The federal government has laid out a five-pillared approach to boosting border security, though it doesn’t include specifics about where and how the $1.3-billion funding package earmarked in the fall economic statement will be allocated.
The announcement comes after U.S. president-elect Donald Trump threatened to impose a 25 per cent tariff on all Canadian imports unless Canada halts the flow of illegal drugs and migrants over the shared border.
Finance and Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc — who is temporarily also maintaining the public safety portfolio until Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shuffles his cabinet — Immigration Minister Marc Miller, International Trade Minister Mary Ng, and Mental Health and Additions Minister Ya'ara Saks are making the announcement.
In Monday's fall economic statement, the federal government earmarked a $1.3-billion border-security package over six years, with money rolling out to several agencies and organizations, including the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and the RCMP, without revealing the specifics of the plan.
LeBlanc, meanwhile, has insisted plans to bolster the border have been underway for months, and are not an attempt to appease Trump to avoid the tariffs.
LeBlanc also said last month he’s been working with the RCMP and border services to acquire “new technologies,” including drones and helicopters. He later added, in an interview with CTV News Channel’s Power Play, the federal government will “absolutely” increase CBSA and RCMP "human resources" at the border.
When asked by host Vassy Kapelos in that interview whether the added resources will include blunting contractions in the CBSA budget, LeBlanc said “yes.”
In the most recent budget cycle, the CBSA’s funding contracted by 2.6 per cent, according to documents on the federal government’s website. Leblanc insisted front-line officers have not been cut.
Canada’s premiers have also weighed in on the issue.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford — who chairs the Council of the Federation of Canada’s premiers — has said provincial and territorial leaders are united in their belief that securing the border and boosting defence spending are the two ways to “make a deal with the U.S.”
“It was very clear that all premiers believe we should hit our two per cent (of GDP on defence spending) when it comes to NATO. So, we're all in agreement,” Ford said earlier this month. “Every one of us is in agreement that we have to tighten up the borders.”
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, however, has laid out a series of border-security measures, including $29 million to create a team of specially trained sheriffs tasked with patrolling the Alberta-U.S. border.
Quebec Premier François Legault, whose province’s border sees the highest number of illegal crossings across the country, spoke with Trump in Paris earlier this month, during the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral.
Legault later said Trump told him "very clearly that we can avoid those tariffs if we do what needs to be done with the borders."
The National Police Federation welcomed the news of additional funding in a statement Tuesday, despite that the exact details of the plan are yet unknown.
“The National Police Federation has long advocated for increased funding for the RCMP’s federal policing program, which includes border security, and we welcome today’s promise for such investment,” NPF President and CEO Brian Sauvé wrote in the statement.
Federal Conservatives, meanwhile, say the Liberals should have presented a border plan sooner, adding that with Trump set to head back to the Oval Office in just 40 days, the government “has still not presented a Canada First plan to save Canadian jobs and secure our border.”
But Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, when asked during a press conference on Tuesday how much he would spend on the border — whether more or less than the $1.3 billion the Liberals are allocating — wouldn’t say.
“We should not judge a program based on how expensive we can make it,” Poilievre said. “We should judge it by what it can do: how many helicopters, how many drones, how many boots on the ground?”
“That's the question I will be asking when I'm prime minister,” he added. “And how do we deliver it for the lowest possible price to taxpayers?”
Poilievre did not elaborate on specifically which human and equipment resources he would commit to the border.
