Ray Donovan, Chief of Operations of the Drug Enforcement Agency, stands in front of a display showing photos of Americans who died of a fentanyl overdose, at the DEA headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, on July 13, 2022.AGNES BUN/Getty Images
Canada has promised Donald Trump that it will buy new helicopters and drones to keep watch over the border, in hopes the incoming U.S. president will not make good on his pledge to impose punishing new tariffs. On Thursday, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced the creation of a new provincial border patrol team, equipped with dogs, cold-weather drones and narcotics analyzers.
But buttressing reconnaissance over the line dividing the two countries is a narrow solution to a much broader issue in Canada, say several people who have advised Mr. Trump on how to respond to the scourge of fentanyl.
Canada would do better, they say, to devote resources to fighting the money launderers and drug traffickers inside this country’s borders.
“Helicopters and drones aren’t going to stop this problem,” said David Asher, who has advised the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration for more than two decades, and has sketched a blueprint for how the next administration could combat trade in fentanyl, the powerful synthetic opioid that Mr. Trump has blamed for many of his country’s social problems.
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Mr. Trump has pledged 25-per-cent tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico until they halt an “invasion” of powerful narcotics and immigrants.
There is little evidence for such an invasion from the north: U.S. authorities seized just 19.5 kilograms of fentanyl on the Canadian border last year, a tiny fraction of the 10 tonnes seized on the border with Mexico.
But Canada has long played a more important role in other elements of the illicit drug trade, including the laundering of money. And senior figures in American law enforcement fault Canadian attitudes toward narcotics.
Canadian laws and immigration policies have created space for malign influences to take up residence, said Ray Donovan, the former chief of operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
“If I want to be in a market where I’m going to face less consequences and make just as much – if not more – money, then Canada is the perfect market,” he said.
His views are informed by his background, which includes playing a key role in the arrest of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, or El Chapo, the cartel boss who ran his Canadian operations from Vancouver. Mr. Donovan is now among the leading candidates to run the DEA under Mr. Trump.
One of his chief complaints about Canada is that the country is soft on drugs.
“They see it as a health issue rather than a criminal issue,” he said.
“No. It is a national security issue.”
Canada’s role in the international narcotics trade has been a subject of intense domestic scrutiny over the past decade. In 2022, the Cullen Commission warned about the “enormous volume of illicit funds” being filtered through the British Columbia economy, an amount estimated in the billions of dollars. Yet money laundering charges are rare, the commission found, because “police conducting investigations into profit-oriented criminal activity, such as drug dealing, are not investigating these offences.”
That commission followed the 2018 publication of “Dirty Money,” a report for the B.C. government by retired RCMP deputy commissioner Peter German that called some of the province’s casinos “laundromats for the proceeds of organized crime.”
Canadian leadership should be asking itself questions that go far beyond what new border equipment it can purchase, Mr. German said in an interview.
“Why aren’t we able to make a money laundering prosecution? Why are we a happy haven for organized crime?” he asked.
“This is not just about the police. Not just about prosecutors. Not just about judges. And it’s not just about the law. It’s all of it put together.”
Canada has experience confronting an angry U.S. leadership demanding dramatic action in response to a crisis. Giuliano Zaccardelli was commissioner of the RCMP in 2001 and recalls travelling to Washington after the Sept. 11 attacks to speak with lawmakers intent on militarizing the border.
What Mr. Zaccardelli proposed instead were integrated border enforcement teams that incorporated Canadian and U.S. police, customs, immigration and other agencies. A similar effort to co-ordinate enforcement efforts may be the best way for both countries to confront fentanyl, he said.
Organized crime transcends borders, “so you have to collaborate to respond to that greater threat,” he said.
Critics, however, say elements of Canada’s modern justice system have hampered its ability to respond to transnational crime.
Requirements for speedy trials make it difficult to assemble complex cases. Wide-reaching court disclosure requirements have worried intelligence-sharing allies, who fear their ability to protect confidential sources.
“All of the information that the prosecution needs to disclose in trials makes it very hard for the rest of the Five Eyes to co-operate with Canada,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a Brookings Institution fellow who has testified before Congress on cartel crime in the U.S.
That’s true even though “we know that Canada is a very major player in money laundering,” she said.
The methods used by groups transferring money to Canada for the benefit of wealthy Chinese citizens and drug trafficking groups have become known as the “Vancouver model.”
“The only way we’re going to stop fentanyl as a business is to put it out of business,” said Mr. Asher, who is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank.
Earlier this year, he submitted a series of suggestions to Mr. Trump’s team on how to proceed – what he called “a plan of attack against the financial backbone of drug trafficking.”
He recommends that much of that effort be directed toward Mexico and China. But U.S. phone monitoring, he said, has shown considerable connections to Canada among those handling narcotics money.
“Canada plays a huge role,” he said. And, he added, addressing that will require more than political promises.
“Trudeau trooping his way down to Mar-a-Lago is not going to solve the problem.”