Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said the province will spend $29 million to create a new sheriff’s patrol unit to strengthen security at the Canada-U.S. border.
The unit is to be supported by around 50 armed sheriffs, 10 cold weather surveillance drones and four drug detection dogs. It should be operational early next year.
“Working with federal law enforcement, we will ensure that our section of the U.S. border is well protected,” Smith said Thursday in Calgary.
“We will deny asylum to criminals who seek to operate in both countries and, if we are successful and maintain adequate border security, I hope we will have a very strong relationship with the United States, as we have always done.”
Alberta Public Safety Minister Mike Ellis said the unit would focus on inspections of commercial vehicles along major highways near points of entry to the 298-kilometre portion of the border that the province shares with Montana.
He said a two-kilometre-deep zone along the border will be considered critical infrastructure, so sheriffs will be able to arrest without a warrant anyone caught trying to cross illegally or smuggling drugs or illegal weapons.
Bob Andrews, Alberta’s chief sheriff, said collaboration with the RCMP and Canada Border Services Agency will be key.
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“Access to federal and international border intelligence will ensure these teams have an immediate impact on the trafficking of people, drugs and weapons between Alberta and the United States,” he said.
The announcement comes after new U.S. President Donald Trump pledged to impose 25 percent tariffs on all Canadian and Mexican imports on his first day back in office in January.
Trump said the tariffs would remain in effect until countries stop illegal immigration and drug trafficking at their borders.
Smith said Trump was right to be concerned and she called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to act accordingly. The federal government is expected to announce its border security plan in the fall economic update on Monday.
Ellis said he had already been working on a plan to create a sheriff-led team targeting fentanyl and gun trafficking at the border, and that plan was fast-tracked.
“We were going to do this regardless of what President-elect Trump said,” Ellis said.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford suggested this week that Canada cut off electricity supplies to the United States, but Smith has consistently rejected the idea of retaliation.
“Under no circumstances will Alberta agree to suspend its oil and gas exports,” Smith said.
“I do not support tariffs on Canadian products and I do not support tariffs on American products. Because all this does is make life more expensive for ordinary Canadians and Americans.
She said Alberta is taking a diplomatic approach. She recently returned from a Western Governors’ Association meeting in Las Vegas.
Canada has also pledged to strengthen its border security in the face of Trump’s threats, despite a lack of evidence to support his claims that illicit fentanyl is being smuggled into the United States from Canada.
Insp. Angela Kemp of Alberta’s Law Enforcement Response Teams said the majority of fentanyl seized in the province is manufactured in Western Canada. But the chemicals, or precursors, that make up fentanyl are imported from other countries.
“ALERT’s integrated and specialized teams seized more than a quarter of a million fentanyl tablets. He seized almost 90 kilograms of fentanyl powder and a ton of fentanyl precursors and polishing agents,” she said.
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