A Langley B.C. visit by an RCMP Black Hawk helicopter was part of an attempt to appease U.S. President Donald Trump, according to an investigative report published by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) newspaper in the U.S.
During the February 2025 photo opportunity at Langley Regional Airport, the Langley Advance Times and other media were granted an opportunity to take photos and video of the helicopter making multiple fly-pasts.
At the time, reporters who attended the event in the RCMP hangar at the airport were told it was one of two high-tech helicopters chartered to beef up border security.
A just-published two-part WSJ series, about the way Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney and other countries have been dealing with Trump, says it was an effort by the government of then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to convince the American leader Canada was cracking down on cross-border drug trafficking.
It was suggested by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, the newspaper reported. Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump’s eldest daughter, has been a senior advisor during both the first and second Trump administrations.
“Shortly before Carney took power, the Ottawa government was desperate to rebut Trump’s unsupported claims that Canada had become a major source of fentanyl. Asked for advice, Kushner suggested they produce a video that might persuade the president that they were serious about border security, according to the Canadian officials.”
Trump was threatening to impose tariffs over the issue.
“Trudeau’s government hired a film crew to capture two Black Hawk helicopters and a sniffer dog on patrol. Instead of placating Trump, it seemed to fuel his interest in revisiting the placement of the border,” the Journal report said.
In February, Trump announced the first in a series of tariffs against Canadian goods.
At the Langley event that month, when asked, RCMP asst. commissioner David Teboul said politicians would have to answer why the Black Hawks were obtained.
“Certainly, it is also about optics,” Teboul said. “It’s also about deterrence. It’s about surveillance. It’s about preventing criminal activity at our borders, whether it’s happening southbound or, these days, northbound.”
At the time, RCMP already had nine helicopters – six of which provided border surveillance and support.
Since the Black Hawk helicopters were acquired, there have been reports they lacked standard Transport Canada certification, and one has been grounded because it was only approved for demonstration purposes.
Langley Advance Times has reached out to the RCMP for comment.