A new report from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) warns fentanyl “super laboratories” in Canada are “a growing concern for the United States,” particularly as production and supply from Mexico is disrupted.
The DEA’s latest annual Drug Threat Assessment says that while the flow of fentanyl from Canada into the U.S. is far lower than from Mexico, Canadian opioid production has the potential to expand and fill the “supply void” from south of the U.S. border.
“In addition to the synthetic drug threat from Mexico, elevated synthetic drug production in Canada — particularly from sophisticated fentanyl ‘super laboratories’ … presents a growing concern for the United States,” the report states.
U.S. President Donald Trump has laid sweeping tariffs on Canada and Mexico over concerns about the flow of fentanyl into the U.S., citing a national emergency he declared over the drug crisis.
Although overdose deaths fell a record 27 per cent year-over-year in 2024, according to the latest provisional data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the fact more than 80,000 Americans still died shows “the synthetic drug threat remains grave,” the DEA report said.
Fentanyl, a deadly synthetic opioid, is responsible for the vast majority of those overdose deaths, according to the CDC and DEA.
U.S. data shows a relatively tiny amount of fentanyl is seized at the Canada-U.S. border, amounting to less than one per cent of all fentanyl intercepted by American authorities.
However, the latest numbers from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released Monday shows that 6.3 kilograms of fentanyl were seized at the northern border in April — a huge jump from less than one kilogram seized in each of the previous four months, which marked a two-year low.
Those seizures pale in comparison to the level of fentanyl intercepted from Mexico, the DEA report notes.
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“Nevertheless, (Canadian fentanyl production operations) have the potential to expand and fill any supply void created by disruptions to Mexico-sourced fentanyl production and trafficking,” the DEA report said.
Trump’s tariffs and threats of additional economic pressure have led to a crackdown in Mexico against large drug cartels and fentanyl producers.
Just under 300 kilograms were seized at the U.S.-Mexico border in April, according to CBP data, marking a steady decline from 907 kilograms seized last October.
The Trump administration has declared several Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and offered U.S. military assistance to Mexico’s government, which has denied those offers.
Canadian law enforcement has also cracked down on fentanyl producers in the country, including three drug labs that were taken down in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland last month.
While announcing that latest bust, the RCMP said there was “no evidence” the drugs produced in those labs, including fentanyl, were destined for the U.S. but would not reveal how investigators made that determination.
Another drug “superlab” in British Columbia — which RCMP described at the time as the the largest and most sophisticated ever found in Canada — was busted in October 2024, which is noted in the DEA report. That lab, according to Canadian police, produced and distributed fentanyl and methamphetamine across Canada and internationally, serving as a “supermarket” for organized crime.
A recent Criminal Intelligence Service Canada report said organized crime groups involved in manufacturing fentanyl, operating mostly in British Columbia and Ontario, are actively engaged with Latin American drug cartels.
While the report found involvement in fentanyl has increased by 42 per cent since 2019, it added those groups are also linked with American criminal organizations to traffic firearms into Canada.
The DEA report comes after the U.S. intelligence community’s annual threat assessment, released earlier this year, made no mention of Canada in its section on fentanyl. That report focused mainly on Mexico and China.
Canada made over $1 billion in new border security investments and hired a fentanyl czar, Kevin Brosseau, to oversee multi-agency and cross-border efforts to combat the fentanyl trade.
The latest data from the Public Health Agency of Canada shows 5,626 opioid-related overdose deaths were reported nationally between January and September last year, down 12 per cent compared to the same period in 2023. Three-quarters of those deaths were related to fentanyl.
The DEA report also notes that shipments of precursor chemicals used to produce fentanyl, often sourced by Mexican transnational criminal organizations from China, “can arrive first in the United States or Canada in mislabeled packages, which are then smuggled into Mexico by freight forwarders or re-shippers without the shippers’ knowledge.”
Trump has also imposed 20 per cent tariffs on all Chinese goods to protest its role in the fentanyl trade, in addition to other tariffs that have been variously increased and reduced as part of a larger U.S.-China trade war.
Trump complained on social media in April that fentanyl “continues to pour into our country from China, through Mexico and Canada, killing hundreds of thousands of our people.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney has said fentanyl was one of the topics of discussion when he met with Trump at the White House earlier this month.
During the recent federal election campaign, Carney said his Liberal government would make additional investments at land borders and seaports to intercept fentanyl and work with U.S. partners to reduce its flow.
Pete Hoekstra, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, said in an interview that aired Sunday on The West Block that Carney and Trump both want to work on creating “a fentanyl-free North American continent.”
“Neither one of our leaders wants to lose one more Canadian or one more (American). We’d love to get to zero deaths per day. That’s the kind of objective,” Hoekstra said.
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