Are the BC Conservatives Pro-Trump, or Pro-Canada?

The most interesting thing about Conservative MLA Gavin Dew’s Vancouver Sun column on Trump’s tariffs is what isn’t there.

Dew blasts Premier David Eby’s government. But he never criticizes President Donald Trump’s tariff attack on Canada.

In fact, Dew’s column suggests the BC Conservatives are on Trump’s side and Canadians should surrender to his attack.

“Clearly, the NDP government wants to fight with U.S. President Donald Trump for political gain,” Dew writes in the U.S.-owned Sun.

Dew echoes the position taken by Conservative Party of BC Leader John Rustad, who supported Trump’s fabricated attacks on Canada, saying in a press release that the tariff threats were “a direct response to Canada's failure to control illegal immigration and crack down on fentanyl.”

Those concerns are “legitimate,” Dew writes, and addressing them “would not only improve safety, but also strengthen B.C.’s standing as a reliable trade partner.”

The problem? They aren’t legitimate concerns. Trump made them up to justify tariffs against Canada.

While the number of people trying to cross from Canada to the United States without proper documents has increased, driven by a surge in people from India seeking a new life in the U.S., migration from Canada is insignificant compared with migration across the southern border.

The BC Conservatives also back Trump’s even more ridiculous claim that fentanyl is flooding into the United States from Canada.

It’s not.

In the 2024 fiscal year, U.S. border authorities seized 21,889 pounds of fentanyl. Only 43 pounds were seized at the Canadian border, with the rest at the Mexican border.

Unless U.S. border protection agencies are wildly ineffective, Canada is not the problem.

More basically, the idea that enforcement can actually have any effect on drug use is silly. If Trump were successful at halting fentanyl imports, new drugs would emerge.

It’s been more than 50 years since Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs. Fifty years of failure, wasted money and deaths. The forces of supply and demand are more powerful than government posturing.

So it seems Rustad and the BC Conservatives have joined Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s camp — sharing a goal of currying favour, appeasing Trump’s demands and seizing an opportunity to bash their political opponents.

And that now puts them squarely at odds with the federal Conservatives.

On Sunday, leader Pierre Poilievre stepped up and denounced Trump’s attack.

“There is no justification for these tariffs or this treatment,” he said. “Canada will never be the 51st state.”

Poilievre’s intervention might be a bit late. But it has signalled an interesting divide in right-wing politics as a federal election looms.

Alberta’s Smith and B.C.’s Rustad have been sympathetic to Trump’s MAGA fantasies. They have suggested appeasement and compromise.

Now Poilievre says no.

Which could leave them out to dry. Or it could leave Poilievre scrambling to manage the right-wing populist movement he energized.