In act of quiet diplomacy, finance minister sends short video to key Trump insider

In Edmunston, New Brunswick bordering on Maine, talk of U.S. President Trump's tariff threat is not a welcome discussion. Sarah Plowman reports.

Canada’s latest weapon in fending off a potential trade war with the United States is a three-minute border security video delivered in an act of quiet diplomacy.

Finance Minister Dominic Leblanc, who also maintains responsibility for border security and chairs the cabinet committee on Canada-U.S. relations, texted the video to U.S. President Donald Trump’s commerce secretary nominee, Howard Lutnick, on Wednesday evening, CTV News has learned.

Leblanc and Lutnick met at Mar-a-Lago on Nov. 29, when he and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau flew to Florida for an unannounced dinner with Trump at his golf course.

According to a source who has seen the video and is not authorized to publicly speak about it, the video is only being shared with Lutnick and not any other American official.

“It’s up to (Lutnick) to decide what to do with it and to share it if he wants,” the source said.

During his confirmation hearing on Wednesday, Lutnick detailed a two-stage tariff plan, with a broader round of tariffs in the spring.

In his testimony before the U.S. Senate, Lutnick said Canada could avoid the first round of tariffs, which could be imposed as soon as Feb. 1, if Canada addresses illegal migration and fentanyl at the border.

The video shared to Lutnick is the latest effort by Canadian officials to demonstrate Canada is bolstering the border.

In a statement, Leblanc’s press secretary, Gabriel Brunet, says that Canada’s border measures are “yielding results – southbound interceptions have markedly declined in the last number of months,” and reiterated that tariffs on Canadian exports would be harmful first and foremost to American consumers.

Brunet went on to say that Leblanc will travel to Washington, D.C. to meet Lutnick after his confirmation process concludes.

What the video shows

The opening of the video is “quiet” and shows just how little activity is occurring along stretches of the undefended border between ports of entry. The source would not reveal where the footage was taken but said that it was an area where there were once migrant crossings.

According to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (USCBP), the majority of illegal crossings from Canada into the U.S. is in the region known as the Swanton sector which spans Quebec’s border with Vermont, New Hampshire and New York and stretches to Cornwall, Ontario.

Large portions of the boundary include deep woods and waterways with only rusted signs and concrete markers to indicate that people were crossing from one country into another. However, when CTV National News visited a section of the border near Franklin, Q.C. late last year, reporters found dozens of cameras hidden in trees and encountered RCMP officers in unmarked vehicles patrolling the area.

After the quiet opening, the video then dovetails into an explainer, which uses data collected by the USCBP to show a dramatic drop in the number of illegal crossings at the northern border.

Last year, 22,369 people were detained by American authorities after illegally crossing from Canada. The highest traffic occurred in May, with 3,399 people. By December, that number had decreased to 510. That amounts to an 85 per cent reduction in southbound illegal crossings in the latter half of 2024.

The crossings are a fraction of the nearly two million people whom American border authorities apprehended while illegally crossing into the country from Mexico in the same time frame.

After the explainer, the video then showcases the new equipment and security measures detailed in Canada’s $1.3 billion dollar order plan, which the government has started to implement.

That plan includes leasing two Blackhawk helicopters from the U.S. and 60 drones, along with new mobile surveillance teams and new canine units that can sniff out fentanyl and track down the routes migrants are taking.

Public Safety Minister David McGuinty said that sharing footage with the United States is not “uncommon,” and part of security and intelligence exchanges between the two countries.

McGuinty said if the video was being shared that it would have been cleared by the operational managers at the RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency.

“If we are now sharing (the video)...it’s likely to show the investments we’ve made and that they’re working,” McGuinty said when asked by reporters on Wednesday.

The source said the helicopters make up only a small part of the video, which begins as it ends – at the border crossing with “little to no activity.”

McGuinty will join Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly in Washington to speak to U.S. officials as the tariff threat looms.

With files from Stephanie Ha