OTTAWA — The ranking U.S. diplomat on drug enforcement policy is to visit Ottawa in July to kick-start a fresh round of co-operation between the two countries on tackling the opioid crisis.
That includes a renewed focus on stemming the flow of fentanyl into the two countries from China, The Canadian Press has learned.
The visit of Kirsten Madison, the State Department’s assistant secretary for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs, would be the first tangible step forward in the new joint Canada-U.S. effort that hatched out of the June 20 White House meeting between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Donald Trump.
Stamping out opioid overdose deaths, especially in the Rust Belt states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania, has been a declared priority for Trump, whose path to victory in 2016 depended on voters in those states.
Trudeau announced the new initiative after his meeting with Trump, saying the two countries will work together and in multilateral organizations to find solutions to the crisis while deepening law-enforcement co-operation to combat trafficking.
