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 …