Mayor, province point fingers after Trump adviser singles out Edmonton’s drug crisis [Video]

U.S. President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser pointed to Alberta’s capital as an example of a drug crisis that the U.S. government says is the impetus for sweeping tariffs on Canada.

After talks on Monday, the prospect of 25 per cent tariffs on virtually all Canadian goods is on pause for a month.

But before that announcement, National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett said during an appearance on CNBC that Canada “misunderstood” Trump’s executive order on tariffs, and “this is not a trade war, this is a drug war.”

Hassett said some big cities in Canada “kind of look like San Francisco” in terms of the scale of drug problems. And he recounted how he spent time in downtown Edmonton last summer, where he said he saw an ambulance responding to someone overdosing on fentanyl outside his hotel, as well as people who “got into a fight with cops over drugs.”

“That was just one day …