Canadian Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau smiles at the end of a press conference | AFP/Getty Baltics tell Trudeau: ‘We are a thing’ New Canadian prime minister offended three EU countries in TV interview.

New Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's comment that the Baltic nations are "not a thing" has been met with incredulity in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Trudeau, who took office in November, was being asked a series of rapid-fire questions by Canada's Maclean's Magazine on Wednesday when he made the gaffe. After being asked the name of his first pet and if he preferred Nova Scotia or British Columbia — "no chance I'm answering that" — he was asked "What is your favorite Baltic nation?" to which he replied, “That’s not a thing.”

“Everyone was quite shocked,” Antanas Guoga, a Lithuanian member of the European Parliament, told POLITICO. He invited Trudeau "to play some poker with me and to learn that Baltics are a thing." Guoga is a professional poker player.

Guoga and fellow liberal members of the European Parliament from the Baltics have released a Christmas-themed video addressed to Trudeau.

In the video Lithuanian MEP Petras Auštrevičius invited Trudeau to watch the Toronto Raptors basketball team, who count among their players Lithuanian Jonas Valančiūnas.

Estonia's newspaper Aripaev said “it remains unclear whether he [Trudeau] doesn’t consider the Baltic countries as important or if he just does not know what they are.”

Trudeau has said he is well aware of the Baltics, as he used to date someone from the region, but he did not want to offend anyone by mentioning a specific country.