Trump’s fentanyl ultimatum puts Canada’s ‘super labs’ under microscope

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The growth of illegal Canadian fentanyl production came into focus over the weekend after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump reportedly gave Canadian government leaders a clear impression that the runaway drug problem is his top priority, even in Canada-U.S. relations.

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Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, who, along with the prime minister, attended Friday’s dinner at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, told CBC that it was a topic of discussion. “We talked about the challenge that fentanyl represents in Canada,”  he said. Reporting elsewhere about the dinner discussion said Trump made it clear that the fentanyl epidemic is his top priority before he takes office on Jan. 20, including drugs being smuggled from Canada.

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Trump’s focus on fentanyl smuggling comes at a time when so-called super labs scattered across Canada are turbocharging production of the deadly synthetic opioid. A recent RCMP raid of an Interior British Columbia facility, for example, recovered the equivalent of 95-million doses of fentanyl.

Similarly large-scale operations have recently been uncovered in Alberta and Ontario. One such facility, busted by police last August, was located just 30 miles from the Canada-U.S. border crossing at Niagara Falls.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said last week that she and her fellow premiers have urged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to act quickly on the fentanyl problem.

Trump threatened last week to slap a 25-per-cent tariff on all Canadian and Mexican goods if the two respective governments didn’t take measures to reduce the flow of illegal drugs and migrants into the U.S.

“This Tariff will remain in effect until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!” Trump said in a social media post announcing the action.

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Canada arguably faces as big a challenge in cracking down on the illegal fentanyl factories. These highly sophisticated facilities are hard to police as they largely source ingredients that are not themselves illegal.

A briefing note prepared by Global Affairs Canada earlier this year said that this spike in production has likely made Canada a net exporter of fentanyl.

“Seizures of Canada-sourced fentanyl in places like the U.S. and Australia suggest that domestic production is likely exceeding domestic demand, and that Canada is now a source (and transit) country for fentanyl to some markets,” read the note.

U.S. Customs agents seized some 19.5 kilograms of fentanyl at northern border crossings between October 2023 and September 2024, up from just over a kilo one year earlier and 6.4 kilos in the 2021-22 fiscal year.

While still just a small fraction of the total amount of fentanyl entering the U.S., this nevertheless exceeds the volume of product intercepted by Canadian agents on the other side of the border.

The Canadian Border Service Agency seized 946 grams of fentanyl in the 2023 fiscal year and 4.4 kilos in the first two quarters of the 2024 fiscal year, according to its website.

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Smith recently said her Alberta government is considering setting up a special “fentanyl apprehension team” within the provincially controlled Alberta Sheriffs Branch.

“Let’s stop the fentanyl first,” Smith said in a Tuesday interview.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, currently the chair of the Council of the Federation, echoed this sentiment in a press release urging the federal government to take a “more proactive approach” in curbing fentanyl smuggling.

“As an example, Health Canada needs to be able to share where fentanyl and other drugs seized by police forces are manufactured and synthesized for enhanced tracking and tracing, like they do in the U.S.” Ford said.

National Post
rmohamed@postmedia.com

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