Trump ally on Canada's fentanyl talk: Not good enough

The Canadian government is talking about adding helicopters and drones at the border to stop fentanyl shipments so Donald Trump drops his threat of devastating economic tariffs.

But David Asher, a Trump ally, says it should be doing more. Much more. And as someone who's worked on fentanyl policy for Trump, he says Canada should be making substantive, systemic changes.

He calls it frustrating to hear Canadians downplay their country's role in the fentanyl epidemic, just because a minuscule percentage of seized contraband comes from Canada. There's more to it than that, he says.

Asher urges new laws on racketeering, money laundering and intelligence-sharing, to fight international criminal networks that he says use Canada as a back office.

A top U.S. expert on criminal financing, Asher led an anti-fentanyl task force under Trump, has occasionally testified before the U.S. Congress, and has written a fentanyl strategic memo now reportedly circulating among Trump's transition team. 

It just so happens that he was talking to Canadians at a Vancouver security summit at the very moment the president-elect threatened the tariffs, just after 3 p.m. PT on Monday, Nov. 25.

He was telling his Canadian audience about the need not just to seize pills but to wipe out criminals' bank accounts, and prosecute crooked bankers.

Asher then checked his phone while someone else spoke and saw the social media post that has upended politics across the continent: A threatened 25 per cent tariff on all goods from Canada and Mexico, unless the countries curb fentanyl trafficking and migration at the U.S. border.

The audience seemed shocked and somewhat dismayed at the news, he said.

"They kept asking, 'Why should Canada care about this fentanyl issue?'" said Asher, a senior fellow at the conservative-leaning Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C.

For starters, he said, Canada should care because fentanyl is killing many thousands of Canadians and hundreds of thousands of Americans.

But furthermore, Canada is a more important player in the fentanyl trade than it acknowledges, he said — and its role is growing.

"The money laundering that makes drug trafficking work is largely run out of Canada," he said, specifically mentioning Vancouver and Toronto.

"Canada has been a reluctant and a not particularly effective partner in this.