Smith announced a $29 million Border Patrol team to stop the flow of fentanyl across the US-Canada border
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s latest swipe at US President Donald Trump, citing the loss of opponent Kamala Harris a setback for women’s progress, was “not helpful” to ongoing negotiations over a possible 25 percent border tariff, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said Thursday.
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Smith’s rebuke echoes similar comments from Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who said the premiers raised their concerns with Trudeau during a phone call with the prime minister on Wednesday evening. Ford said he was “confident the Prime Minister got that message loud and clear.”
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Smith spoke to the media Thursday after Alberta announced a $29 million grant border patrol team intended to stop the flow of fentanyl across the US-Canada border. Trump has demanded Canada crack down on the drug and threatened to impose tariffs on Canadian goods if enforcement does not improve.
“The concerns that President-elect Trump has raised about fentanyl are, quite frankly, the same concerns that I and the prime minister have had,” Alberta Deputy Prime Minister Mike Ellis said in an interview with the National Post on Thursday.
“The stuff is going all over the place,” Ellis said. “North, South, East and West.”
The section of the U.S. Border Patrol, which covers Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, apprehended 1.2 kilograms of fentanyl at Canadian border crossings between October 2023 and September 2024, two-thirds of the total drug seizure.
Only one kilo of fentanyl can yield up to 500,000 doses of the powerful synthetic opioid, police say.
Ellis said he wasn’t concerned about the Border Patrol team taking away resources closing fentanyl superlabs like the one recently discovered in the town of Valleyview in northwestern Alberta600 miles from the Montana border.
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“At the risk of stating the obvious, the Valleyview factory didn’t just produce and sell products for the neighborhood,” Ellis says.
Ellis said there was only so much the province could do to curb the booming domestic production of fentanyl and other synthetic street drugs, which he attributed to Ottawa’s lax approach to punishing drug crimes.
“Production has increased thanks to the soft crime policy,” says Ellis. “It’s that simple.”
“The consequences of getting caught (in Canada) might be house arrest for a few years. While I could expect 10 to 20 years in prison if I committed the same crime across the border in the US.”
Ellis joined Smith earlier in the day to unveil the Interdiction Patrol Team, a new specialized unit of the Alberta Sheriffs dedicated to searching the area near the provincial border with Montana for drugs, weapons and human trafficking.
The unit will consist of 51 uniformed officers and 10 heavy-duty drones equipped for the cold temperatures and high winds in the area.
The unit is expected to be operational early next year.
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Federal Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc is expected to make the announcement new border security measures next week. LeBlanc’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the announcement from Alberta.
National Post
rmohamed@postmedia.com
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