Death, distress and billions in taxpayer dollars: The cost of a militarised US-Canada border

At a press conference on December 17, the Canadian federal government announced proposed new measures to expand its management of Canada’s border with the United States. These measures were intended to appease the incoming Trump administration and to avoid a threatened 25% import tariff.

The proposal includes expansions of border technologies, including Royal Canadian Mounted Police counterintelligence, 24/7 surveillance between ports of entry, helicopters, drones and mobile towers. But what will this mean for people seeking asylum?

If the US-Mexico border is any indication, it will mean more death.

Criminalising migration

At the press conference, Dominic LeBlanc, the minister of finance and intergovernmental affairs, reaffirmed Canada’s relationship with the incoming Trump administration. Framed around politics of difference, and relying on the fearmongering trope of migration as a “crisis,” Canada’s new border plan will also cost taxpayers $1.3 billion.

During the press conference, LeBlanc’s remarks conflated migration with trafficking and crime, relying on “crimmigration,” or the use of criminalisation to discipline, exclude, or expel migrants or others seen as not entitled to be in a country. LeBlanc also made direct reference to preventing fraud in the asylum system, with the driving forces behind this new border plan being “minimising border volumes” and “removing irritants” to the US.

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