This is The Week in Polling, your Saturday dose of interesting numbers from top pollsters in Canada and around the world, curated by The Hub. Here’s what we’re looking at this week.
Canadians agree with Trump’s calls for Canada to increase border security measures
Source: Leger
In late November, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump threatened to impose 25 percent tariffs on Canadian imports unless the Canadian government strengthened its southern border. Trump said that to prevent the tariffs, Canada would have to stop the “invasion” of drugs, “in particular, fentanyl and all illegal aliens” from getting into the U.S. He also threatened Mexico with equal tariffs for the same reasons.
To remedy the concerns of Trump and some 58 percent of Canadians, the Trudeau government is contemplating spending hundreds of millions of dollars to further secure the Canada-U.S. border. Some reports suggest they might spend upwards of $1 billion to prevent Trump’s looming tariff threat from becoming a reality.
Between October 2023 and July 2024, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported a record-high number of encounters with migrants attempting to cross the border from Canada and into the U.S.—19,498. The year before, the CBP reported encountering only 2,238 migrants between border posts at the U.S.-Canada border. Some experts said this influx was because organized smugglers took advantage of relaxed Canadian security screening.
