Lax Canadian Port Inspection Invites Trafficker Exploitation

"British Columbia’s Pacific ports are economic lifelines for Western Canada, moving exports and keeping supply chains running. They are also under-secured."

"Traffickers treat inspection risk as negligible and build their business model around the odds."

"Canada needs a standing Pacific port security task force, not another temporary working group." 

"Canada can have a Pacific trade strategy, or it can have a thin-security Pacific gateway. It cannot credibly have both."

Scott McGregor senior adviser, Council for Countering Hybrid Warfare 

New report says weak inspections, fragmented oversight and outdated security leave Canada’s western trade gateway exposed

 

A new report focuses on the lack of inspection of shipping containers at the Port of Vancouver, which traffickers use to their advantage to ship tons'-weight of methamphetamine to Australia. Released by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, the report centres on Vancouver and Prince Rupert which move huge volumes of cargo, very little of which is checked, while there is no single agency responsible for overseeing inspections.

 

Shipping containers are fractionally imaged, with fewer than one percent physically searched in Metro Vancouver, according to a City of Delta report written by former RCMP deputy commissioner Peter German, which the municipality had commissioned back in 2023. An audit by an internal Canada Border Services Agency of marine-mode targeting from 2020 to 2022 similarly concluded that the agency failed to target exports, outbound vessels or crew, leaving cargo exiting Canada with less scrutiny than on arrival.

 

The Canada Border Services Agency announced in June of 2023 that over 6,330 kilograms of methamphetamine hidden in jugs labelled as canola oil bound for Australia -- one of the four Metro Vancouver busts -- with a seizure of close to 3,000 kilograms representing the largest methamphetamine seizure in the agency's history, serves as an example of the scale of trafficking. 

 

Canada, points out senior adviser with the Frontier Centre, is used as a launch point as the drugs' value is considerably increased overseas. While not a major destination, Canada has become one of the world's leading source countries to achieve  higher margins abroad. Yet a Public Safety Canada briefing note claims little to no evidence exists from Canadian or U.S. law enforcement that fentanyl produced in Canada is a growing threat to the United States.  

Port of Vancouver freight container shipping dock. Photo by NICK PROCAYLO /10109967A

 

The RCMP dismantled, it said, the largest, most sophisticated drug superlab in Canadian history at Falkland, British Columbia in October of 2024. The fentanyl and precursor chemicals seized would have produced over 95 million potentially lethal doses. One individual was arrested in that raid. The problem, the report points out, is that no government body is in charge, with port security responsibility split among port authorities, the CBSA, RCMP and Transport Canada; no single body accountable for the system.

 

The Ports Canada Police dedicated ports force in Canada was disbanded in 1997 by the federal government, while funding for an RCMP-led waterfront enforcement unit was ended by the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority in 2015. The country, pointed out McGregor, author of the report, requires intelligence-led port security, not paperwork-led security where large busts are announced as a public-reassurance method, which has no impact on how traffickers operate.

 

The same gaps allowing traffickers to operate could be exploited by hostile states for sanctions evasion and foreign interference, points out Mr. McGregor, speaking from the perspective of his work on hybrid warfare...framing a warning risked by lax inspection leaving the country vulnerable on many counts. Should Canada not secure its ports representing Canada's economic trade engine, they will be used by malign players; equating national security with economic security. 

 

And nor is the West Coast ports the sole shipping-security vulnerability in Canada. In the east, the Port of Montreal is just as lax. And there police have been alerted to an epidemic plague of stolen vehicles being shipped abroad; the lack of inspection taken full advantage of by criminal gangs. Those gangs hire young thugs to steal vehicles throughout cities like Toronto, and the profits realized from shipping and selling them abroad fuel their purchase and smuggling of illegal weapons, primarily from the U.S. into Canada.

 

Shipping containers in the Port of Montreal are photographed in Montreal on Thursday, Sept. 11, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov

 

 Fewer than two per cent of inbound containers at Metro Vancouver receive imaging and fewer than one per cent are physically searched.

Canada lacks a systematic program for targeting outbound cargo, vessels and crews despite major export drug seizures.

Responsibility for port security is divided among multiple federal agencies and port authorities, leaving no single organization accountable.

Organized crime exploits insider access, limited inspections and fragmented governance to move illicit goods through Canada’s Pacific gateway.

Hostile foreign states can exploit many of the same vulnerabilities for espionage, sanctions evasion and supply-chain disruption.

Inland logistics hubs and foreign trade zones require stronger oversight as part of Canada’s port security system.

The report recommends 10 reforms, including a permanent joint task force, expanded inspections, stronger cyber security and improved accountability.

Frontier Centre for Public Policy 

Most border enforcement focuses on imports, yet major drug seizures continue to involve exports destined for overseas markets.