Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree says organized crime groups have branched out from drug smuggling to migrant smuggling, terrorism, and cybersecurity attacks, creating a set of challenges which law enforcement have not dealt with in the past.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
G7 security and interior ministers meeting in Ottawa have agreed to look at imposing travel bans and financial sanctions, such as the freezing of bank accounts, to combat criminal gangs involved in migrant smuggling.
At the end of the three-day summit, Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree said member states plan to look at tools, in addition to criminal penalties, to combat migrant-smuggling networks, and will “engage directly” with transport operators to stop the trafficking.
A communiqué by the ministers including Pam Bondi, U.S. Attorney-General, Shabana Mahmood, the British Home Secretary, and representatives of the European Union and Interpol, said the group had discussed the role that social-media companies could play in preventing organized crime groups from advertising and co-ordinating migrant smuggling on their platforms.
Cross-border smugglers are openly advertising their services on social media, with some offering to transport people illegally across multiple frontiers, including from Canada to the U.S. for a few thousand dollars.
The communiqué of the G7 ministers said they had agreed to a “follow-the-money” approach to combatting organized crime.
At a press conference on Sunday, Mr. Anandasangaree said transnational organized crime groups had branched out from drug smuggling to migrant smuggling as well as into terrorism, and cybersecurity attacks. This is creating “more of a centralized set of challenges which law enforcement have not dealt with in the past,” he said.
He said the G7 countries, including Canada, are looking increasingly at “connecting the dots,” for example, to tackle a drug syndicate also involved in trafficking of migrants.
He said the summit had not led to a “unified response to migrant smuggling” or an alignment of policies, adding that “everyone that were there had their own unique set of challenges and unique circumstances.”
But he said that “repressing migrant smuggling was top of mind.”
A number of G7 countries have recently tightened up their asylum regimes including Britain, where Ms. Mahmood recently announced that the Labour government aims to end the permanent status of refugees. Under her plans, asylum claimants would need to reapply to remain in Britain every 2½ years.
Germany is looking at returning refugees to Syria after the fall of the Assad regime. About a million Syrians who fled the country’s civil war arrived in Germany in 2015-2016 under former chancellor Angela Merkel.
Mr. Anandasangaree was asked whether he was concerned that Canada, where successful refugee claimants are entitled to stay permanently and can apply for their families to join them here, could become a more favourable target for migrant smugglers as other G7 countries tighten their regimes. He said the summit had not discussed respective refugee policy.
Last week, the Conservatives said they want to tighten Canada’s asylum regime and plan this week to table a series of amendments to the government’s border bill, which Mr. Anandasangaree is shepherding through Parliament. They include a proposed ban on asylum claims from people who came here via an EU or G7 country, which includes Britain, France, Germany and Italy.
Canada currently sends back most asylum claimants if they arrive from the U.S., under the Safe Third Country Agreement.
Mr. Anandasangaree said G7 security and interior ministers had agreed to work more closely to combat organized crime groups, including by following the money.
Conservative amendments to borders bill would make sweeping changes to asylum system
He said the recent announcement by the U.S. Attorney-General of charges relating to Ryan Wedding, a former Canadian Olympian who the U.S. says has become a powerful drug lord, was a good example of how co-operation between the RCMP and FBI and following the money can yield results.
He said the G7 had also agreed to share threat reports and effective ways to prevent terrorist and violent extremist content online.
The communiqué said the G7 was deeply concerned by the “increasing exploitation of online spaces to disseminate content with the goal to train, recruit, radicalize and incite users to violence, including youth.”
The summit also discussed the intimidation and coercion of diaspora communities by foreign states, including of dissidents and journalists working abroad. And they agreed to intensify co-operation on combatting fentanyl and the smuggling and distribution of other illicit synthetic drugs.
In addition, the ministers looked at ways to stem the circulation of child sexual-abuse material online, some of which is AI-generated or live-streamed.