How a Republican in Canada views Trump: ‘Not asking for anything crazy’

Georganne Burke, a prominent conservative political advisor in the U.S. and Canada, says the Trump administration will be pushing Canada on border security and defence.

The incoming Donald Trump administration and Republicans in Congress still see Canada as a friend and ally, but will continue to press Ottawa on addressing border security and defence spending, a prominent conservative advisor says.

Georganne Burke, who has worked in both U.S. and Canadian politics and supported Trump’s return to the White House, says those two issues in particular will be major sticking points in the Canada-U.S. relationship unless the Liberal government shows it’s willing to act in the ways Trump wants.

“The government has to get serious and understand that (Trump and Republicans) are not asking for anything crazy,” she told Mercedes Stephenson in an interview that aired Sunday on The West Block. “They’re simply saying, ‘Can you guys do what’s needed on the border and can you meet your defence requirements?’

“If I were advising our current government, I would say, ‘Take those things seriously, because if you don’t, there will be a price to pay in terms of your relationship with the U.S.'”

Trump’s newly named U.S. “border czar” Tom Homan said in an interview last week with 7News in Watertown, N.Y. — a community close to the Ontario border — that there’s an “extreme national security vulnerability” along the Canada-U.S. border that will need to be addressed.

Canada has also long been pressed to meet NATO’s benchmark of spending at least two per cent of GDP on defence, a target Ottawa says won’t be met until 2032. That plan has been put in doubt by the parliamentary budget officer.

Trump has said he wouldn’t come to the aid of NATO members that don’t meet the target if attacked by a foreign adversary like Russia.

Burke said Republicans she speaks to in the U.S. — including members of Congress, senators and leaders in the Republican National Committee — have “a lot of affection” for Canada but view the Liberal government as “lax” on border and defence policy in the same vein as how they have characterized the Biden administration and Democrats.