A Canada Border Services Agency marked cruiser is parked next to a RCMP Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk at the CBSA Lansdowne Port of Entry in Lansdowne, Ont., on Feb. 12.Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press
Canada is sending a clear message that it will not turn its back on Ukraine.
As Washington stokes geopolitical disequilibrium with its pell-mell rush to increase business ties with Russia, Ottawa remains resolute that economic isolation by the West is key to weakening the Kremlin’s war machine.
Not only did Ottawa reject U.S. President Donald Trump’s suggestion that Russia rejoin the G7 forum for industrialized economies, but it also released new data showing that Canada is ramping up its enforcement of Russian sanctions.
In doing so, Canada is signalling that Russia ought to remain closed for business even though the Trump administration is shamelessly exploring “incredible opportunities” for U.S. companies as part of a perverted peace process with Moscow that has so far excluded Ukraine.
“We have done a number of outbound probes on dual-use military technology headed to the battlefield in Russia,” said Ted Gallivan, executive vice-president of the Canada Border Services Agency, in an interview.
Dual-use technologies, including certain electronics, software and navigation equipment, can be used for both civilian and military purposes, which is why they have been a focus of sanctions, including strategic export controls.
Global Affairs Canada is primarily responsible for overseeing the sanctions program. The CBSA and RCMP, meanwhile, are responsible for enforcement.
The CBSA is specifically responsible for ensuring that restricted goods and technologies are not shipped to Russia by way of third countries.
Criminals evade sanctions, in part, by exploiting blind spots as goods flow across borders. To combat the problem, the CBSA assesses export declarations, examines goods and detains shipments.
During its 2023-24 fiscal year, CBSA’s intelligence program conducted risk assessments for more than 490,000 export declarations and referred 95 shipments for detention and examination over sanctions-related concerns, according to data provided to The Globe and Mail this week.
Those detentions resulted in more than 32 various types of enforcement action and prevented the export of approximately $3.2-million worth of goods.
The CBSA also seized approximately $450,000 worth of goods because of suspected sanctions violations. Those seizures are different from the other shipments detained for risk assessments because they involve goods that should never have been shipped in the first place.
Sanctions enforcement remains a priority during the federal government’s current fiscal year, which ends on March 31.
The CBSA has thus far conducted risk assessments for more than 400,000 export declarations and referred approximately 152 shipments for detention and examination owing to sanctions-related concerns, according to data for fiscal 2024-25.
Those detentions resulted in approximately 31 enforcement actions and prevented the export of approximately $2.6-million worth of goods.
Additionally, some $580,000 worth of goods were seized by the CBSA because of suspected sanctions violations involving Russia so far this fiscal year.
Those may not seem like large numbers, but sanctions evasion is a pernicious economic crime. The fact that Canada is increasing enforcement is a welcome development because of Ottawa’s past struggles to detect and deter shipments of restricted goods and technology to Russia.
“Canada remains steadfast in its commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, independence and its efforts toward a just and sustainable peace,” CBSA spokesperson Guillaume Bérubé wrote in an e-mail to The Globe.
“As part of that commitment, Canada has imposed a variety of sanctions in response to Russia’s illegal war of aggression.”
Still, the CBSA acknowledges that co-operation with international partners is pivotal to thwarting sanctions evaders. Working alongside U.S. authorities is especially important because of the high volumes of trade between the two countries.
Last year, for instance, U.S. authorities used CBSA customs information to successfully prosecute Montreal resident Nikolay Goltsev and Brooklyn resident Salimdzhon Nasriddinov for their involvement in a multimillion-dollar export control scheme involving Russian companies under sanction.
The transnational nature of sanctions evasion underscores why the current decoupling of the Canadian and U.S. positions on Ukraine is deeply troubling, especially since Ottawa and Washington are also on the brink of a trade war.
Although Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is urging Western allies to strengthen sanctions against Russia, there are fears Mr. Trump is considering lifting them as part of peace negotiations.
The removal of U.S. sanctions is among Russian President Vladimir Putin’s key goals, argues Edward Fishman, who is the author of the forthcoming book Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare. A former employee of the State Department, Mr. Fishman helped craft U.S. sanctions after Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014.
“Instead of treating sanctions relief as a bargaining chip in peace talks over the war, Putin is making the case that lifting them is in America’s own interest,” he said in a statement e-mailed to The Globe.
As Mr. Fishman points out, Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, played a key role in the U.S.-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia earlier this week by touting lucrative opportunities for U.S. oil companies in Russia.
Mr. Dmitriev told Reuters that he expects a number of U.S companies to return to Russia during the second quarter of this year. It’s a horrifying prospect.
America is proving to be an unreliable ally for Ukraine. That’s why Canada and the European Union must answer Mr. Zelensky’s call for tougher sanctions.
Ottawa must also work with other Western allies to beef up its sanctions-enforcement capabilities to keep Russia in check.