Evidence of meeting #8 for Public Safety and National Security in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was fentanyl.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Abdelhaq Sari Liberal Bourassa, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. O'Gorman, can you briefly give me some details on the warrants targeting 32,000 people and the 600 foreign nationals you're looking for?
I would also like to have time to ask Commissioner Duheme a question.
President, Canada Border Services Agency
As I said, the data is published on our website.
Some of the 1,000 new people we're going to hire will certainly be dedicated to the files of people who are subject to removal orders.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Jean-Yves Duclos
Unfortunately, Mr. Sari, you won't have time to ask a question. There may be time for that in the second part of the meeting.
The minister and the secretary of state are going to have to leave. We thank them for being here and for answering our questions. The good news is that the officials are going to stay for another hour.
We will now suspend for a few minutes.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Jean-Yves Duclos
We are resuming the meeting with the senior officials.
Mr. Brosseau, you have the floor for five minutes to make your presentation.
Commissioner of Canada’s Fight Against Fentanyl, Privy Council Office
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss Canada's ongoing efforts to combat the illicit fentanyl trade and safeguard our borders.
My presentation will be brief to allow sufficient time for your questions.
It's important to note that while Canada and the U.S. are both experiencing domestic fentanyl crises, Canada is not a significant source of fentanyl to the U.S. Based on volumes of seized fentanyl reported by U.S. Customs and Border Protection since 2022, about one-tenth of 1% of fentanyl is attributable to the northern border region, but any amount is too much.
Nevertheless, both Canada and the U.S. are confronting the fentanyl crises in our respective countries, and it is vitally important that we work together in addressing this issue.
My role is to integrate and coordinate Canada's overall response to fentanyl aimed at both supply and demand. Since my appointment, I have worked with partners across all levels of government and law enforcement agencies, as well as with the U.S. and international organizations, to accelerate Canada's efforts to detect, disrupt and dismantle the fentanyl trade, a scourge that has led to the deaths of over 50,000 Canadians since 2016.
I have also heard directly from frontline stakeholders across Canada from key sectors involved in addressing this issue. They each have a role to play in the fight against fentanyl.
More information on what I have heard from stakeholders is available in my interim report, which I published this past July.
I look forward to your questions.
I look forward to your questions.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Jean-Yves Duclos
Thank you for being so concise, Mr. Brosseau. Your testimony will be very helpful.
Mr. Caputo, you have the floor for six minutes.
October 23rd, 2025 / 12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Chak Au Conservative Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC
Thank you very much.
Thanks for coming and for your brief report.
We all know that the fentanyl problem is a big one and affects so many people. You mentioned earlier that you are not only working with the United States but you are also working with our international partners.
Can you elaborate on that?
Commissioner of Canada’s Fight Against Fentanyl, Privy Council Office
Through you, Mr. Chair, thank you for the question.
In fact, as you understand and as we've already talked about, the trade in illicit drugs, and fentanyl in particular, is one that's transnational in nature by definition, and meaning more outside of Canada. As a consequence, last month, my colleagues, many of whom are sitting at the table, and I were in Mexico, where we met with senior Mexican officials, security officials, etc., to discuss how we can actually work together to combat this trade. That will culminate in further discussions trilaterally here in Canada in the next couple months or so between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.
I've also had many interactions with European officials from the European Union Drugs Agency, again, trying to share best practices to understand what's working and what's not and what the nature of the crime and the nature of the trade is.
Mr. Chair, global transnational organized crime, in particular drug traffickers, change the way they do business rapidly. As a consequence, it is very important that we stay on top of it.
Conservative
Chak Au Conservative Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC
I'm sorry, but I just wanted to interrupt.
What has been identified as the weakness in the Canadian system in terms of intercepting or catching drug kingpins?
Commissioner of Canada’s Fight Against Fentanyl, Privy Council Office
It's a complex question that I think deserves a complex answer. It's not simple. If there were a simple answer to that complex question and that complex problem, it would have been solved.
The transnational nature of crime is that different modalities will be used at any given time, whether it's crypto, whether it's the dark web or whether it's traditional supply routes, for instance. There are a number of different ways that drugs move through Canada all the time.
Clearly, what's important is that we remain in close collaboration and communication both domestically with agencies that are at this table and with other agencies that are tasked with combatting this crime around the world. Those are the important elements of why the organizations actually have to work together.
Conservative
Chak Au Conservative Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC
Okay.
Often, after your office had been set up, the administration had been talking about the quantity of fentanyl, because it's being stopped at the border and things like that.
I want to ask your opinion. Which is more important: the chemicals themselves or the people behind producing or trafficking those chemicals? What has been the result in terms of catching people and holding them accountable?
Commissioner of Canada’s Fight Against Fentanyl, Privy Council Office
I'll let the commissioner of the RCMP and the president of the CBSA talk about the number of arrests, etc., they have made. Those are their responsibilities, and they have the proper data to be able to explain that.
It is a complex ecosystem with, again, precursors—chemicals, as you properly described—and, I will say, a voracious approach from an enforcement perspective where those who are choosing to profit from death and despair are held to account. I've certainly been briefed on the number of operations, including one earlier in the winter that resulted in dozens...I'll have the number wrong, but I'm happy to give the committee the numbers from the Canadian integrated response to organized crime, or CIROC. That involves law enforcement officers from every organization in Canada, because this is a local issue and it's a global issue, and there were a number of arrests related to that to hold people to account.
Conservative
Chak Au Conservative Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC
Yes. Again, I want to know the number of people we've caught or are going after.
Commissioner, do you have the number of people?
Commr Michael Duheme
If you're looking for the exact number of people who have been caught or arrested, I don't have those numbers with me. Sometimes they're charged with a certain offence, there's plea bargaining and then they plead guilty to another offence.
If I may, I'll go back to your initial question: What's more important, the precursors or the people? I think both of them have to be in parallel. The challenge with precursors is that they're legal when they come in. There's legislation that will allow Health Canada to shift more rapidly to make it illegal. The other side is that obviously you want the people who are working on it. To that question, then, I would say that both of them work in parallel. We work very closely with the FBI and the DEA to identify key companies or individuals involved in either the shipping or the fabrication of fentanyl.
Conservative
Chak Au Conservative Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC
How effective have you been in terms of identifying those people?
Commr Michael Duheme
Well, we have a couple that will be coming up in the next couple of weeks. We've been successful in a couple of files in the United States as well.
Conservative
Chak Au Conservative Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC
Okay. Good.
Commissioner, what systems are in place between your office and such U.S. agencies as the DEA and border patrol to share information on fentanyl precursors?
Commissioner of Canada’s Fight Against Fentanyl, Privy Council Office
The systems for operational information sharing between those organizations exist between the organizations that are represented here and not my office in particular. My office works directly with the Canadian agencies to coordinate the liaison with the American agencies. The information flows between them.
Commissioner Duheme and President O'Gorman can explain those processes.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Jean-Yves Duclos
Unfortunately, that may have to wait. We need to go to the next segment.
MP Ramsay.
Liberal
Jacques Ramsay Liberal La Prairie—Atateken, QC
Mr. Brosseau, further to the question of MP Au, you said you are working to eradicate the supply side, but you're also monitoring and coordinating the effects on the demand side. Do we know in Canada how many users we have of opiates or fentanyl? Do we have an approximate number of people using? Do we have any trends? Are they more urban? Are they rural? Are they young? Do we know those sorts of things?
Commissioner of Canada’s Fight Against Fentanyl, Privy Council Office
I do not have a very good handle on the denominator or the number of people who are using opioids at any given time. Colleagues from Health Canada certainly can provide you expert advice with respect to that. It's very difficult to be able to get a precise answer in terms of those who are willingly able to describe, in a self-reporting questionnaire, etc., using opioids. We do know that it is on a significant scale and scope in both small communities and big cities. That's why I've spent time in many communities in this country. I've spent time in indigenous communities as well. It has disproportionate impacts, depending on what part of the country you're in.
Fentanyl is a highly addictive opioid. That addiction is very, very difficult to shake. As a consequence, many of the actions that have to be taken to reduce the demand are in fact local in nature. What would work in one community may not work in another. What I've tried to do is bring people together to talk about the fact that if you push hard in reducing demand, in building awareness amongst young people, and in doing prevention activities, those are core things. I learned as a young police officer about what works. You prevent the crime before it happens. You prevent addiction before it happens. At the same time, you are ruthless on the supply side that the commissioner just talked about and pursue those investigations with rigour.
That is how we're going to be able to resolve this horrible situation where almost 20 people per day die a fentanyl death.
