Kristi Noem, who served for almost 14 months as homeland security secretary under President Donald Trump, was appointed as strategic adviser to NovaRed Mining Inc. earlier this month.J. Scott Applewhite/The Canadian Press
Retired U.S. Navy commander Phil Ehr says he is prepared to resign from NovaRed Mining Inc.’s advisory board if Kristi Noem remains with the Canadian mining exploration company.
Vancouver-based NovaRed last week said it had hired Ms. Noem as a strategic adviser.
Ms. Noem, the former U.S. secretary of homeland security, was fired by U.S. President Donald Trump in March after months of controversy over her aggressive crackdown on immigration and following a US$220-million taxpayer-funded ad campaign. Mr. Trump subsequently appointed her as the Special Envoy to the Shield of the Americas.
Mr. Ehr is running for Congress as a Democrat in the United States and said that he has staunch objections to her politics, was bothered by her siding with President Trump on Canada becoming the 51st state, and upset that she once justified shooting her own dog.
In an interview with The Globe and Mail on Wednesday, Mr. Ehr said he wasn’t consulted about Ms. Noem being hired, and believes the company erred in thinking it could hire advisers on such extreme ends of the political spectrum.
“The company is being a bit naive in thinking that we can just have Republicans and Democrats, and it’ll all be good,” he said. “Well, it’s not all good when there’s this kind of divide in our country.”
Mr. Ehr said he has made his position clear to NovaRed and is giving the company about a week to think things over. If Ms. Noem stays, then he will go.
“I don’t think it’s tenable for me to stay,” he added. “Normal Republicans and normal Democrats should work together. But she is so extreme, as demonstrated by her actions.”
NovaRed did not respond to requests for comment.
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Mr. Ehr was critical of Ms. Noem’s record as secretary of homeland security, referencing her aggressive stance on immigration.
Ms. Noem’s use of public funds for big budget television ads starring herself came under scrutiny during her tenure.
“You cross the border illegally we’ll find you, break our laws we’ll punish you, harm American citizens there will be consequences,” Ms. Noem said in the ad in which she can be seen galloping on horseback in the vicinity of Mount Rushmore.
Leading up to her dismissal, she sought to justify two deadly shootings of U.S. citizens by immigration agents and faced accusations of needlessly slowing down federal disaster responses.
“Her actions as a secretary of homeland security, those are not just damaging,” Mr. Ehr said, “they are horrible for what is happening with immigration, and with civil rights.”
Prior to joining NovaRed, Ms. Noem represented South Dakota in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2011 to 2019. She was the state’s governor from 2019 to 2025. Under President Trump, she served almost 14 months as homeland security secretary.
Ms. Noem has long been a divisive figure in the U.S. In her memoir, she wrote about killing her 14-month-old dog called Cricket after it displayed aggressive behaviour, an event that upset Mr. Ehr, who is an animal lover.
She also sided with Mr. Trump as he has mused repeatedly about making Canada the 51st state.
“I’m not Canadian, but that does bother me,” Mr. Ehr said.
“It was mean-spirited and abusive, and I don’t want anything to do with that. If you’re in the position of cabinet secretary you don’t play along as she does.”
Mr. Ehr served 26 years with the navy, including conducting classified air reconnaissance missions during the Cold War, and providing combat support in the Gulf War. In a release in March, NovaRed trumpeted his experience, saying he’d had “a rare ‘Mustang’ career trajectory, rising from enlisted Seaman to Commander.”
When he was recruited, Mr. Ehr was excited about working with a company that was attempting to develop a copper project in British Columbia given the metal’s importance to the defence industry and electrification, two areas he is passionate about.
NovaRed is a copper and gold exploration company that generates no revenue. It has a market value of approximately $54-million and trades on the speculative Canadian Securities Exchange. As of January, NovaRed was holding only $65,689 in cash, which the company said wouldn’t be enough to cover all of its expected expenses for the next 12 months.