Western Standard - February 21, 2025


HANNAFORD： Bordering on a solution to tariffs

Topics
personal animus for Trudeau
Hosted by
Nigel Hannaford
Guests
Simon Hankinson
Mentioned
Trump Justin Trudeau Polly Everett Danielle Smith Poilier
CORY MORGAN SHOW： Alberta healthcare scandal can’t be allowed to fester CORY MORGAN SHOW： Let’s talk about Islam

Episode Stats


Length

19 minutes

Words per minute

141.65

Word count

2,694

Sentence count

166


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Simon Hankinson, Senior Research Fellow in the Border Security and Immigration Center at the Heritage Foundation, joins me to talk about the growing number of illegal immigrants crossing the border between Canada and the United States, and why they are more likely to be coming from other countries than from the southern border.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Good evening, Western Standard viewers, and welcome to Hannaford, a weekly politics show.
00:00:24.400 I'm Nigel Hannaford. It is Thursday, February the 20th, and my guest today is Simon Hankinson, a senior research fellow in the Border Security and Immigration Center at Washington's Heritage Foundation.
00:00:38.760 Welcome to the show, Simon.
00:00:41.100 Thanks for having me.
00:00:42.780 Glad to see you. In a moment, we're going to be talking about President Trump's supposed goal of annexing Canada.
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00:01:27.200 Simon, let's go back to where the tariff war started.
00:01:31.140 The presidential allegation is that Canada was slack on immigration and border control,
00:01:37.120 and as a result, drugs and dangerous, illegal aliens were making their way south.
00:01:42.500 Therefore, unless Canadians did something about it, there would be tariffs.
00:01:49.300 Now, I think the evidence is that we were indeed slack on border control.
00:01:54.040 But we're doing something about it, and we're getting tariffs anyway.
00:01:58.120 So, this is your area, and I have to ask, how bad were we?
00:02:05.500 And secondly, is this really all about fentanyl and terrorists anyway?
00:02:10.920 Well, I'll just say my area is immigration and border security and not tariffs.
00:02:17.180 Economic policy is beyond me, although I know what they are, of course.
00:02:21.820 It was never anything like the southern border, which is half the size,
00:02:28.360 but through which 95% of the traffic, legal and illegal, flow of human beings anyway, goods.
00:02:36.760 There's enormous traffic between Canada and the United States.
00:02:40.060 But across that 5,000-mile-odd border, I've been up there a couple times,
00:02:46.060 there are just innumerable places where you can cross over without anybody getting in your way.
00:02:52.560 So, the opportunity to bring in contraband, people and goods is relatively unlimited.
00:03:00.340 And even though the numbers are still significantly lower than they are in the south,
00:03:05.020 they have really gone up in historical terms.
00:03:09.520 I think the people intercepted at the border coming south in the last year, October to October, give or take,
00:03:17.660 was about 23,000 coming from Canada illegally into the U.S. and 1,000 heading the other way.
00:03:24.240 So, the ratio is definitely in favor of people coming south and not north.
00:03:29.340 And that's, of course, only the ones that were caught or surrendered to border authorities, border patrol.
00:03:36.180 And you can see, when it's snowing anyway, or the snow on the ground tracks,
00:03:41.220 and obviously much larger groups of people are coming in every month from Canada.
00:03:47.440 So, again, not the millions that we're seeing at the southern border,
00:03:50.760 but still significantly higher than in previous years.
00:03:55.100 So, is there a qualitative difference between the kind of people who cross the border north to south,
00:04:01.640 as opposed to those who come from the south and are just trying to get into the United States?
00:04:08.100 You know, I've never seen a breakdown of exactly who they are,
00:04:12.200 but I would suspect that the majority of people crossing illegally from Canada into the United States
00:04:19.380 are people who haven't been in Canada very long.
00:04:21.700 In some cases, we've heard of people flying directly into airports.
00:04:26.120 They get an Uber.
00:04:27.300 They're at the border walking across within a day or two from India, from Bangladesh, from all kinds of countries.
00:04:36.100 For a while, they were coming in from Mexico because there was no visa required.
00:04:39.820 But I think the Canadians instituted a visa requirement for Mexicans sometime last year.
00:04:45.800 So, I did see some reports emanating from the U.S. Customs Board of Control
00:04:52.700 that there was a considerable number of people trying to cross north to south who they had apprehended
00:05:00.400 who had dangerous terrorist connections.
00:05:04.340 Was that a reliable report?
00:05:06.000 Yes, we have a terrorist watch list of people who have some nexus that is in our system
00:05:14.580 that ties them to a terrorist group or a terrorist individual.
00:05:18.000 That doesn't always mean that they themselves are active, dangerous terrorists,
00:05:23.480 but it's certainly people that we want to carefully vet and interview
00:05:27.800 and get more information from before they are released, certainly.
00:05:35.540 And I think the numbers were in the hundreds last year.
00:05:39.460 And perhaps that's just because it's easier to cross over in the north and the south,
00:05:46.260 or perhaps it's just the population of people is coming from countries
00:05:51.020 where they're more likely to have a terrorist record in our database
00:05:55.440 than if they came from, say, Venezuela or Guatemala or Honduras.
00:06:00.500 So, do you get the impression that in the approximately two months,
00:06:08.040 maybe six weeks, since President Trump put Canada on notice
00:06:13.140 that he was concerned about two things, fentanyl and illegal aliens,
00:06:18.360 some of whom are dangerous, how are things going?
00:06:23.000 On the southern border, apparently, it's almost eliminated.
00:06:28.800 What were tens of thousands in a day or now, you know, a couple of dozen people
00:06:33.800 who are getting apprehended?
00:06:35.820 Do you get the impression that Canada has pulled its socks up
00:06:40.580 and is now effectively intercepting people before they get intercepted
00:06:46.080 by the U.S. border and custom patrol?
00:06:49.580 Well, we've only had a month of the Trump administration.
00:06:53.660 So, the January numbers just came out today.
00:06:56.360 I saw they were significantly lower for the southern border.
00:06:59.780 I didn't look specifically at the northern border,
00:07:02.260 but I would assume they went down there, too.
00:07:05.120 What we're seeing, though, that is encouraging is the Trudeau government,
00:07:10.940 which I guess the days are numbered, made some effort to increase spending
00:07:17.300 on things like helicopters, drones, surveillance towers,
00:07:22.040 your version of the Border Patrol, and forgive me for not remembering what it's called,
00:07:27.960 but staff and resources across the border, which is a positive step.
00:07:33.860 And I was just reading the conservative leader Poilier's speech a couple of days ago,
00:07:40.980 and he was outlining what he wants to do if he gets into power,
00:07:44.240 and that does include another 2,000 border agents and, again,
00:07:48.560 significant investment in surveillance to try to get a better handle
00:07:52.800 on what is passing through Canada down south towards the U.S.
00:07:56.500 So, the signs are pretty good that this is something Canadians have noticed
00:08:02.220 that they need to make some adjustments to and some improvements to.
00:08:06.940 Well, yeah.
00:08:08.620 Actually, it's a matter of national shame that it took a U.S. president
00:08:11.680 to remind us of what we ought to be doing anyway,
00:08:14.020 because this kind of thing does not make us look good.
00:08:16.740 Nevertheless, I do believe that there is an understanding and a realization now,
00:08:22.200 certainly in Alberta and B.C., which, you know,
00:08:26.980 have this enormous border with Montana, that something needs to be done.
00:08:33.420 I think that the provincial government here, under Premier Daniel Smith,
00:08:37.560 was making moves and doing things when in Ottawa they were still wondering
00:08:44.260 whether this was really a serious issue or not.
00:08:47.100 But at any rate, they're making a move.
00:08:51.600 They're trying to take action.
00:08:53.940 They've been sensitized.
00:08:56.060 Why are we still being threatened with tariffs?
00:09:00.240 Well, I don't have any insight into how the Trump administration is, you know,
00:09:05.880 strategizing and thinking through the big picture.
00:09:09.660 Obviously, Mexico and Canada are very different animals in every respect.
00:09:14.860 I mean, we're all part of the same trade agreement.
00:09:16.680 But when it comes to the border, we would be looking for different actions from Canada
00:09:22.160 than we would from Mexico.
00:09:23.760 So what their long-term game plan is, I'm afraid I can't enlighten you.
00:09:27.680 But it doesn't seem to me, with my limited knowledge of our, what, trillion-dollar cross-border trade
00:09:33.440 and very interlinked manufacturing, particularly in the automobile industry and energy,
00:09:38.920 it doesn't seem to me like a trade war would be in either country's interests.
00:09:43.460 So I would suspect that they have an off-ramp and that tariffs are not a goal in and of themselves,
00:09:49.520 but that they are a tactic along the road to a policy aim that they're trying to achieve.
00:09:55.020 Now, the second string, one was illegal immigrants, the other was fentanyl, drugs generally,
00:10:01.840 but fentanyl was named as the object of interest.
00:10:06.080 How bad was, from the American point of view,
00:10:09.060 how serious was Canada's contribution to pouring fentanyl into the United States?
00:10:14.560 Well, I mean, to be clear, we're not saying that the government of Canada
00:10:19.140 or any sort of officialdom is doing that,
00:10:22.760 but that they are not cracking down enough on the cartels and the smugglers
00:10:29.000 that are bringing drugs into Canada and precursor chemicals, for example,
00:10:33.980 to make fentanyl and then shipping it down to the United States
00:10:37.680 because it's so easy to truck it down.
00:10:40.860 And it's also easy to bring it into the ports.
00:10:43.380 We've seen some very big busts in Canada in the last few months.
00:10:47.680 And if you add up the amount of drugs that they're able to produce,
00:10:51.100 it obviously far exceeds the capacity of the local market,
00:10:54.440 even in a place like Vancouver,
00:10:56.600 which has unfortunately a very high overdose rate for North America.
00:11:00.520 So some of those drugs coming in from China or from Mexico,
00:11:06.120 with perhaps origins in China, are headed for the U.S. border.
00:11:09.520 I don't have a handle on the quantities that were coming through.
00:11:13.380 But if you look at the seizures by CBP at the ports of entry from cars and trucks,
00:11:21.160 that's only going to be a part of it because obviously there are people coming across on foot
00:11:26.640 or by vehicles but not through a port of entry that are able to bring in drugs undetected.
00:11:31.440 Okay, so the narrative was too many illegal immigrants, aliens, too much fentanyl coming in.
00:11:40.920 You people in Canada have got to do something about it or we're going to apply tariffs.
00:11:44.800 Well, I would have to say that we are starting to do something about it.
00:11:51.480 There's probably more to be done.
00:11:54.080 And inherently a 5,000-mile border without a wall is a lot of it in forests and mountains and inaccessible areas.
00:12:04.360 It's going to be hard.
00:12:05.680 But we're moving.
00:12:06.620 We're doing it.
00:12:07.940 But we still get the tariffs, apparently, which makes me wonder, is there a further goal?
00:12:17.040 Or is this just part of the script?
00:12:20.640 Well, I was holidaying in your lovely country just last week
00:12:25.540 and went and found a copy of the president's book, The Art of the Deal.
00:12:30.300 Well, there it is in Chapter 2.
00:12:32.760 It lays it all out.
00:12:34.440 You know, first of all, you shake them up.
00:12:36.360 You get them all worried.
00:12:37.900 And then you start to talk and you feel where the weak points are.
00:12:42.320 And eventually, if you know what you want and you're firm about it, you'll get it.
00:12:47.760 So far, that script seems to be following out reasonably well.
00:12:53.820 But there is a little bit more to it.
00:12:56.840 And in the book, he says, you know, I'm a nice guy.
00:13:01.740 And if people play fair by me, then I play fair by them.
00:13:06.600 But he also says, when people treat me badly or unfairly or try to take advantage of me,
00:13:12.300 this is a direct quote from Chapter 2,
00:13:14.780 my general attitude all my life has been to fight back very hard.
00:13:19.240 So you have to wonder whether personal animus for Justin Trudeau is part of this.
00:13:26.980 Mr. Trudeau has certainly consorted with Democrats.
00:13:31.340 He has been caught saying unkind things about President Trump,
00:13:35.320 who may be a nice guy, but he's also a proud man.
00:13:39.340 And none of this makes him look very good.
00:13:42.560 So is part of this sticking it to Mr. Trudeau as well?
00:13:46.620 Well, I don't have the ability to look inside the president's head.
00:13:52.360 But judging by the four years that he was president before,
00:13:56.880 and as you say, his book and his public statements,
00:14:00.860 he's definitely someone for whom personal relationships are important.
00:14:05.520 He likes to be liked.
00:14:06.680 He wants to get along with people.
00:14:08.300 But he has a pretty long memory for a wrongs done him.
00:14:12.320 I don't think he's had a great relationship with Trudeau personally.
00:14:17.240 Obviously, they're on the opposite side of a lot of issues,
00:14:20.320 whether it's wokery or historical traditions,
00:14:27.820 the military, immigration.
00:14:30.940 They didn't really agree on a whole lot.
00:14:33.600 So I can't tell you how much that personal relationship plays into the tactics.
00:14:41.020 But in the long run, obviously, the president's job is to ensure prosperity
00:14:45.660 and security for the country.
00:14:48.240 And I'm pretty sure that's the primary goal and not settling old scores.
00:14:53.020 Yes, well, America first is a great goal for an American president.
00:14:58.480 And there are those of us who wish that we'd had a Canada first strategy for the last 10 years.
00:15:07.660 But at any rate, it strikes me that perhaps different people,
00:15:14.200 different players on this side of the border will have a better chance of resolving this.
00:15:19.600 But of course, we're going to have different players anyway.
00:15:22.660 There is an election one of these days.
00:15:25.240 How long do you think this will take to work out?
00:15:30.260 Well, I was just reading through some of the policy proposals of the conservatives.
00:15:35.400 And I can't predict, you probably have a much better idea than me,
00:15:39.680 exactly when your election will take place.
00:15:41.680 And I know the conservatives' lead has shrunk by quite a bit.
00:15:46.380 But they're still up in the polls.
00:15:48.200 And most of the things that Polly Everett is planning to do really align very much with
00:15:55.320 what President Trump is trying to do for Americans.
00:15:57.520 Obviously, he's putting Canada first.
00:15:59.260 But when it comes to energy security, building pipelines, building houses for people,
00:16:05.780 cutting regulation, cutting red tape, lowering taxes,
00:16:09.220 these are all things that are right out of the Trump America first playbook.
00:16:14.240 And look, ultimately, conservatives in America are nationalists in the sense that we believe
00:16:20.640 the world is a community of nation states who take care of themselves first,
00:16:25.960 but also work together cooperatively for the common good.
00:16:29.580 We're not globalists.
00:16:31.260 And so the idea of a strong Canada taking care of Canada first,
00:16:35.280 but also being a good partner to the U.S. for mutual prosperity is the win-win that we would be looking for.
00:16:42.300 I think that would be...
00:16:45.520 I'm not part of the government, obviously,
00:16:48.460 but I would think that that would be what a lot of Canadians would vote for
00:16:53.060 if they thought it was there to be had.
00:16:55.420 So I'm going to be bold and say that this is probably going to end well,
00:16:59.800 but not before a lot of people have shed some tears,
00:17:02.480 and there's perhaps been a change of government.
00:17:06.180 The fundamental interests of the United States and Canada seem to point that way.
00:17:10.140 But it does depend, at least in part, on Canada doing its part on border control.
00:17:18.780 So what I was hoping to hear from you, that we've got that under control.
00:17:23.800 You're optimistic, I think, that we're getting there?
00:17:28.180 I'm personally optimistic.
00:17:31.120 I just never, ever predict what the Trump administration and President Trump is going to do,
00:17:38.240 because that's a recipe for a reputational disaster.
00:17:42.460 Oh, boy.
00:17:43.440 I think I should take your hand there and leave it at that.
00:17:48.280 Look, Simon, this has been great.
00:17:50.400 I really want to thank you for coming on board,
00:17:53.420 and I hope we'll have you back again in the weeks and months to come as this situation matures.
00:18:00.860 Certainly, and good wishes to everybody else there at the Heritage Foundation.
00:18:05.600 They do great work.
00:18:07.200 So thank you for joining us.
00:18:11.340 It's been a pleasure any time.
00:18:13.040 Okay, well, do you want to be part of the office pool on how this works out?
00:18:19.160 We'll correspond privately later.
00:18:22.160 Yeah, I was going to say, let's talk offline, as they say.
00:18:25.820 Okay, thank you very much again.
00:18:28.560 For the Western Standard, I'm Nigel Hannaford.
00:18:31.140 For the Western Standard, I'm Nigel Hannaford.