Thank you.
Good morning.
Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to speak today.
I'm pleased to be able to join the Minister of Public Safety to talk about the measures that we're taking to keep the border secure.
My mandate as Secretary of State for Combatting Crime includes working to keep Canadians and their communities safe from serious organized crime, including its role in driving the opioid crisis, gun crime and auto thefts. Given my role, I will focus my remarks today on telling the committee a bit more about the progress we have made in specific areas thanks to multiple initiatives implemented since 2018, including the border plan-related measures announced in December 2024.
Given that border management includes tackling such issues as human smuggling and illegal drug trafficking, border management is of paramount importance to my work.
Finally, we know that transnational organized crime groups are involved in all of those activities.
Their ability to adapt and take advantage of vulnerabilities means we need to be ever vigilant and up to date in the tools that we use to stop them. The government’s $1.3-billion border plan has helped to put in place many new tools that will help keep communities on both sides of the border safe.
This includes enhancing trilateral coordination with Mexican and U.S. counterparts, international partners and law enforcement agencies; designating seven transnational criminal organizations as terrorist entities under the Criminal Code; launching a money-laundering intelligence partnership between Canada’s major banks and law enforcement; deploying new helicopters, drones and mobile surveillance towers; increasing usage of artificial intelligence and adding imaging tools that will further help detect illegal drugs before they enter Canada; deploying new canine teams to intercept illegal drugs to augment the existing 80 detector dog teams located at various ports of entry across Canada; deploying new chemical detection tools at high-risk ports of entry; and accelerating regulatory processes to ban precursor chemicals and expanding lab capacity for synthetic drug analysis so border and law enforcement can take swift action to prevent their illegal importation and use in drug production, while strengthening federal oversight and the monitoring of emerging drug trends.
We are already seeing results. Thanks to the hard work of border services officers, the Canada Border Services Agency seized over 50,000 kilograms of prohibited drugs, cannabis, narcotics and chemicals, and more than 900 firearms just last year. More specifically, the CBSA interdicted over 34,000 kilograms of illegal drugs, including nearly five kilograms of seized fentanyl in 2024.
I would like to point out that 81% of the fentanyl seized in Canada comes from the United States.
I also want to take a moment to highlight some of the positive results achieved in tackling vehicle thefts since the launch of the national action plan on combatting auto theft in May 2024.
Motor vehicle theft saw a significant decline in 2024, with police-reported incidents dropping by 17%. Auto thefts have continued to decline nationally in 2025 also, with a 19% decrease reported in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period last year, according to the latest trend report from Équité Association.
The CBSA intercepted 2,277 stolen vehicles in rail yards and ports in 2024, which is an increase of over 25% compared to the previous year, and has intercepted 1,252 since the beginning of 2025.
These positive outcomes can indeed be attributed in part to the initiatives highlighted in the national action plan and carried in a collaborative manner within the PS portfolio with key government departments and across jurisdictions, including with provincial and international law enforcement partners.
Before I conclude, I want to thank—