Ottawa “shares” Donald Trump’s concerns about the flow of irregular migrants and illegal drugs across the world’s largest undefended border, Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc said Tuesday, promising Canada will commit more personnel and equipment for border security before the president-elect’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
“There will be additional resources, both human and equipment. We’ve said that consistently,” LeBlanc told a House of Commons committee Tuesday morning.
“We will be making announcements in terms of procurement and personnel before that date. We are finalizing that as a government now based on the advice we received, the good advice from the RCMP and from the border services agency.”
“I understand it’s exciting and Canadians want to understand it, (but) the good news is it’s coming,” LeBlanc added.
Trump has threatened to slap a 25-per cent tariff on all goods entering the U.S. from Canada and Mexico until he’s satisfied with those countries’ efforts to address his border security concerns.
While those tariffs would be devastating to the Canadian economy, they would also significantly drive up the cost of goods for American citizens. Canada and the U.S. are each other’s largest trading partners, according to the federal government, with roughly $3.6 billion worth of goods crossing the border each day in 2023.
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The tariffs would also jeopardize U.S. energy security. According to the U.S., Canadian exports of crude oil reached a record of 4.3 million barrels per day crossing the 49th parallel last July.
But the president-elect has signaled to the world that he’s ready to risk economic pain — both domestically and abroad — unless countries accede to his demands.
LeBlanc was one of a small Canadian delegation that visited Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort Friday night, along with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his chief of staff, Katie Telford.
The public safety minister told reporters before committee that the meeting was a social one, but included a conversation on trade and border security that he thought was “very productive.”
Much Canadian media coverage has been devoted to a quip from Trump that if Canada is so dependent on American trade, the country should become the 51st state. But LeBlanc said Trump was simply “teasing” the Canadian delegation.
“The president was telling jokes … It was, of course, on that issue, in no way a serious comment,” LeBlanc said.
Gerald Butts, Trudeau’s former principal secretary who was deeply involved in Canada’s response to Trump’s first term between 2016 and 2019, said Trump had made similar comments repeatedly to Trudeau before.
“Trump used this 51st State line all the time with Trudeau in his first term. He’s doing it to rattle Canadian cages,” Butts wrote on the social media platform BlueSky.
“When someone wants you to freak out, don’t.”
Trudeau and the federal Liberals have been under pressure domestically to present a detailed plan on how they plan to address the president-elect’s immediate concerns — and avoid devastating tariffs — but also how Canada will navigate a second term with an emboldened Trump administration.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre suggested Trudeau was responsible for “breaking” the border. Poilievre — who is odds on favourite to become prime minister in next year’s general election, and would be tasked with dealing with the Trump administration — suggested Canada should put a cap on asylum claims, as well as increased enforcement to address drug trafficking.
“The reality is that Trudeau has lost control of the deficit, of immigration and of our border,” Poilievre charged.
The total number of asylum claims processed by the federal government rose from 16,050 in 2015 — the last year the Conservatives were in power under Prime Minister Stephen Harper — to 143,360 in 2023, the last full year for which data is available.
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