“He wants us to recognize that Canada enjoys a very special relationship with the U.S. that no other country in the world enjoys, and just show the respect of taking seriously the fact that they’ve got people dying and they want it to stop,” Danielle Smith said, referencing the fentanyl overdose crisis, Trump’s stated reasoning for the tariff threat.

In an interview on CTV’s Power Play with Vassy Kapelos on Tuesday, Smith said the comparison many Canadian officials are making — that the amount of fentanyl seized at the Canada-U.S. border is a fraction of that seized at the Mexico-U.S. border — is “not a very persuasive argument.”

“We should stop making excuses,” Smith said. “Stop saying, ‘Yeah, but we’re not as bad as the other guys.’ We should just say, ‘Yes, we agree, and we’re going to take care of our part of the issue, so you don’t have to worry about us anymore.’”