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Opinion

Tuesday-night Trudeau

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17 minute read

Justin Trudeau at Gatineau Airport, Oct 24 – Photo by PW

Posted with permission from Paul Wells


Justin Trudeau in a hangar, before the comeback, if there’s going to be one

If Justin Trudeau’s historic comeback happens, it will start sometime after Tuesday night, when he spoke to a Liberal Party of Canada fundraiser at the one-runway Gatineau Airport, 21 minutes’ drive from Rideau Cottage on the Quebec side of the river.

The prime minister is two months short of his 52nd birthday. Brian Mulroney was not quite 54 when he became the youngest undefeated prime minister, so far, to announce his retirement from politics. This is the sort of week when I look up numbers like that.

The polls since summer haven’t been kind to the Liberals. I have readers who get cross with me when I mention polls, but I cover the most polling-obsessed government in Canada’s history, and I must decline requests to unilaterally disarm.

Trudeau and his ministers do fundraisers all the time, as do the leaders and prominent MPs in other parties. The only difference on Tuesday was that I went to watch. After some embarrassing early headlines about fundraisers soon after the 2015 election, the Liberal Party changed its rules to increase transparency in fundraising. Now reporters get advance notice whenever Trudeau will be speaking at a fundraiser. I wanted to see what Trudeau says at such things these days, precisely because they’re routine events. Hearing how the prime minister talks to friendlies on a Tuesday night near home was, perhaps, the closest I could get to hearing how he talks to himself.

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This event was a fundraiser for Gatineau MP Steven MacKinnon, a former Liberal Party national director who is serving as the government’s house leader while Karina Gould is on maternity leave. Two cabinet ministers were on hand too, Jean-Yves Duclos and Anita Anand. An organizer told the audience he’d been asked to get a smallish crowd out, “a good 50 or so;” since 67 people bought tickets, he was pretty pleased. The party had announced a ticket price up to $1,500. The crowd was of the sort that routinely gets described as overwhelmingly white and male when it’s a Conservative event, which means it was overwhelmingly white and male, but Liberal.

Trudeau spoke for twelve minutes. He opened by saying nice things about MacKinnon and thanked the two cabinet ministers. Poor Duclos thought he was just out to socialize, Trudeau joked, but Duclos is the minister of public services and procurement, “and around here we talk about a bridge.” Gales of laughter from the crowd. The riding association guy had also mentioned a bridge. There has been endless talk about a sixth bridge between Ottawa and Gatineau; neighbours near the various possible routes are leery, but a lot of people hope a new bridge would improve traffic flow, which often includes bumper-to-bumper heavy trucks on ordinary streets through the middle of Ottawa. A lot of the people who want the bridge the most run businesses. Judging from the PM’s choice of comic patter, they won’t have to wait long.

Trudeau thanked the crowd for coming out. “I know very well that everyone has plenty of choices for the various activities they could undertake on a Tuesday night in the month of October,” he said. This may have flattered the selection of fun activities in Gatineau on a Tuesday.

“You chose to come participate in a democratic event,” Trudeau continued. This was an instinct he could only applaud: “We know very well these days that it’s not always very motivating to get involved in politics. To raise your hand and say, ‘No, no, no, I want to participate in our democracy in an active and involved way. To take part in the conversations we’re having as a country in these difficult moments.’”

Trudeau contrasted this positive spirit with what certain other people, so far unnamed, like to do. “It’s very easy to point our finger at politicians, to complain about inflation or the pandemic or interest rates or labour shortages or housing or all these issues. It’s very easy, and many people decide to turn toward anger, anxiety, fear or division. Because it really pays over the short term, in politics, to rely on fear and division. But it’s so much more important to have a responsible, sensible approach, anchored in shared values. To try to bring us together rather than to divide us in an attempt to win a few points in the polls.”

One sensed an emerging central theme of contrast. “Your choice to come tonight to this Liberal event is enormously touching to me,” Trudeau said. “Because for eight years now, we’ve tried to be a government that stayed rooted in real things. In facts. In shared values. We bring people together rather than divide them for strategic reasons.”

Not only does his government, in his telling, think like good people, it does things good people will like.

“We manage to deliver for people. Even in extremely difficult moments like the ones we’re living through. People are struggling, because of the global context, extremely complex geopolitics that have a direct impact on pocketbooks, on groceries and rent. We have an important role to play as a government, to respond to today’s needs. That’s why we’ve made investments to help people pay their bills, to increase competition among the big grocers. We’re there to provide more daycare spaces. We’re there to help with dental care. We’re there to help with the Canada Child Benefit, which has lifted half a million children out of poverty in recent years. We’re there to create economic growth even as we fight against climate change.”

His audience for the night being mostly Quebecers and, as far as I could tell, mostly in business, the Liberal leader refined his course of general flattery to one of specific business-oriented flattery.

“I’m very proud of what we’ve been able to deliver in Quebec: NorthvoltRio TintoREM… These are investments that show how much — here in Quebec where we’ve always understood that environmental protection and economic growth go together — everyone can make progress together.”

This was a pretty upbeat message, as partisan messages often are — we have the right ideas and the right results, and the other team is trying to wreck it all — but here again, as when he lamented how “not very motivating” the political life can be, Trudeau introduced a distinctly mournful note.

“As usual, it’s a bigger challenge to get this message out in the rest of Canada,” he said. At the risk of talking about polls, I couldn’t help thinking Trudeau was referring to recent pee oh ell ells that show Quebec as the only part of the country where his Liberals are in the lead. Despite big federal spending on Volkswagen ($13 billion) and Stellantis (probably more), the clean green future seems not to tempt a lot of Canadians. “It still feels far off, because the day-to-day is still difficult for many Canadians,” he said. “But we know very well that a society and a future are built step by step.…When we stay optimistic, when we’re reasonable, everything becomes possible in the future.”

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This, he said, summing up, was “the political debate we’re having now…. Within two years — probably in two years — we’ll have elections.” That’s when people will get a chance to choose directions.

“Will we go back to the Conservative ways of trickle-down, cuts to social programs, advantages for the well-off in the hopes that they’ll eventually give everyone opportunity? It’s never worked and it won’t work better now.” Or would voters stick with the government Trudeau sees in the mirror? “We’re going to stay responsible but we’re going to keep investing,” he said.

Only now, at the end of his remarks, did Trudeau switch from French to English. “It’s always an incredible pleasure to spend time with people who are dedicated every day to building stronger communities and a stronger country.” And that was the end of that. The applause lasted for sixteen seconds. PMO staff led reporters out of the room — our access ends when the big guy stops talking.

A few observations on all this.

First, I’m struck by the way Trudeau narrowed down his expectation of election timing: “Within two years — probably in two years.” Probably anyone in a position of responsibility in any party would say an election could come any time, it’s wise to be ready, and so on. But in Trudeau’s mind, the supply and confidence agreement with the NDP seems likely to hold. He is not in a rush. Judgment Day isn’t until 2025.

Second, if he’s getting any advice to hit pause on carbon taxes, he sure doesn’t sound like he’s getting ready to take the advice. The heart of his case for himself is the notion that you can have clean energy and a thriving economy, and indeed that the latter depends on the former. That argument doesn’t require a carbon tax — theoretically, if you subsidize enough battery plants gasoline will become obsolete — but nothing in Trudeau’s fundraiser stump speech sounded like he was laying the predicate for a major retreat on carbon taxes.


BIG HONKING UPDATE, MINUTES LATER:

The feds have made a large announcement that shows the risks in making predictions. I quote:

“The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today announced the government is moving ahead with doubling the pollution price rebate (Climate Action Incentive Payment) rural top-up rate, increasing it from 10 to 20 per cent of the baseline amount starting in April 2024. People who live in rural communities face unique realities, and this measure would help put even more money back in the pockets of families dealing with higher energy costs because they live outside a large city.

“Given the pressures faced by households and small businesses that use oil heating, the Prime Minister also announced that the government is moving ahead with a temporary, three-year pause to the federal price on pollution (fuel charge) on deliveries of heating oil in all jurisdictions where the federal fuel charge is in effect. This pause would begin 14 days from today. While the fuel charge is already returned to consumers through the pollution price rebate, this temporary pause would save a household that uses heating oil $250 at the current rate, on average, while the federal government works with provinces to roll out heat pumps and phase out oil for heating over the longer term.”


Third, and more generally, the case Trudeau was building was for more of the same. “It still feels far off, because the day-to-day is still difficult for many Canadians,” he said, which is how you talk when you’re hoping your ship comes in before people get a chance to pass judgment.

Incidentally, here I think it’s only fair to point out there’s been recent progress on files I often point to as evidence that Liberal plans never pan out. The Canada Growth Fund, the object of this newsletter’s first post, made its first investment this week, a $90 million equity play in a Calgary geothermal energy company. The Canada-US Energy Transformation Task Force held a second meeting. Maybe two years of process news like that will add up to an electorate that’s excited about Canada’s energy transformation. I mean, it’s possible.

Most of all, I was struck by how “more of the same” had better work for the Liberals, because if the boss has a better idea, he’s hiding it well. A leader who once ran on cost-of-living issues…

… is now running on the clean-energy future that feels tantalizingly out of reach, and lamenting his opponent’s insistence on running on cost-of-living issues. His best hunch about timing is that he has no reason to rush, and his best assessment of his work to date is that he needs to do more of it.

Liberals who feel more of a sense of urgency, futility or wasted energy will just have to get on board, I guess. The leader’s not for turning.

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Business

‘Context Of Chemsex’: Biden-Harris Admin Dumps Millions Into Developing Drug-Fueled Gay Sex App

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

By Owen Klinsky

The Biden-Harris administration is spending millions funding a project to advise homosexual men on how to more safely engage in drug-fueled intercourse.

The University of Connecticut (UCONN) in July announced a five-year, $3.4 million grant from the U.S. National Institute of Health (NIH) for Assistant Professor Roman Shrestha to develop his app JomCare — “a smartphone-based just-in-time adaptive intervention aimed at improving access to HIV- and substance use-related harm reduction services for Malaysian GBMSM [gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men] engaged in chemsex,” university news website UCONN Today reported. “Chemsex,” according to Northern Irish LGBTQ+ nonprofit the Rainbow Project, is the involvement of drug use in one’s sex life, and typically involves Methamphetamine (crystal meth), Mephedrone (meth), and GHB and GBL (G).

Examples of the app’s use-cases include providing a user who has reported injecting drugs with prompts about ordering an at-home HIV test kit and employing safe drug injection practices, UCONN Today reported. The app is also slated to provide same-day delivery of HIV prevention drug PrEP, HIV self-testing kits and even a mood tracker.

“In Malaysia, our research has indicated that harm reduction needs of GBMSM [gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men] engaged in chemsex are not being adequately met,” Shrestha told UCONN Today. “Utilizing smartphone apps and other mHealth tools presents a promising and cost-effective approach to expand access to these services.”

Homosexuality is illegal in Malaysia and is punishable by imprisonment, according to digital LGBTQ+ rights publication Equaldex. Drug use, including of cannabis, is illegal in Malaysia, and drug trafficking can be a capital offense.

The NIH disbursed $773,845 to Shrestha in July to conduct a 90-day trial testing the efficacy of JomCare among 482 chemsex-involved Malaysian gays. It also provided Shrestha with $191,417 in 2022 to “facilitate access to gender-affirming health care” for transgender women in the country.

“Gender-affirming care” is a euphemism used to describe a wide range of procedures, including sometimes irreversible hormone treatments that can lead to infertility as well as irreversible surgeries like mastectomies, phalloplasties and vaginoplasties.

Shrestha has a track record of researching mobile health (mHealth) initiatives for foreign homosexuals, co-authoring a 2024 study entitled, “Preferences for mHealth Intervention to Address Mental Health Challenges Among Men Who Have Sex With Men in Nepal.”

The proliferation of LGBT rights has been a “foreign policy priority” under the Biden-Harris administration, a State Department spokesperson previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation, with President Joe Biden instructing federal government department heads to “to advance the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons.”

“Around the globe, including here at home, brave lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+) activists are fighting for equal protection under the law, freedom from violence, and recognition of their fundamental human rights,” a 2021 White House memorandum states. “The United States belongs at the forefront of this struggle — speaking out and standing strong for our most dearly held values.”

President-elect Donald Trump announced on Nov. 12 that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would collaborate to establish a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), with Musk claiming the agency would feature a leaderboard for the “most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars.” Some DOGE cuts could come from LGBTQ+ programs, such as a grant from the United States Agency for International Development to perform sex changes in Guatemala and State Department funding for the showing of a play in North Macedonia entitled, “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes.”

“The woke mind virus consists of creating very, very divisive identity politics…[that] amplifies racism; amplifies, frankly, sexism; and all of the -isms while claiming to do the opposite,” Musk said at an event in Italy in December 2023, according to The Wall Street Journal. “It actually divides people and makes them hate each other and hate themselves.”

Shrestha and the NIH did not respond to requests for comment. When reached for comment, a UCONN spokeswoman told the Daily Caller News Foundation that, “specific questions about the grant and the decision to award it to our faculty member should be directed to the NIH, since that’s the funding agency.”

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Crime

Mexican cartels are a direct threat to Canada’s public safety, and the future of North American trade

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From the Macdonald Laurier Institute

By Gary J. Hale for Inside Policy

RCMP raided a fentanyl ‘superlab’ in Falkland, BC, with ties to a transnational criminal network that spans from Mexico to China.

On October 31, residents of Falkland, BC, were readying their children for a night of Halloween fun. Little did they know that their “quaint, quiet, and low-key little village” was about to make national headlines for all the wrong reasons.

On that day, RCMP announced that it had raided a fentanyl “superlab” of scary proportions near Falkland – one that police called the “largest and most sophisticated” drug operation in Canada. Officers seized nearly half-a-billion-dollars’ worth of illicit materials, including 54 kilograms of finished fentanyl, 390 kilograms of methamphetamine, 35 kilograms of cocaine, 15 kilograms of MDMA, and six kilograms of cannabis” as well as AR-15-style guns, silencers, small explosive devices, body armour, and vast amounts of ammunition.

They also found massive quantities of “precursor chemicals” used to make the drugs. This strongly suggests that the superlab was tied into a transnational criminal network that spans from Mexico to China – one that uses North America’s transportation supply chains to spread its poisonous cargo across Canada and the United States.

The Canada-US-Mexico relationship is comprised of many interests, but the economic benefits of trade between the nations is one of the driving forces that keep these neighbours profitably engaged. The CUSMA trade agreement is the successor to NAFTA and is the strongest example globally of a successful economic co-operation treaty. It benefits all three signatories. This level of interdependence under CUSMA requires all parties to recognize their respective vulnerabilities and attempt to mitigate any threats, risks, or dangers to trade and to the overall relationship. What happens to one affects all the others.

The supply chain, and the transport infrastructure that supports it, affects the balance books of all three. While the supply chain is robust and currently experiences only occasional delays, the different types of transport that make up the supply chain – such as trucks, trains, and sea-going vessels – are extremely vulnerable to disruption or stoppages because of the unchecked violence and crime attributed to the activities of Mexican Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs). These cartels operate throughout Mexico, from the Pacific ports to the northern plains at the US-Mexico border.

The sophistication of the Falkland superlab strongly suggests connectivity to multi-national production, transportation, and distribution networks that likely include China (supply of raw products) and Mexico (clandestine laboratory expertise).

For most Canadians, Mexican cartels call to mind the stereotypical villains of TV and movie police dramas. But their power and influence is very real – as is the threat they pose to all three CUSMA nations.

Mexico’s cartels: a deadly and growing threat

Mexican cartels started as drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) in the 1960s. By the late 1990s they had evolved to become transnational enterprises as they expanded their business beyond locally produced drugs (originally marijuana and heroin) to include primarily Colombian cocaine that they transported through Mexico en route to the US and Canada.

Marijuana and the opium poppy are cultivated in Mexico and, in the case of weed, taken to market in raw form. While the cartels required some chemicals sourced from outside Mexico to extract opium from the poppy and convert it into heroin, the large-scale, multi-ton production of synthetic drugs like Methamphetamine and today Fentanyl expanded the demand for sources of precursor chemicals (where the chemical is slightly altered at the molecular level to become the drug) and essential chemicals (chemicals used to extract, process, or clean the drugs.)

The need to acquire cocaine and chemicals internationalized the cartels. Mexican TCO’s now operate on every continent. That presence involves all the critical stages of the criminal business cycle: production, transportation, distribution, and re-capitalization. Some of the money from drug proceeds flow south from Canada and the US back to Mexico to be retained as profits, while other funds are used to keep the enterprise well-funded and operational.

In Mexico, the scope of their activities is economy-wide; they now operate many lines of criminal business. Some directly affect Mexico’s economic security, such as petroleum theft, intellectual property theft (mainly pirated DVDs and CDs), adulterating drinking alcohol, and exploiting public utilities. Others are in “traditional” criminal markets, such as prostitution, extortion, kidnapping, weapons smuggling, migrant smuggling and human trafficking. Organized auto theft has also become another revenue stream.

Criminal Actors

The Cartel de Sinaloa (CDS or Sinaloa Cartel) and the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG) are the two principal TCO’s vying for territorial control of Mexico’s air, land, and maritime ports, as well as illegal crossing points. These points on the cartel map are known as “plazas,” and are often between formal ports of entry into the US. By controlling territories crucial for the inbound and outbound movement of drugs, precursors, people, and illegal proceeds, the cartels secretly transport illicit goods and people through commercial supply chains, thus subjecting the transportation segment of legitimate North American trade to the most risk.

That is giving the cartels the power to impair – and even control – the movement of Mexico’s legitimate trade. While largely kept out of the public domain, incidents of forced payment of criminal taxation fees, called “cuotas,” and other similar threats to international business operations are already occurring. For instance, cuotas are being imposed on the transnational business of exporting used cars from the US to Mexico. They’re also being forced on Mexican avocado and lime exporters before the cartels will allow their products to cross the border to the US and international markets. This has crippled that particular trade. Unfortunately, the Mexican government has been slow to react, and the extortion persists throughout Mexico. It is worth repeating – these entirely legitimate goods reach the market only after cartel conditions are met and bribes paid.

The free trade and soft border policies of the US of recent years have allowed cartel operatives to enter that country and work the drug trade with limited consequence. In May, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) published the National Drug Threat Assessment 2024, where it reported that the Jalisco and Sinaloa cartels operate in all 50 US states and are engaged in armed violence in American cities as they fight for market shares of the sales of Methamphetamine, Fentanyl, and other drugs sourced from Mexico.

The DEA’s findings should sound alarms in Canada. Canada and the US have similar trade and immigration policies, which allow the Mexican cartels to easily enter and control the wholesale component of the drug trade. The long-term effects of the drug trade are the billions of dollars gained that allow for the corruption of government officials. Canada should be on guard: Mexican drug cartels in Canada could begin to not only kill ordinary Canadians by knowingly selling them deadly drugs like Fentanyl – their operatives can also embed themselves in Canadian society, as they have in the US, leading to ordinary citizens on Canadian streets being victimized by the armed violence cartels regularly use to assert their position and power.

Organized crime and Mexican governance

Canada faces these threats directly, but the indirect ones that the cartels present to Mexican governance are no less consequential to Canada in the long term – and likely sooner. Illicit agreements between corrupt Mexican government officials and the cartels assure that the crime organizations retain control of territory and have freedom to operate.

That threat is becoming increasingly existential. Cartel fighters are well disciplined, well equipped and strong enough to challenge Mexico’s military, currently the government’s main tool to fight them. Should the TCOs come to dominate Mexican society or gain decisive influence over government policy, Mexico’s government risks being declared a narco-democracy and the US may come to see the cartels as a threat to national security. That in turn could lead to a US military intervention in Mexico – not an outcome desired by either side.

While that scenario may be considered extreme, it is not as far from reality as many may think. While in many respects the US-Mexico trading relationship remains unchanged, the overall political context has become testy – and could be a real flashpoint for the incoming Trump administration.

Political developments in Mexico have played a role. After his election in 2018, former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (commonly referred to his initials, AMLO) demonstrated a disdain for all things North American. This included frequent complaints of US interference or violation of Mexican sovereignty – complaints that were more about keeping Mexican government domestic actions out of the public eye. To retain a shroud of secrecy over government corruption, Mexico under Amlo started in 2022 to limit the activities and numbers of US federal law enforcement agencies operating there, particularly the FBI, DEA, ATF and ICE. These agencies formerly enjoyed a close relationship with the Mexican Federal Police – a force AMLO disbanded and replaced with the National Guard. The AMLO administration reduced the number of US assets and agents in Mexico, particularly singling out the DEA for the most punitive restrictions.

During his administration, AMLO placed the army and navy in charge of all ports of entry and gave them responsibility for all domestic public safety and security by subordinating the Guardia Nacional (GN), or National Guard, to the army. The GN, the only federal law enforcement agency, has been taken over by military officials who are sometimes corrupt and in league with the cartels.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who took office in 2024, has continued AMLO’s organizational moves. Sheinbaum comes from the same political party and has so far extended carte blanche to the military, whose administration is opaque and now operates with impunity, under the guise of “national security” and “sovereignty” concerns.

It is expected that Sheinbaum will continue to shield American eyes from Mexico law enforcement and judicial affairs. The fear in the US law enforcement and national security community is that Sheinbaum may even declare DEA non grata, much as then Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in 2005 and Bolivian President Evo Morales in 2008 did in their countries. Both were anti-American leftists of the same mindset as AMLO and Sheinbaum, who feared detection of their connections to the illegal drug trade.

Sheinbaum has publicly demonstrated disinterest in the consistent application of the rule of law against the TCOs by stating that she will continue the “hugs not bullets” (“abrazos, no balazos”) non-confrontational, non-interventional posture towards organized crime. Agreements with corrupt government officials will allow the cartels to expand their business and to operate with impunity. Through intimidation, bribery, and murder, the cartels affect decision making at the municipal, state, and federal levels of Mexican government. That leverage, while performed outside the public eye, has the potential to negatively affect supply and demand among the three countries at the very least, and at worst, to signal that cartels in Mexico are directly or indirectly involved in the formulation of government security, immigration, drug, and trade policy.

AMLO enacted constitutional changes that will provide Sheinbaum with the powers of a dictator, giving her administration unchecked control of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. As a result, the judiciary in Mexico is in crisis mode with 8 of 11 Supreme Court Justices resigning in October 2024 to protest the unconstitutional disregard for due process that started with AMLO and continues with Sheinbaum thanks to a “voting for judges” law that she and AMLO have rammed into operation without debate. This development portends even more corruption.

Without the existence of an independent judicial system, these institutional changes could give pause to US and Canadian negotiators when it comes time to renew CUSMA in 2026.

Beyond 2025: Mexican organized crime as a threat to the US and Canada, and Greater North American implications

Most worrying, the cartels will be in a yet stronger position to affect and even dictate the pace and volume of legitimate trade between the US and Mexico under Sheinbaum. This makes Mexico the weakest link among the three CUSMA members.

The US and Canada should therefore be concerned about the strength and power of the cartels because the current trajectory could provide them a greater role in Mexico’s performance as a trade partner. Should this trend continue, the US would likely begin to see Mexico through the lens of a threat to critical components of its national security: 1) the public safety of US citizens being killed in epidemic proportions by the drugs produced by citizens of Mexico; 2) the negative impact or increased cost of commerce that supplies goods to the American market; and 3) the CUSMA relationship that sustains the economic strength of all three participating countries.

This worrisome evolution requires proactivity by Canada and the US to insist that Sheinbaum reverse the gains that the cartels have made to influence policy and erode the government’s monopoly on territorial control and the use of violence, and reverse Mexico’s limits on drug enforcement co-operation with what should be its partners to the north. Pressure should also be applied to demand a return to a drug policy model that includes international law enforcement co-operation and a continuation towards the transformation of the Mexican judicial system from a mixed inquisitorial or accusatorial system to an adversarial system that employs the use of juries, witness testimony, oral hearings and trials, and cross-examination of witnesses, as opposed to a system where cartel-influenced elections could dictate judicial outcomes.

The implications of the further development of a Mexico narco-democracy for US-Mexico-Canada relations would be devastating. Co-operation on public safety and security would cease completely, allowing the cartels to take full control of commercial supply lines, significantly reducing trade between the three nations – likely causing the CUSMA trade deal to fracture until governance returned to duly elected civilian officials.

Continental security and Canada’s contribution

The continued success of CUSMA lies with Mexico more than any other country. Should Mexico continue on its path to autocracy, it could upset the trade deal, crucial to the prosperity of all three countries. Canada is not immune from what on the surface may appear to be mostly bilateral, US-Mexico issues, because, regardless of the commodity – whether it’s consumables or manufactured items – the cartels are positioned and empowered to affect imports, exports, trade, and migration throughout North America.

For the foreseeable future, Mexico is not going to voluntarily change its security posture. This enables the cartels to remain persistent threats, especially to trade. Canada and the US need to continue to jointly insist that Mexico take a stronger stance against organized crime and that it take steps to strengthen the judiciary and the rule of law in that country.


Gary J. Hale served 31 years in the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), retiring as an executive-level intelligence analyst. In 2010, he was appointed as Drug Policy fellow and Mexico Studies Scholar at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston, Texas.

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