“He wants us to recognize that Canada enjoys a very special relationship with the U.S. that no other country in the world enjoys, and just show the respect of taking seriously the fact that they’ve got people dying and they want it to stop,” Danielle Smith said, referencing the fentanyl overdose crisis, Trump’s stated reasoning for the tariff threat.
In an interview on CTV’s Power Play with Vassy Kapelos on Tuesday, Smith said the comparison many Canadian officials are making — that the amount of fentanyl seized at the Canada-U.S. border is a fraction of that seized at the Mexico-U.S. border — is “not a very persuasive argument.”
“We should stop making excuses,” Smith said. “Stop saying, ‘Yeah, but we’re not as bad as the other guys.’ We should just say, ‘Yes, we agree, and we’re going to take care of our part of the issue, so you don’t have to worry about us anymore.’”
The amount of fentanyl seized going into the states from Canada makes up 0.2% of the total amount seized, while Mexico accounted for 96.6%. The raw data is: 21,889 pounds seized at the border, Canada contributed 43 pounds, while Mexico contributed 21,148 pounds. (2024)
Those numbers also remained stable going into 2025.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/03/politics/us-canada-trade-fentanyl-fact-check/index.html
We aren’t comparing fractions here, and it is clear as fucking day that Canada is not the issue when it comes to fentanyl. It is not that “we aren’t as bad as the other guys”, it is that we aren’t doing bad at all. We are in no way shape or form anything like “the other guys”.
We can improve our border security to stop what is entering Canada, and really need to, but saying we need to do it because of drugs crossing into the US demonstrates complete ignorance on the issue. Complete ignorance is of course Marlaina Smith’s bread and butter so we shouldn’t be shocked, but we need to keep pushing the real data out on this one to prevent anyone following this ignoramus to their doom and taking everyone else with them.