Standing behind heaping piles of drugs stacked in clear plastic bags and storage boxes, Toronto’s police chief last week announced the force’s largest-ever cocaine seizure, intercepted at the border in a truck entering from the United States.
A few hours later, President Trump also addressed cross-border drug trafficking — but in his case to lay blame on Canada, at least in part, for a deadly fentanyl scourge.
“The fentanyl coming through Canada is massive,” Mr. Trump told reporters the day after his inauguration. “The fentanyl coming through Mexico is massive. And people are getting killed and families are being destroyed.”
It was a repeat of his claim that Canada and Mexico have not done enough to reinforce their borders and block the flow of narcotics — and migrants — to the United States. He has threatened to impose punitive tariffs of 25 percent on exports from both countries on Feb. 1.
Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary nominee, reiterated that stance at his confirmation hearing on Wednesday, calling for Canada to “respect America.”
“If we are your biggest trading partner, show us the respect,” Mr. Lutnick said. “Shut your border and end fentanyl coming into this country.”
To stave off the threatened tariffs, the Canadian government has been sending drones, canine units and helicopters to support surveillance at the border. But recent announcements by law enforcement officials about those efforts and assurances from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada seem to have done little to appease the new U.S. administration.
Given the limited role Canada plays in the cross-border fentanyl trade, however, it’s not clear how much it could really do to ease the American opioid crisis.
Where does fentanyl in Canada come from?
Before 2020, trafficking networks in Canada were primarily conduits for imported fentanyl and other opioids. But in recent years, they have increased domestic production, a trend that other countries are expected to follow, according to a report published this month by Canada’s financial intelligence agency.
Canadian officials believe there were about 100 organized crime groups involved in fentanyl production in the country last year, a more than fourfold increase from 2022.
The police have located clandestine fentanyl labs around the country, primarily in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario. In November, officers in British Columbia said they had shut down Canada’s largest lab yet, hidden on a rural property, seizing enough chemicals to produce 96 million doses of fentanyl. The investigation showed links to Mexican cartels.
Before the shift toward domestic drug production, the Canadian police and border agents were combating the flow of fentanyl powder — to be pressed into pills — that was shipped into the country in near-undetectable quantities in the mail. Now, the focus is on the import of chemicals used to synthesize fentanyl, known as precursors.
How much Canadian fentanyl crosses into the U.S.?
As the opioid epidemic raged in the United States, killing thousands, Congress in 2020 established a commission to look into ways to reduce the flow of the drugs into the country. The commission found that “Canada is not known to be a major source of fentanyl, other synthetic opioids or precursor chemicals to the United States, a conclusion primarily drawn from seizure data,” according to its February 2022 report.
Last year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents intercepted about 19 kilograms of fentanyl at the northern border, compared with almost 9,600 kilograms at the border with Mexico, where cartels mass-produce the drug.
Financially, it doesn’t make sense for Canadian criminal groups to focus on exporting fentanyl south, said Daniel Anson, the director of intelligence and investigations at the Canada Border Services Agency. “Mexican fentanyl, due to the cost and the street price, is very difficult to compete with in the U.S.,” he said.
Canada’s public safety agency said that while local crime groups producing opioids tend to service the domestic market, they have also expanded to other markets, including in Australia, New Zealand and Japan. The Australian police in 2022 intercepted a large fentanyl shipment from Canada, about five million doses.
What is Canada doing about it?
Canada has some of the strictest chemical import regulations in the world under its Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, but health officials and police often struggle to keep up with the evolving chemical components used by organized criminals to produce fentanyl.
About 80 percent of the chemicals used to make fentanyl can legally be imported from China or purchased within Canada, according to a report published this month by the Criminal Intelligence Service of Canada. Some criminal groups are setting up private companies to shield the intent of their purchases, the report said.
In a recent case out of Alberta, a man operating what was believed to be the province’s largest illicit fentanyl lab was sentenced to 16 years in prison. Investigators found the operation by tracking shipments of precursor chemicals legally imported into Canada from Chinese manufacturers.
While the quantities of fentanyl leaving Canada for the United States are minuscule — 0.2 percent of what is seized at the U.S. southern border — Mr. Anson said the Canadian border agency had established new teams to focus on the export of the drug, as well as the import of synthetic chemicals. It will also set up a border financial crime center over the next year to target trade-based money laundering and fraud.
“I am 100 percent oriented toward ensuring that we don’t become the weak link,” Mr. Anson said.
