The federal government announced several new measures this week in response to concerns raised by U.S. President Donald Trump about Canadian fentanyl.
A former deputy commissioner of the RCMP says the mandate of the proposed “fentanyl czar” should be broadened to include all illicit drugs produced by organized crime.
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Peter German told Postmedia News that “transnational organized crime is not commodity specific” and that the groups operating in Canada and B.C. produce methamphetamine, MDMA, and smuggle cocaine and heroin.
“The issue includes not only fentanyl, but other illegal drugs which Canada produces, imports and exports,” German said.
The federal government announced several new measures this week in response to concerns raised by U.S. President Donald Trump about Canadian fentanyl — both their production in superlabs here, as well as finished product being smuggled across the border.
The measures include plans to appoint a so-called “czar” who will work with American counterparts to combat fentanyl smuggling, a new Canada-U.S. strike force “to combat organized crime, fentanyl and money laundering,” and the listing of “organized crime cartels having an impact in Canada” as terrorist entities under the Criminal Code.
German said appointing a czar is a positive step, in principle, that will allow “the U.S. to work with one person on the issue, develop metrics, plans.”
“The concept will only work if Canadian governments throw aside the differences of politics, end bureaucratic delays and avoid agency turf battles,” German said, adding that U.S. and Canadian law enforcement agencies “already work well together.”
German, a consultant and lawyer, prepared two reports on money laundering in B.C. for the provincial government in 2018 and ’19.
More recently, he wrote a report for Delta on the infiltration of organized crime at the Port of Vancouver.
While U.S. border agents seized less than 20 kilograms of fentanyl smuggled from Canada in 2024, the RCMP has said more superlabs producing large amounts of fentanyl, meth and MDMA have been uncovered in Canada. At least some of the finished product is believed to be for export.
German said the proposed measures don’t address some of the obstacles to successful prosecutions of organized criminals that exist in Canada.
“The problems which plague effective investigations and prosecutions in this country do not disappear, however, unless we deal with long-standing issues within the criminal justice arena, including onerous disclosure requirements conflicting with time limits on prosecutions, exhaustive search-and-seizure requirements, and many more,” German said.
Listing cartels as terrorist organizations might not be the most effective tool to battle them, he said.
“Designating cartels and imposing sanctions on them and others is only effective if they have property in the country,” German said. “Without that, they are mere window dressing. We need to impose sanctions on organized crime groups working in Canada in support of terrorist, illegal drug and other commodity smuggling — including human. At present, our only recourse are antiquated and relatively ineffective organized crime provisions in the Criminal Code.”
German highlighted the case of Hells Angel and Wolfpack gang member Damion Ryan, alleged to have plotted to murder two Iranian dissidents living in the U.S. after a request from an Iranian drug lord working for the Iranian regime, as “a case in point.”
Bluesky: @kimbolan.bsky.social