These Canadian firms want to build Trump’s Mexican border wall

A truck drives near the Mexico-U.S. border fence, on the Mexican side, separating the towns of Anapra, Mexico and Sunland Park, New Mexico. (AP Photo/Christian Torres, File)

Just four days after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security posted a Feb. 24 presolicitation for companies interested in building a wall structure on the U.S.-Mexico border, nearly 200 companies had entered the ring.

The wall, which will span 2,000 miles and carry an estimated maximum cost of $15 billion, now has over 600 parties interested in taking on the job, among them some Canadian companies — and even one Mexican one.

Ottawa-based Senstar Corp., a “perimeter-detection” sensor company that supplies sensors to border control, airports, pipelines, prisons and celebrity residences, is looking to nab part of the job, according to the Globe and Mail. Senstar is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Magal, a major contractor on Israel’s West Bank barrier consisting of concrete walls and sensor-laden fences.

Other Canadian firms interested in contributing to the project — arguably the largest job in the sector at the moment — are Varsteel Ltd., based in Lethbridge, Alta., and StrongKor Building Solutions Inc., a Vancouver-registered building technology firm which operates in several continents.

Toronto-based group ‘Trump Wall Solutions’ also submitted a satirical proposal to the Department of Homeland Security, using Albert Speer as the contact name — also the name of the Nazi war criminal who was Hitler’s personal architect.

While Prime Minister Trudeau has not discouraged any local firms from participating in the Mexican wall project, other administrations have been more vocal. France’s government has cautioned French-Swiss group LafargeHolcim against supplying its cement to build the controversial border wall, and Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo told Mexican companies it would be their interest “to not participate in the construction of the wall.”