Pole belongs to Canada, he said. On the other hand, he claimed that everyone was aware that Santa Claus was Canadian.

Jen Psaki, the spokesperson of the U.S. State Department, has rejected the claim that Santa Claus is Canadian. The reporter asked him if he thought Santa was a 'U.S. citizen', to which Mr Psaki replied that Santa was a woman. He has also said that Santa is 'a citizen of the world'. 'She' will find you everywhere, he said. The reporter further enquired if the U.S. had issued a visa to Santa. Mr Psaki humorously replied that Santa was waived of the visa requirement in the U.S. Santa can go to every house in the U.S. and so is the case everywhere else in the world, he said. The reporter promptly commented 'except in China'.

Mr Psaki, on the other hand, refused to say anything about Canada's claim about owning the North Pole. He justified his silence saying that Canada had just placed some preliminary information about the claim to the UN Commission.