OTTAWA - Public Safety Minister David McGuinty suggested Tuesday that some information about Canada's upgraded border plan to halt fentanyl and illegal border crossings into the United States may not have flowed to U.S. President Donald Trump until Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke to the president by phone Monday.
Canada first published the $1.3 billion plan in December, weeks after Trump first said he was going to slam Canada with 25 per cent across the board tariffs if Canada didn't do more to secure its border with the United States.Â
Canadian ministers, including McGuinty, spent weeks flying back and forth to Florida and Washington, D.C. meeting with Trump aides and members of his cabinet, promoting that plan. Those meetings kept happening until almost the final hour, and videos showcasing Canada's border efforts were shared with key Republicans.
On Friday afternoon, the day before Trump's Feb. 1 tariff deadline, McGuinty, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly and Immigration Minister Marc Miller met with U.S. "border czar" Tom Homan. Still the next day, Trump signed the executive order to have the tariffs — 10 per cent on Canadian energy and 25 per cent on everything else — take effect Feb. 4.
Hours after that document was signed, Trudeau addressed Canadians and said he had not been able to speak to Trump since the inauguration on Jan. 20 but would continue to try. That finally happened on Monday, the first call in the morning, and then a second call mid-afternoon. After the second call, Trudeau said the tariffs were on hold for a month in a social media post that outlined Canada's border plan, including some measures he said were new.
McGuinty said one of those elements is formalizing a Canada-U.S. Joint Strike Force to combat organized crime, fentanyl and money laundering that Canada had proposed "some time ago." But he suggested not all those details may have made it through to Trump.
"These options were options that we were considering already," he said. "Not all of them were necessarily floated or known by both of our governments," McGuinty said.
Canada also committed another $200 million toward its response, which McGuinty said is on top of the money already set aside — raising the total cost to $1.5 billion over six years.
When asked what he thought moved the needle to convince Trump to halt the tariffs, McGuinty pointed to some new measures including appointing a "fentanyl czar" and listing drug cartels as terrorist entities.
"I wasn't on the call with the Prime Minister and the President, number 1. And number 2, we kept driving and kept the relationship alive. We kept reminding our counterparts in Washington and the White House that we're making progress."
He added that "everything that we put before the President, everything we put for his team was predicated and built on" statistics from the United States.
Trudeau also said that 10,000 frontline personnel "are and will" be working to protect the border, a number similar to the 10,000 National Guard troops Mexico began directing to its border as it also sought to get Trump to back off on 25 per cent tariffs. Trump announced a halt to the tariffs on Mexico before he agreed to halt the tariffs on Canada Monday.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre called Monday for Canadian soldiers to be sent to the border as part of Canada's response to tariff threats but McGuinty told The Canadian Press there is no plan to do that.
"That does not mean that there isn't information sharing, or intelligence sharing. That happens as a matter of course," McGuinty said.
"That's been continued. It's working together seamlessly. You may very well have folks who are involved in intel-gathering who are helping out in that regard."
McGuinty said the 10,000 frontline staff Canada is talking about could encompass a broad range of officials, including border officers on the front lines and intelligence officers behind the scenes.
"So what we've managed to do here is take a look at how many people are working, and it's 10,000. And we've got hundreds of new officers," McGuinty said.
"We'll look to see where it makes most sense to deploy the assets we've got, the people, or if we need to we will bump it up."
The Canada Border Services Agency has 8,500 front-line staff already.
McGuinty was in Emerson, Man., on Tuesday participating in a border security demonstration with Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew.
In his remarks, McGuinty said Canada also got commitments from the Americans to work with Canada to tackle the influx of drugs and illegal firearms flowing into Canada from the U.S.
"We have challenges with drugs coming from the United States. The American administration understands this. So do we," McGuinty said, adding how Trudeau raised the issue of illegal firearms in his call with Trump Monday.
McGuinty also reiterated how less than one per cent of fentanyl entering the U.S. comes from Canada, and how illegal border crossings heading south are down by 89 per cent since July 2024.
"President Trump has a job to do. Let me just be clear about it for a second. He ran in an election, he had a platform, he made promises to his people and in his mind he's delivering on those promises," McGuinty said.
"We need to be respectful of that."
McGuinty said the newly-appointed "fentanyl czar" will serve as a liaison between Canada and the U.S. on cross-border efforts to curb fentanyl traffic.
He said the language on the new position was chosen carefully, although he denied it had anything to do with satisfying Trump.
"We wanted a title that would represent, first of all, a focus on fentanyl. And the use of the word czar is something we're not unfamiliar with," McGuinty told The Canadian Press.
"So the word czar was chosen carefully to give that person, I think a title which is deserving of the responsibilities. No, no, we didn't design these policies as appeasement. We designed them on behalf of Canadians so we could stop the tariffs."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 4, 2025.
