Public Safety Committee on Sept. 23rd, 2025

[Sukhman Gill, Conservative, Abbotsford—South Langley, BC]

What's the increase in super labs that you've seen?

[Sean McGillis]

I would not characterize them as super labs, but they do have the capacity to produce large amounts of fentanyl. I don't want to get caught on quoting exact numbers, but since 2018, if I'm not mistaken, we've taken down 50 of these types of labs across the country.

[Sukhman Gill, Conservative, Abbotsford—South Langley, BC]

Okay.

As I'm running out of time, I have one last question.

As we anticipate the outcome of the $1.3 billion for the border security plan, what are the prevention tactics that you are putting in place to make sure that it is an effective plan that we have at the border? What measures are we meeting here and what measures have you put in place?

[Shannon Grainger]

As we mentioned earlier, the $1.3-billion plan is multi-faceted. We are looking at ensuring that each piece of the plan is effective and useful to law enforcement and our enforcement body, the CBSA. Specifically, we are looking at the deployment of those resources, many of which have already been deployed within the RCMP, CBSA, Health Canada and IRCC.

The second phase of effectiveness is the legislative measures that are currently contained in Bill C-2, which will give further tools to law enforcement to make more effective some of the commitments that have come about as part of the border plan.

Our website, publicsafety.gc.ca, gives a full breakdown of where we stand on our border, including a summary of the commitments made under Canada's border action plan.

[Sukhman Gill, Conservative, Abbotsford—South Langley, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Very well, thank you very much.

I now invite Ms. Acan to take the floor for five minutes.

[Sima Acan, Liberal, Oakville West, ON]

Hello. Thank you very much for coming here today.

I have a few questions, and I will start with the CBSA.

Recent R and D and field reports show promising portable, non-contact detection and imaging methods that can rapidly detect and identify. I want to ask some questions to understand CBSA's capability limits and plans to scale detection at the border and at the ports specifically. In terms of detection and prevention, what current technologies and inspection measures does the CBSA use at ports to detect stolen vehicles before they are shipped overseas? How effective have the container scanners and intelligence-led inspections been in identifying stolen vehicles?

Please speak to the technology, Ms. Lutfallah, as you provided the numbers to us.

Thank you.

[Aaron McCrorie]

If I may start, Mr. Chair, it really is about being intelligence-driven. Again, with 1.5 million containers, 4.5 million trucks and 1.5 million railcars, you can't scan everything, and it's not effective to do so, so it's about being intelligence-driven.

You referred to auto theft. With auto theft, the vast majority of the vehicles we're recovering are based on either intelligence referrals from police of jurisdiction or our own intelligence targeting, and then technology is leveraged to do those searches. The starting point really is about being intelligence-driven and about targeting.

I'll let Jennifer talk about the technology.

[Jennifer Lutfallah]

We utilize a range of tools at the ports of entry. Some of them you've probably seen at certain ports of entry. We have large-scale imaging, where trucks are driven into a certain area, and it produces an image of the cargo container that is on the truck.

We utilize detector dog units, which are very useful in determining whether, let's say, travellers have drugs on their person or in their suitcases. I want to point out that, on the detector dog teams, the border action plan is allowing us to implement or release three additional dog teams into the field. On this note, we are collaborating with CBP in providing us a pseudo drug unit, for lack of a better term, that we can use to train our dogs to detect fentanyl.

As well, we use ion mobility spectrometry. This is used to identify trace residue of narcotics and explosives. We are deploying and utilizing a unit from the RCMP with respect to backscatter vehicles. In the case of the stolen vehicles, we did locate an RCMP backscatter vehicle to provide us imaging of cargo containers, to see whether or not there were stolen vehicles in those containers. We also have mobile scanning technology that we utilize. Overall, those would be the high points that I would like to underline for you.

[Sima Acan, Liberal, Oakville West, ON]

Thank you very much, Ms. Lutfallah. You pretty much answered my next question, but attached to that, I was going to ask you how CBSA is working to integrate advanced technologies—such as AI, data analytics, licence plate recognition or blockchain tracking—into the container and cargo inspection systems. Has CBSA considered expanding real-time data sharing with the police forces and the manufacturers to flag high-risk shipments before they leave Canadian ports?

[Aaron McCrorie]

There are a couple of different parts to your question. In terms of our targeting, for example, we're always looking at how we can improve our algorithms and the data behind them, and then, also, how we can leverage machine learning or advanced analytics to assist in our targeting.

In terms of sharing information with police of jurisdiction, for example, we get a lot of information for administrative reasons that we can use for targeting, but we have to have certain controls around it. We can't blanket-share information with police of jurisdiction. However, to use auto theft as an example, every time we recover a stolen vehicle, the police can then come to us and make a request for additional information. So far this year we've had about 2,400 requests for information from police of jurisdiction, which allows us to give them all the information they need about the shipper, the shipping container, the destination, etc. They can use that to pursue their own criminal investigation. We can't necessarily push information out, but we are very responsive when we get requests for information.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you, MP Acan. That's already five minutes. Time flows very rapidly.

That leads us to MP Au. After MP Au, it will be MP Ehsassi.

[Chak Au, Conservative, Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC]

Thank you.

My first question is this: What is the volume of fentanyl seizures in B.C. and in what form—the border, ports or other means?

[Aaron McCrorie]

From a border perspective—and I apologize that I can't give you the breakdown by province—this year we've seized 2.59 kilograms of fentanyl. Of that, 1.73 kilograms was seized during Operation Blizzard in February.

[Chak Au, Conservative, Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC]

Through what means?

[Aaron McCrorie]

It's being done through a variety of means.

Primarily, we're seeing a lot of fentanyl now moving in the postal and courier modes, so we're seeing it in our postal centres. Often, in Operation Blizzard, the majority of it was probably outbound. We saw a pattern of what we call micro-traffickers sending small amounts of fentanyl south. We see it coming inbound. We also see fentanyl coming in with individual travellers. That's what our experience has been.

The challenge with fentanyl, as you probably know, is that a very small amount can be very potent in so many awful ways. It's very easy to conceal, which makes things like postal and courier the preferred modes for shipping it.

[Chak Au, Conservative, Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC]

You mentioned that there's no breakdown province by province. Can you provide that information?

[Aaron McCrorie]

We'll do our best to provide that.

[Chak Au, Conservative, Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC]

Thank you very much.

I have another question, just for clarification.

How many agents have been hired so far to meet your goal of 1,000?

[Aaron McCrorie]

Again, we have not started the process of hiring 1,000 new agents. We're developing the plan to do so.

[Chak Au, Conservative, Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC]

Have you recruited any new agents this year?

[Aaron McCrorie]

Yes, we have. On my side, we hired 30 new employees to assist with removals. Jennifer's team hired 36 new employees to help with the implementation of detection technology. Those are both under the border action plan.

[Chak Au, Conservative, Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC]

How have they been assigned or deployed?

[Jennifer Lutfallah]

The 36 are still completing their training, and we anticipate that they will be deployed probably in March of next year.

[Aaron McCrorie]

The 30 for removals are in place.