Analysis

As if Justin Trudeau isn’t dealing with enough. His Liberal Party is down in the polls and struggling amid a House of Commons shutdown led by the Conservatives. Now it has to manage an incoming Trump administration intent on extracting as much as it can from Canada.

After nearly 10 years in power, the Liberals are politically weak, and they’re staring down another potential parliamentary showdown over what to do about Donald Trump. Last time, it was overTrump’s 2018 tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum imports. This time, it’s likely to be about the president-elect's latest tariff threat and border security politics.

What the tariff man wants vs. Canada’s choices

Trumprecentlyannounced an intended tariff policy that made Canadian leaders blanch: 25% across the board — levies that would cripple Canada’s economy. The tariff hike wasn’t a surprise, considering Trump campaigned on it, but the 25% rate was a shock, and the inclusion of Canada disabused optimistic Canadians of any hope that a long, close trade and security relationship between the countries would mean preferential treatment.

The president-elect has said Canada would pay the high tariffs “until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!” So Trump has laid out his ground rules, but responding to his demands will be tough.

For one thing, the US Drug Enforcement Agency says that while Canada’s border was a fentanyl threat a decade ago, it’s no longer a core part of the drug-poisoning crisis. Mexico poses a bigger threat — almost 500 times more fentanyl was seized by US Border Patrol coming from Mexico than Canada in 2023.

Still, border crossings are up. Encounters between irregular migrants and authorities along the US-Canadian border in 2023 account for just a fraction of the 1.5 million along the US-Mexico border, but the Canadian numbers are higher than ever. Along the northern land border — the world’s longest at 5,525 miles — border patrol reported 189,000 encounters last year, a 73% uptick from the year before — and nearly 600% higher than in 2021.

The Liberal government has promised to be “very visible” on border policy in response to Trump, adding more staff and equipment, including additional helicopters and drones to monitor the frontier. It is also pledging additional resources for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police aimed at curbing human smuggling across the border. They’ve also launched an online ad campaign — in 11 languages — to dissuade refugees from making asylum claims in Canada.

The Mounties, in turn, plan to send more police to the border if necessary, largely in response to Trump’s plan for mass deportations, which it expects will lead to a surge in illegal crossings. The exact number of pledged Mounties is unclear, though the increase could involve sending cadets to the border. The Canada Border Services Agency says it would need up to 3,000 more officers to manage its share of increased border activity.

Border security poses domestic challenges for Trudeau

Any new Canadian border security plan will cost money the government must come up with as part of its budget in early spring. Since the Liberals rely on support in a minority parliament, they require support from opposition parties to pass legislation.

At least one province isn’t waiting around for Trudeau. Alberta is working on its own border plan, which may include a special sheriff unit to patrol the crossing between it and Montana. But the bulk of any plan will come from Ottawa.

While he can’t implement policy, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre — whose side leads the Liberals by 20 points in the polls — can cajole and pile more political pressure on Trudeau. Poilievre’s podium sign during a recent speech read: “Fix the broken border,” and he’s calling for a plan to be presented to Parliament by the Liberals that includes more border patrols, stricter visa rules, a cap on how many asylum-seekers the country accepts, and more.

Trudeau met with opposition leaders on Tuesday to discuss border security and the tariff threat, but Poilievre has political reasons to keep calling it “Trudeau's broken border.” After all, the Conservatives, if their polling holds, are set to replace the Liberals, and the country is due to vote by October 2025.

To pass legislation in the meantime — including the crucial budget Trudeau needs to tighten border controls and keep Trump’s tariffs at bay — the Liberals must win the support of another party in the House of Commons, most likely the NDP, if anyone.

In theory, Poilievre might back a robust Liberal border plan, which Conservatives would claim as their own. But it may be more likely that they’ll reject whatever the Liberals come up with as insufficient and wait to present their own plan if they form a government after the next election.

The Conservatives won’t hand Trudeau a win, says Graeme Thompson, a senior analyst with Eurasia Group’s global macro-geopolitics practice, and will likely respond to the Liberals’ border plan with: “Great, but it’s too late and not enough.” So they’d “vote against it for being too spendthrift and for not doing enough on security and defense.”

That would leave Trudeau with two choices for a partner: the Bloc Quebecois, who are also set on defeating the Liberal government, or the New Democratic Party, who are taking things one day — and one vote — at a time. So far, on the border, the NDP is calling on the government to hire 1,100 new border agents and to expand the agency’s powers.

Thompson says the left-wing Bloc and NDP “might not be the most excited about okaying massive expenditures on border security.”

For the NDP to vote against the Liberals, they’d likely have “to find the budget insufficiently generous when it comes to economic and social supports for Canadians,” Thompson says. But if they simply say the Liberals have gone too far on border and defense spending? “Then suddenly you’re in a situation where the Liberals have lost both flanks, and that could be a trigger for an election,” he adds.

Such a border security showdown could lead to an early election, says Thompson, as the Liberals try to navigate competing demands from Trump and opposition parties at home.

Could a new government fare better?

Should the Conservatives replace the Liberals in 2025, the changing of the guard may give Canada a stronger negotiating position vis-à-vis Trump. Poilievre’s Conservatives, for example, could scrap Liberal policies such as the Online Streaming Act and the digital services tax that irk the US, giving them leverage in negotiations with Trump.

Meanwhile, Trudeau’s ability to navigate tense US-Canada relations could determine his political fate and Canada’s economic future.