Illegal drug exports no longer a border priority

Canadian agents told to focus on nuclear material, stolen cars due to a lack of resources

OTTAWA — Due to a lack of resources, Canadian border agents have been told to stop looking for illegal drugs leaving the country and instead focus on stopping the export of illicit nuclear material and stolen cars.

The directive, contained in an internal memo to Canada Border Service Agency managers that was obtained by Postmedia News, is unlikely to make officials in the U. S. and other countries very happy.

But analysts say that in an age of finite resources, the agency has decided it makes more sense to target areas where it thinks it can make a difference.

“It takes enormous resources to catch smuggled drugs,” said Eugene Oscapella, a founding member of the Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy.

“You’re looking for a needle in a haystack, or probably something smaller than that. And maybe this is just a nod to reality that they’re saying they can better spend their resources elsewhere.”

The Canada Border Services Agency, or CBSA, represents the front line government organization for managing the flow of goods to and from the country. This includes an export program charged with preventing prohibited or illegal items from being smuggled to other countries.

At the end of June, regional CBSA managers across Canada received a memo that told them they were to focus on three priorities, namely stopping the export of illicit nuclear material and stolen vehicles, and enforcing other departments’ export bans.

This last category includes the smuggling of endangered species, hazardous waste and electronic waste.

“The success of the Export Program in all modes and all regions will be based on the performance of the regions to meet those priorities,” reads the memo.

But the memo goes on to say that because of “the limited number of resources available for export examinations, other commodities, including outbound smuggling of narcotics, unless there is an intelligence outlook, should not be undertaken.”

CBSA did not respond to questions on Thursday, but it has previously said it works with domestic and international partners to ensure prohibited goods do not leave the country.

Darryl Plecas, an expert on crime and policing at the University of the Fraser Valley, said responsibility for stopping the smuggling of drugs would generally lie with police forces, and it’s unclear how many successful interdictions CBSA has undertaken.

But he lamented the message being sent to Canadian border agents.

“It’s always disappointing to hear that they’re not able to do this or that because of limited resources,” he said, “because that’s leaving things on the table. What that memo is saying is they don’t have the capacity to respond.”

Oscapella said U. S. officials in particular will be unhappy with the policy.

“One of the criticisms of the United States was that we weren’t doing enough to stop the flow the drugs into their country,” he said.

“To the extent that people know where Canada is, this is not going to play well.”

The export program has historically faced limited resources; an internal CBSA evaluation in November 2008 found that “export programs have been operating at a minimum level” due to personnel and budgetary constraints.

An internal report prepared last October shows those problems have continued.

It said there are about 53 CBSA staff dedicated to export control — a number the agency described as “very limited.”

They are responsible for targeting and examining an “overwhelming” 8,000 to 10,000 export shipments per day.