EDMONTON — Canadian investigators were effectively cracking down on fentanyl trafficking and production well before U.S. President Donald Trump threatened devastating tariffs if Canada didn't do more to stop the drug from flowing south, police officials in Western Canada said Wednesday.
"I don't profess to underline all the words coming out of the president's office, but certainly it's nothing new to us that fentanyl is a priority," said Supt. Marc Cochlin, CEO of the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams, whose members are drawn from various law enforcement agencies.
"Across the nation ... we're dismantling and indicting more because there is a concerted effort."
Trump agreed Monday to delay tariffs against Mexico and Canada until at least March 4. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau presented him with Canada's plan to secure the border and tackle fentanyl production and trafficking, including a pledge to list Mexican cartels as terrorist entities, send more personnel to patrol the border and hire a "fentanyl czar."
Cochlin said the agreement is welcome, but investigators have been working hard to tackle fentanyl production and trafficking since international borders shut down during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic and domestic drug production grew in size and sophistication.
Cochlin said the proof is in the numbers.
U.S. customs agents seized 19.5 kilograms of fentanyl at the Canadian border during the last fiscal year, compared with 9,570 kilograms at the Mexican border.
"The labs that have been dismantled within our provincial footprint could supply the province and our neighbour provinces but we are chasing all leads and intelligence. There's nothing to suggest that those products have gone south of the border," Cochlin said.
Cochlin said some of the largest super labs to be dismantled in recent years have been in Western Canada.
Last October, before Trump first complained about fentanyl entering the United States from Canada, RCMP in British Columbia discovered black-market chemists were mixing precursors, including ones imported from China and made from scratch, at a super lab in the middle of a forest in Falkland, B.C.
Cpl. Arash Seyed, with the RCMP's federal policing unit in the Pacific region, said that drug lab was the largest discovered in Canada.
"Some of the precursors that were being produced were actually known to be Mexican drug cartel kind of trademark which was a new thing as well for us to see," he said.
"It was it was quite large-scale and sophisticated. They operate like business ventures."
Seyed said the amount the super lab produced is clearly too much for local consumers.
"We don't know exactly what demands these criminal groups are meeting," he said.
Seyed said investigators do have evidence that a portion of the drugs were set to be exported to international markets like Australia and New Zealand — not the U.S.
In another case late last month, the Public Prosecution Service of Canada said a top fentanyl player in Alberta was sentenced to 16 years in prison after his operation was seized in 2021.
In his decision, Court of King's Bench Justice Nathan Whitling said the magnitude of the man's operation was "staggering."
Cochlin and Seyed said they want Canada to regulate chemicals that illicit producers use as precursors for fentanyl.
They said a large portion of the ingredients Canadian investigators have found were produced in China and known to be used by pharmaceutical companies and medical industries to make legal painkillers.
But criminal syndicates are increasingly having them imported to Canada through illegal channels.
In Mexico, the chemicals are purchased by the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels for the manufacture of illicit drugs.
The products the cartels have been making lack odour, making detection and seizure extremely challenging.
"It's very difficult to regulate these. It's something that's kind of outside of our realm," said Seyed.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said Wednesday the penalty for fentanyl trafficking would be the same as murder if his party wins this year's federal election. He promised to mandatory life sentences for those convicted of trafficking, production and distribution of over 40 milligrams of fentanyl.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 5, 2025.
Fakiha Baig, The Canadian Press
