OTTAWA—The RCMP says it has “contingency plans” to deploy more Mounties to the Canada-U.S. border but needs answers from the Liberal government about how much more it intends to spend on additional drones, helicopters or other technology to surveil it.
The Trudeau government says it has not yet “finalized” those decisions as it fended off Opposition criticism it is too slow to act to counter incoming president Donald Trump’s threat of 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian products on his first day in office.
RCMP Comm. Michael Duheme told reporters there are two “parallel” tracks to the Mounties’ plans — one contingent on how many illegal immigrants might be “removed” from America by an incoming Trump administration and drive a northward surge into Canada, and the other contingent on how much new technology the Liberal government will fund.
Speaking after he testified at a public safety committee, the top Mountie said he is not opposed to expanding the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) mandate into the RCMP’s jurisdiction over territory between official border points of entry, as the border guards’ union has called for.
“I think we have to do what’s right, to secure the borders. So if that’s increasing authorities to CBSA, I mean, that’s a discussion I would have” with the head of the CBSA and the government, Duheme said.
He said it would be a “longer-term” move, “but I think we have to explore different ways of doing things.” Meanwhile, Duheme said the RCMP needs the “nimbleness” to reassign resources where needed, and he will deploy cadets from the RCMP training academy in Regina — as the national police force did in 2014 to provide additional security following the Parliament Hill attacks.
“What you saw in Roxham Road (where migrants crossed illegally near Lacolle, Que.) may not repeat itself,” said Duheme. “It might come somewhere else, right? So that’s one thing, but on the parallel track is the planning a way forward with the asks that we’ve put in … and the resources required to do it.”
Defence Minister Bill Blair told the Star Monday night that Canadian Forces may be able to supply surveillance drones and other technological aids, but that soldiers would not be deployed to the border.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Chrystia Freeland — who co-chairs the Canada-U.S. cabinet committee — met with Opposition leaders Tuesday to brief them on the government’s work to address the Trump threat, and on Trudeau’s and LeBlanc’s trip to Trump’s resort at Mar-a-Lago on Friday.
Freeland later said she was not upset at not being included on the trip, and said “it was the right choice. The meeting was principally about the border. That is what was very clear from the conversation that the prime minister had with the president ahead of time.”
Freeland called for a “Team Canada” approach to dealing with Trump, repeating a message she delivered to premiers last week, that it is “important for us to take care not to negotiate against ourselves.”
However, when Trudeau’s Commons opponents emerged, they did not offer full-throated support for his efforts.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said he would take a “Canada first” approach,” stress the harm that tariffs would have on Canada and the U.S. and he put the blame for Canada’s problems with Trump squarely at Trudeau’s feet, a line of attack he continued in the Commons. “Whether one thinks that President Trump’s tariff threats are a negotiating tactic or a real plan, what we do know is what we can control. The prime minister has lost control of everything” including borders and control of immigration, he said. Poilievre said Trudeau is an unpopular leader in an “unbearably weak position” to counter Trump, and demanded an election to replace him.
Trudeau in the Commons replied that Poilievre should guard against repeating “erroneous narratives that the Americans are putting forward,” saying amplifying “these ‘broken’ narratives is simply not responsible leadership.”
New Democrat Jagmeet Singh said he told Trudeau in the meeting that he pressed Trudeau to hire “at a minimum” 1,100 more border guards.
That’s a lot fewer than the union says are needed.
Erin O’Gorman, head of the border agency, told MPs the CBSA currently has 16,300 full time employees, 8,500 of whom are front-line employees, compared to 13,700 it had in 2014 when the Conservatives were in power.
However, the Customs and Immigration Union says only 6,500 are considered front-line employees, including those who work not just at land border points of entry, but at airports and who enforce customs laws at postal facilities.
Union head Mark Weber, in an interview with the Star, said the union has called for an additional 2,000-3,000 front-line officers, and was encouraged by LeBlanc’s testimony that showed an “openness” to expanding the role played by border guards to include patrolling in between official points of entry with the RCMP.
Weber reiterated in a letter to LeBlanc Monday the union’s request to the Liberal government to review a 1932 cabinet order that directed the RCMP to cover border areas between official ports of entry while leaving the official points of entry to border officers.
”CBSA officers are already trained with the border in mind and have a keen understanding of relevant laws and regulations,” Weber wrote. “They are also already physically present at areas of importance. When considering the extensive mandate of the RCMP, empowering CBSA officers to act and patrol in between ports of entry in collaboration with RCMP officers is a logical step.”
LeBlanc told MPs Tuesday that the government is “interested in taking immediate steps that will reassure Canadians and the Americans that the border remains secure and the integrity of the border is protected … We haven’t made any decisions in that regard. But are open to considering that as well.”
Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet said that the Liberals did not offer details, but seem to have a plan in the works.
“We’ll see what it contains,” he said. “I don’t want to fight too much publicly about an issue which is very important for everybody, both in Canada and Quebec and Americans are looking at us now. So I will give some time to Mr. LeBlanc to provide us with the details of the plan.”
Former Conservative leader Rona Ambrose in a CBC interview Tuesday said, “look, I think it’s easy to say everyone should be on Team Canada, but that doesn’t mean Team Trudeau.”
Ambrose, who previously sat on Trudeau’s NAFTA advisory council, said Poilievre and Singh would all argue they are on Team Canada, but that they also have legitimate criticisms to make of how Trudeau has not positioned Canada’s economy to withstand Trump’s threats and the moves he will make to draw investors and capital away from Canada to the United States.
