Trump likes ‘theatrics’, so Canada injects fentanyl crackdown with drama, boldness

Canada boosts border security with drones and sniffer dogs to combat fentanyl, aiming to impress Trump and avoid tariffs

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Canada’s Public Safety Minister David McGuinty (right) stands next to a narcotics detection dog in Ontario on February 12. Photo: The Canadian Press via AP

Published: 11:50am, 2 Mar 2025

Canada has traded its usual restraint for American-style boldness in an effort to prove to US President Donald Trump that it is serious about strengthening the border as it tries to avert tariffs.

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 tsar”.

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 February 11. The word “scourge” is also one favoured by Trump to describe a drug that has killed hundreds of thousands of people in the two countries.

Trump signed an executive order on February 1 to put 25 per cent tariffs against most Canadian products, saying the US’ northern neighbour 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 said that is simply not true – and they pointed to US government data showing that American border agents have found very little fentanyl coming from the north. But taking no chances, they are 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.