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(Bloomberg) — Canada is trading its usual restraint for American-style boldness in an effort to prove to US President Donald Trump that it’s serious about strengthening the border as it tries to avert tariffs. 

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Soft language is out. Photos and videos of police, border agents and helicopters are in. Official communications now evoke strength and power through phrases like “strike force,” “Operation Blizzard” and “fentanyl czar.” 

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has amped up his rhetoric about drug trafficking. “The scourge of fentanyl must be wiped from the face of the Earth, its production must be shut down, and its profiteers must be punished,” he said on Feb. 11. The word “scourge” is also one favored by Trump to describe a drug that has killed hundreds of thousands of people in the two countries.  

Trump signed an executive order on Feb. 1 to put 25% tariffs against most Canadian products, saying the US’s northern neighbor was allowing too much fentanyl to go over the border. Those levies are scheduled to go into effect March 4 after the president said this week that drugs are still entering “at very high and unacceptable levels.”  

Canadian officials say that’s simply not true — and they point to US government data showing that American border agents have found very little fentanyl coming from the north. But taking no chances, they’re also trying to put their enforcement efforts on public display.

Over the past week alone, news releases regarding the drug appeared at least five times from different Canadian government departments.

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The show of brawn — including some attention-grabbing scenes like Public Safety Minister David McGuinty next to drug-sniffing dogs — is directed at a president who’s looking to prove to Americans he’s forcing action on the fentanyl crisis from the countries that border his own.

The available evidence suggests that Canada is not a significant exporter of the drug to the US, so it has little ability to impact a key metric outlined by Trump: American overdose deaths. 

That makes border optics all the more important.

“With Trump, it’s all about theatrics. Words and numbers aren’t enough. He wants to see highly visible, dramatic signs of actions,” Fen Hampson, an international affairs professor at Carleton University in Ottawa. He views Canadian efforts so far as insufficient. 

“Despite the fact we have a prime minister who was a drama teacher, there’s not enough drama. We need a lot more theater at the border — putting guys in uniforms with guns,” he said.

Trump’s tariff threats have prompted Canada and Mexico to announce specific measures. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum vowed to send 10,000 National Guard officers to the border. Trudeau unveiled a C$1.3 billion ($899 million) border security plan that included new helicopters and drones, and also beefed up the number personnel — though not soldiers — to monitor crossings.

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Complaints by Trump and his officials about the Canadian border are “a complete con,” said Wesley Wark, a former adviser to two Canadian prime ministers on national security issues and a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. 

“No border is perfect. There was never any intention to create a Berlin Wall between Canada and the United States,” Wark added. “But the notion that the Canadian border is a security problem for the United States is complete nonsense. And the statistics and evidence don’t bear it out.”

Despite the billion-dollar price tag, some view Canada’s efforts so far as a media blitz lacking in substance. Ross McKitrick, economics professor at University of Guelph in Ontario, said the government’s focus looks like public relations rather than a serious effort to engage in full border surveillance. 

“Some of it just feels like they’re playing cute. I fear that in the back of their minds they’re thinking they would like nothing better than to have the tariffs hit, run the election campaign on this new threat and engage in that kind of brinksmanship.” 

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Trudeau is set to leave office this month and his Liberal Party faces a difficult fight to win another election. But as an unpopular prime minister eases his way out and Trump escalating his threats against the country, polls show the Liberals have gained on the rival Conservatives. An election will be held this year. 

Opioid Epidemic

Both Canada and the US are facing an opioid epidemic, with fentanyl responsible of the majority of drug overdoses. Canada saw about 20 deaths per 100,000 people in 2022, slightly below the US level, although the number of overdose deaths was finally declining before Trump returned to the White House.

During a visit to Washington on Thursday, Canada’s first-ever fentanyl czar, Kevin Brosseau, said his mandate is to improve collaboration between law enforcement agencies within Canada and work with US counterparts to ensure a “strong border.” 

And Canadian officials are also taking note of the drugs that come from US traffickers. This week, in an announcement about “Operation Blizzard,” a national drug-enforcement project, they said they’ve recently seized 56 grams (0.12 pounds) of fentanyl. That total included 20 fentanyl pills and 23 grams of “a substance suspected to be fentanyl” from two US citizens crossing at the tunnel that connects Detroit with the city of Windsor, Ontario. 

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Experts in substance addiction and harm reduction have argued that border actions alone are unlikely to be the silver bullet for the crisis.

According to US Customs and Border Protection data, authorities near the northern border seized just 0.03 pounds of fentanyl in January. That’s the weight of a single battery for a television remote and pales in comparison to 991 pounds — or as heavy as a grand piano — seized near the Mexico border. 

Further, the border agency’s methodology means that seizures near the northern border are attributed to the Canadian crossing even if there’s no evidence the drugs actually came from the country, according to an investigation by The Globe and Mail. 

Trudeau told reporters in Montreal on Thursday that his government is working “day and night” to ensure that there are no tariffs imposed on Canada and reiterated that his government is committed to investments at the border. 

“The tariffs that the president speaks of for next week are centered around the fentanyl crisis that they’re facing in the US, but that we are also facing in Canada,” Trudeau said. “This is an issue that we should be working together on.”

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