Fact Check

Donald Trump: Build a Wall on the Canadian Border

A doctored video seemingly shows Donald Trump saying that as president he would build a wall along the U.S.-Canadian border.

Published March 24, 2016

 (Wikipedia)
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Claim:
Donald Trump said that as president he would build a wall along the U.S.-Canadian border.

On 22 March 2016, the Facebook page Fail Much News published a video purportedly showing GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump saying that, as president, he would build a wall along the U.S.-Canadian border:

Donald Trump to build wall with CanadaBreaking News: Donald J. Trump wants to build a wall with Canada. #GreatWallOfCanadafailmuch.com for more "breaking news" and FM News

Posted by FM News on Monday, March 21, 2016

This video uses real footage from a CNN/Telemundo GOP debate, deceptive edits, and misleading captions to make it seem as if Donald Trump said that he wanted to build a wall along the Canadian border. For instance, the video shows Trump seemingly saying that "the problem with Canada is heroin and drugs," but this portion of the video has been edited: what he actually said was that "the problem with Canada" is that has a very long border, and the "problem with drugs" remark was a reference to Mexico, not Canada. Additionally, the Fail Much video edited out the word "not" when reporter Maria Celeste Arrarás said "you have said that you will (not) build a wall in Canada."

On 25 February 2016, Telemundo's Maria Celeste Arraras asked the Republican presidential candidate for his thoughts on building a wall along the Canadian border, given that U.S. officials have warned the frontier with Canada, and not Mexico, poses a bigger terrorism threat:

Maria Celeste Arraras, a Telemundo journalist, challenged Trump on whether he was focused on the right border, given that ISIS has called upon its supporters to launch terrorist attacks in Canada.

"As a matter of fact, U.S. officials have warned that it is the Canadian border which is the most significant threat," she added.

Trump responded that the relative practicality and threat level made the idea a non-starter.

"The problem with Canada, you're talking about a massively long piece," said Trump. "You're talking about a border that would be about four times longer. It would be very, very hard to do, and we — it is not our biggest problem. I don't care what anyone says. It is not our big problem.

"Our big problem [with Mexico] is not only people coming in, and in many cases the wrong people, it's the tremendous amount of drugs that are coming in."

While Trump's answer to this question was a bit confusing — he pointed to the northern state of New Hampshire while claiming that heroin was coming in through the United States' southern border and accidentally said that "Canada would pay for the wall" before clarifying that he meant Mexico — it was clear that he said he has no plans to build a wall along the U.S.-Canadian border:

Dan Evon is a former writer for Snopes.

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