Trump rails against drugs, migrants flowing into U.S. What about what's pouring into Canada?
Former PM Stephen Harper says most guns and drugs crossing the border flow north, not south
U.S. president-elect Donald Trump's complaints that Canada is not doing enough to curb the flow of illegal migration and fentanyl into the U.S. are getting some push back from former prime minister Stephen Harper.
Trump has claimed that his threat to impose a 25 per cent tariff of Canadian imports will remain in effect until Canada does enough to curb those inflows. And indeed, to stave off that threat, Ottawa introduced $1.3 billion in spending in December's fall economic statement aimed at disrupting the flow of fentanyl and strengthening surveillance of the Canada-U.S. border.
But in an interview on the American podcast Standpoint with Gabe Groisman, Harper shrugged off Trump's issues with illegal migration from Canada, instead suggesting the U.S. is exporting other criminal items into Canada.
"There is no migrant flow happening from Canada to the United States of any significant numbers," Harper said. "And I'm going to tell you right now, drugs, guns, crime — most of those things flow north, not south."
While illegal migration to the U.S. from Canada has grown in recent years, as Harper said, the number of people coming from Canada is much smaller than the number coming north from Mexico or other points of entry.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers recorded nearly 200,000 encounters at the northern border between October 2023 and September 2024, but the number of incidents last year amounted to barely one per cent of the total number of people stopped from entering the country by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
So what about Harper's suggestion that the U.S. is to blame when it comes to exporting guns and drugs into Canada?
Guns
In terms of illegal weapons, America is by far the greatest international source of guns used in crimes entering Canada, said Stephen Schneider, a professor of criminology at Saint Mary's University and author of An Ontology of Organized Crime.
"This is due in part to the ease of purchasing a gun in the U.S. and because illegal guns fetch a much higher price in Canada than the U.S.," Schneider said in an email to CBC News.
Just how many illegal guns come from the U.S. into Canada is difficult to determine as there are no nationwide statistics or a national database that tracks source of weapons. However, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police have called on the federal government to make the tracing of crime guns mandatory across Canada.
The Canada Border Services Agency does record illegal items it seizes at its 1,200 points of entry across the country, but that may only represent a fraction of what is able to make its way into the country.
For illegal guns, in its year in review looking at the period of Jan. to Oct. 2024, CBSA said it seized approximately 7,700 weapons and firearms at ports of entry. Of those, 1,274 prohibited weapons and 750 firearms were seized coming from the U.S., it said. According to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the agency seized 231 weapons coming from Canada at its northern border ports in 2024.
The Toronto police service, which has compiled some statistics about the origins of crime guns, says that in 2024, police seized 717 crime guns.
"Most of these illegal firearms come from the U.S.," said Toronto Deputy Chief Rob Johnson at the monthly Toronto Police Services Board meeting earlier this week.
Toronto police have found that about 85 per cent of all crime guns they recover come from the U.S., and that the top states they originate from include Florida, Arizona and Texas.
"Trafficking in illegal firearms continues to be a lucrative business for criminal organizations whose members have zero regard for public safety and conduct their activities strictly for financial gain," said Inspector Norman Proctor, head of Toronto Integrated Gun & Gang Task Force Unit Commander, at a 2023 news conference.
"A firearm purchased in the United States for $500 can easily sell for up to $5,000 in Canada."
Drugs
The situation of illegal drugs coming into Canada from the U.S. is a little less clear.
While Trump has made a big issue about the amount of fentanyl that comes into the U.S. from Canada, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protections, less than 20 kilograms of fentanyl was seized along the border with Canada last year, compared to more than 9,000 kilograms seized along the border with Mexico.
CBSA says it seized 4.9 kilograms of fentanyl on its side of the Canada-U.S. border between Jan. 1 to Oct. 31, 2024. But of that amount, it said 4.1 kilograms was intercepted before it could be smuggled to the Netherlands.
Overall, the CBSA said it seized over 25,600 kg of illegal drugs, both inbound and outbound.
Schneider says that Canada is a source of both marijuana and synthetic drugs to the U.S., but in much lower quantities than are flowing into the U.S. from Mexico. He also notes that Mexico is a major supplier of cocaine to Canada and much of that is transported through the U.S. and then into our country through land borders.
"In other words, the U.S. is a major transit country for cocaine entering Canada," Schneider said.
Gary Mauser, professor emeritus of Simon Fraser University, who has been an expert witness on firearms and criminal justice issues, says Canadian drugs will flow south in exchange for American guns.
He said in an email that gang-related crimes, carried out with guns from the U.S. are the source of most of the gun violence in Canada — but stopping the flow of weapons could prove difficult.
"The drug market is lucrative and Canadian gangs — and young wannabes — want guns for protection as well as status."
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With files from Catherine Tunney and Rhianna Schmunk