Who is Kevin Brosseau, Canada’s new “fentanyl czar”?

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This week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office announced that Kevin Brosseau would be Canada’s first “fentanyl czar,” working with Canada’s law enforcement agencies and their U.S. counterparts to eradicate the “scourge of fentanyl.”

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“With an over 20-year career in public safety and national security including tackling drug trafficking and organized crime, Mr. Brosseau will bring tremendous value to this position, and his work will help keep Canadians safe,” Trudeau said in a press release announcing the appointment.

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Here’s what to know about Brosseau.

Where is Brosseau from?

According to a 2002 profile in the Edmonton Journal, Brosseau is of Métis descent and grew up in Bonnyville, a community some 240 kilometres northeast of Edmonton, not far from the Saskatchewan border. The youngest of seven children, he developed an interest in the law from his uncle Georges Brosseau, an Edmonton lawyer. During his high school years he would sometime ride with RCMP officers in their patrol cars, listening to their stories.

Where did Brosseau go to school?

Brosseau received a Bachelor of Arts, Business Administration, from the University of Alberta in 1988. He then spent nine years working as an RCMP officer in Williams Lake, B.C., Whitehorse and elsewhere before going back to the U of A. In 2001 he received a Bachelor of Laws, graduating at the top of his class.

He then attended Harvard Law School, where he obtained a Master of Laws, Common Law (Corporate Law and Indigenous Law). He told the Journal that his thesis was “a comparative analysis of the Canadian versus the U.S. response to aboriginal issues.” He added: “I’m now in discussions with the RCMP about employment in their policy centre.”

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What is Brosseau’s professional experience?

According to the release announcing his new position, Brosseau was most recently (since last December) the deputy national security and intelligence advisor to the prime minister. Prior to that, he spent three months in a similar role as deputy secretary to the Cabinet (emergency preparedness).

Before that, Brosseau spent two years as associate deputy minister of fisheries and oceans, and four before that as assistant deputy minister, safety and security, at Transport Canada.

From 2016 to 2019 he served as deputy commissioner of the RCMP. In 2017, he was one of several names floated as a possible replacement for commissioner Bob Paulson, who retired as RCMP Commissioner that year. That position eventually went to Dan Dubeau, who served as acting commissioner until he was replaced by Brenda Lucki in 2018.

What does Brosseau have to say about his new role?

In a press conference on Wednesday at the Lansdowne port of entry in Ontario, and accompanied by Public Safety Minister David McGuinty, Brosseau was asked what he intended to do on such a short timeline, as Canada is facing possible trade tariffs from U.S. President Donald Trump.

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His response: “I’m hoping to be able to give an intensity to the work being carried out by thousands of men and woman in this country and the United States trying to deal with the real public safety and national security crisis that is fentanyl; bringing that integrated approach, bringing the teams together, ensuring the collaboration, ensuring the communication is happening at officials’ level on both sides of the border in communities across the country.”

He was also asked, given the minuscule amount of fentanyl entering the U.S. from Canada at present, whether it was realistic to bring that number to zero.

“Getting the number to zero is in fact a goal and should be our goal,” he said. “If it’s one pound, 10 pounds, we all know the amount of deaths that could possibly represent. This is a national security and a public safety crisis. We should be focused on eliminating the scourge that is fentanyl in this country and in the United States.”

Has he spoken to his American counterpart, “Border Czar” Tom Homan?

“I hope to speak with him soon,” he said. “I spoke with the ambassador to the United States (Kirsten Hillman) last night, and she and I talked about getting to D.C. very very soon to be able to have those conversations.” He said he was having discussions with officials in Canada and added: “I look forward to continuing those conversations with my American counterparts very soon.”

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What would Brosseau like to say to Trump?

“I would say that this is a clear demonstration of how serious Canada is taking the fentanyl crisis in this country, and how important our relationship is with our American counterparts,” he said yesterday. He added: “We’re stronger together; we’ll be better at this together.”

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