OTTAWA — The Trudeau government is creating a special cabinet position of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction as a response to growing criticism over illegal immigrans walking unmolested into Canada. Bill Blair, who was elected as a Liberal Member of Parliament in 2015 after a career in the Toronto police force, has been given the job of managing Canada’s open borders.
Despite promulgating the cabinet post, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not signal any policy change on Wednesday as he shuffled his federal cabinet. He suggested that Blair would be a good counterweight to the “politics of fear” that Trudeau insists characterize opposition to “irregular border crossers.”
“I am reminded of the very first conversation I had with Bill Blair years ago when I was asking him to think about running for the Liberal Party,” Trudeau mused at a Wednesday news conference following the naming of the new cabinet ministers.
“The announcement that someone with law-and-order bonafides has been put in charge of a new department focusing on the border appears to be an attempt by the Liberals to show the Canadian public — as well as U.S. President Donald Trump’s security-obsessed administration — that they’re on top of these issues, said Simon Fraser University Prof. David Moscrop told the National Post.
“The Liberals are aware the 2019 election is coming and security is going to be a predominant issue,” Moscrop said.
