Canada’s borders are “safe and secure,” Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said Friday as she sought to address fears that U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s vow to deport millions of undocumented immigrants could send a wave of migrants north.
RCMP officials have said they’ve been preparing for months for the possibility of increased migrant traffic at the border as the undocumented flee the United States.
In an interview with CBC’s The House, Freeland said her message is that “Canada controls our borders. Every Canadian has the absolute right to expect that our country chooses who comes here and who doesn’t.”
“I want people to know their borders are safe and secure and they will continue to be, come what may in the world,” Freeland told host Catherine Cullen.
In an interview with Catherine Cullen, host of CBC Radio’s The House, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said her message to the rest of the world is that Canada welcomes newcomers in an ‘organized, systematic way.’
It’s not guaranteed that Trump will actually carry out the mass deportation, but his allies have mentioned Canada as a potential destination if the undocumented are forced out of the United States.
“Where do you think the illegal immigrants are going to flee to when our southern border is shut down? The northern border,” Kelly Craft, Trump’s former ambassador to Canada, said Tuesday. “So Canada needs to be prepared.”
The Pew Research Centre estimates the unauthorized immigrant population in the United States grew to 11 million in 2022.
RCMP Sgt. Charles Poirier told CBC News Network on Friday that officers are looking at getting more police cruisers, permanent or semi-permanent buildings and chartering some buses to ferry the migrants if they cross the border.
“Obviously, we don’t wish for this to happen, but should it happen, at least we’ll be ready,” Poirier said.
Although authorities are already preparing for an influx of migrants, one refugee advocate said the concern is overblown and he questions why Canadian politicians are giving it oxygen.
Abdulla Daoud, executive director of The Refugee Centre in Montreal, told The House he doesn’t think Trump’s promise of a mass deportation will change much for Quebec or Canada.
Daoud said that “policy takes time” and any surge of migrants would “probably be over a very long period of time. We won’t see millions of people show up to our borders overnight.”
Daoud also argued Trump has never specified if he’ll send undocumented immigrants to Quebec or Canada at large. He said it’s “odd” for Canadian politicians to suggest the country will be affected by Trump’s promise.
In Quebec, Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon has warned that millions of people might consider moving north after Trump’s election. Quebec Premier François Legault said he would press Trudeau to “make sure he protects the border.”
“So it’s unfortunately not the leadership we would like to see in Canada,” Daoud said. “We can’t play into that polarization because it’s not a good way to deal with the policy changes that are going to happen in the next four years.”
Daoud said if there’s an increase in migrants coming north, Canada would need to “look at our infrastructure and see how it’s built out to accommodate that increase.”
Trump’s win and Ukraine
Trump’s return to the White House may also shake up Russia’s war on Ukraine. The president-elect has vowed to end the war and has even promised to do it in as little as 24 hours — raising fears that Ukraine could be forced into negotiations.
When asked whether she believes Trump’s vow to end the war so quickly, Freeland did not answer directly. She said the people “who I think we all need to be listening to when it comes to Ukraine are the Ukrainians.”
“People outside Ukraine have consistently undermined the Ukrainians,” Freeland said, adding that experts informed her when the war began that Kyiv would “fall in a week.”
“Let’s recognize what a great job [the Ukrainians] have done. Let’s continue to support them,” she said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was among the first world leaders to publicly react to Trump’s win, praising the victory on social media and applauding Trump’s commitment to achieving “peace through strength.”
Ihor Michalchyshyn, executive director of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC), said he can’t speculate on what Trump meant by his promise to end the war in a day.
He said that Trump is “inheriting a situation that is critical to American security” and the UCC is “hopeful that the president-elect will be developing a strong relationship with the Ukrainian government.”
Michalchyshyn said there is “strong” bipartisan support for Ukraine in the United States and “we hope that will guide the actions of the future.”
“It’s in all of our interests to build a secure future and fight dictatorships and Putin’s Russia,” he added.