Canadian Border Security

Canadian border security has increasingly faced criticism from the United States, often without substantial data or logical reasoning from the U.S. side. Yesterday, the Federal Government convened a phone meeting with the Premiers of all Canadian provinces to address America’s concerns. However, it appears that this meeting was more of a show of posturing rather than a genuine attempt to resolve issues.

Canada employs approximately 8,500 frontline Canadian Border Services Agency personnel across the country, who are responsible for its security. The majority of the Canadian-American border lacks physical barriers, such as fences or walls, due to the impracticality of constructing such structures across the 5,500-kilometer length of the border. Firstly, the associated costs would be prohibitive, and secondly, there are numerous locations where building a wall is either impossible or impractical, considering the presence of numerous lakes, rivers, streams, bogs, and marshes. It is therefore irrational to assume that constructing a wall would first become feasible and subsequently have any impact on reducing illegal immigration across the border.

Police forces that have jurisdiction for municipalities across the country, combined with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have a joint responsibility to monitor the border and assist the CBSA with respect to stopping those illegally entering Canada. Surveillance of the Canada-U.S. border uses fixed cameras and FLIR technology to pick up on those making illegal entry away from border crossings. The Canadian Government is committed to the tracking of suspect vehicles approaching the border by both cameras and drones, however harsh weather conditions make monitoring of all activity exceptionally difficult.

Interdiction Requires Human Resources

The Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) has recommended the recruitment of approximately 3,000 additional Border Patrol personnel, incurring an annual cost exceeding $300 million. While drone technology, regardless of its sophistication, holds promise, it alone cannot guarantee the comprehensive surveillance, targeting, interception, and apprehension of individuals attempting to enter or depart illegally over a 5,500-mile border. Such an endeavor is deemed impractical.

The only real way to stop the movement of fentanyl across our borders is to first lessen demand, monitor transportation and importation of all goods coming into the country, and internally to monitor and control the availability of precursor elements used in the making of these drugs.

I recently spoke with a CBSA investigative officer to ask the question, “How much of the total drug volume do you think is interdicted by either the CBSA or the American Border Patrol?” His answer wasn’t entirely surprising. ”I would say, 5%.” And how do you think we might stop it? “We, those responsible for border security, don’t think it’s possible. The only way is to stop demand for the drugs themselves. Just look at the amount of money the U.S. expends on attempting to stop the flow of drugs, – it’s infinitely more than we can spend, or can afford. No, the only way to stop it, is to stop the demand, because where there’s a will, for the addict, there’s a way.”

The following two photographs are screenshots taken directly from the Whitehouse.gov site in relation to the war on drugs.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/FY-2025-Budget-Highlights.pdf

What it portrays is a country where drug consumption is off the scale. Consumption IS the problem. Fentanyl and Carfentanyl are addictive and so strong, that someone can become addicted to the substance on their very first exposure to the drug. More problematic is the fact that a great deal of the drugs themselves are now being produced in labs, domestically in the United States.

However, it’s not just an American problem. Canada has the second greatest number of opioid deaths per capital, after the United States/

Just this week, in British Columbia on the west coast of Canada, a lab was recently discovered and dismantled by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that contained the necessary precursors to produce 96 million doses of Fentanyl. Is it conceivable that was the only lab creating fentanyl for domestic consumption? Unlikely, as in the first 3 months of this year in Canada, approximately 2,000 people died from fentanyl and carfentanil/carfentanyl poisoning.

The vast majority of the drugs are still being produced in China and Mexico, but the largest part of the problem resides with the consumption drug crisis within the United States and Canada.

“International cooperation to combat the flow of illicit fentanyl products and the money associated with the trade is only half of the solution, as it targets just the supply side of the problem. Washington needs to be realistic and honest about the real crux of the fentanyl crisis: the incredibly high demand. If the U.S. government does not attempt to fix the country’s addiction problem, there will be other synthetic drugs that fuel more overdose crises, even if international cooperation could eliminate fentanyl opioids.”

https://www.cfr.org/expert-brief/what-chinas-role-combating-illegal-fentanyl-trade

Trump’s Rhetoric Hides an Enormous Problem

As big an issue to Canada, is the fact that trumps intended arrest and deportation of undocumented immigrants will create a tsunami of immigrants seeking asylum in Canada. This could result in chaos at the border, however the length of the chaos will be determinate as the (STCA) Agreement, or Safe Third Country Agreement, states the following;

Canada will invoke the (SCTA) and return all refugees entering Canada across the border with the United States, to the United States. This agreement should have a dampening effect on those who think they can flee U.S. deportation by coming to Canada. At best, it will simply delay deportation to their country of origin.

However, with a 5,500 kilometre long border, there will be many who will attempt to slip across the border and meld into civil society, working illegally for lower wages and hoping to avoid detection.

The last issue that may well be more difficult to solve is immigrants travelling to Canada on tourist visas and then attempting to enter into the United States illegally. As literally millions of refugees overwhelm the southern border with Mexico, a two fold increase in those seeking to enter illegally from Canada has occurred. While the problem creates the Spector of possible terrorists slipping across the border into the U.S., Canadian Border Agents are concentrating on those attempting to enter, not exit from Canada.

From October, 2023 to July, 2024, the Canadian Border Patrol (CBSA) confirm that 19,498 migrants attempted entry into the U.S., a number that pales in comparison, again, as in the United States, approximately 4,500,000 migrants attempt entry at the U.S. southern border with Mexico.

Economic migration and those forced to leave their countries due to climate change will further increase and create massive numbers of refugees and migrants from South America, Central America and Mexico, north to the U.S. and Canada. Deciding what to do, and how to do it, humanely will be a challenge for the foreseeable future, that will likely only get worse.