Good morning,

U.S. President Donald Trump’s claims that trade tariffs on Canada are required to respond to the emergency of drug and migrant traffic coming from this country into his aren’t standing up to data produced by American law enforcement.

The “emergency” declaration is needed for Mr. Trump to justify violating the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, as well as World Trade Organization rules.

CUSMA, which was negotiated by Mr. Trump’s officials during his first term and was ratified by the U.S. Congress, includes a clause that says nothing in the agreement shall “… preclude a Party from applying measures that it considers necessary for the … protection of its own essential security interests.”

But according to drug seizure data, Canadian shipments to the United States are a tiny fraction of that intercepted at the U.S.-Mexico border. Reporting by The Globe’s Colin Freeze and Kathryn Blaze Baum showed it’s likely even smaller than first reported.

As they wrote last week, the data the White House has cited to say Canada is responsible for a “massive” increase in fentanyl flowing across the northern border includes a large drug bust that has no known connection to Canada.

The White House had said in a statement that 43 pounds of fentanyl had been seized at the northern border last fiscal year, representing a “massive 2050 per cent increase” compared with the fiscal year prior, when two pounds of fentanyl were intercepted.

However, court records and interviews indicate that about one-third of the 43-pound tally was seized in July in Spokane, Wash. – more than 150 kilometres from the border with Canada – as part of an investigation last summer that led to charges against three Mexican nationals.

A spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection told The Globe the seizure has no known nexus to Canada. It was included in the total because of its proximity to the border and the involvement of northern border patrol staff in the investigation.

There is no mention of Canada in the criminal indictment against the three men who were arrested in the case, or in the affidavit sworn by the border agent.

Still, there are alarming signs that Canadian criminals are becoming more adept at drug exports, even if not much of it is getting seized by the U.S.

Mike Hager reports yesterday that B.C.’s Civil Forfeiture Office has moved to seize a rural Okanagan property in Falkland, B.C., where RCMP said they found the the largest and most sophisticated methamphetamine and fentanyl lab in the country in a raid last fall.

A notice of civil claim recently filed in B.C. Supreme Court alleges the property was used in the production, possession, storage and trafficking of illicit drugs, including fentanyl, meth and MDMA and names its owners as Metro Vancouver-area men Michael Driehuyzen and Gaganpreet Randhawa. Mr. Randhawa is the lone person facing charges in relation to the Oct. 25 bust.

Mounties also said they found $500,000 in cash at the lab, as well as 54 kilograms of fentanyl, 390 kgs of methamphetamine, and smaller amounts of cocaine, MDMA and cannabis. They also found a total of 89 firearms, including handguns, AR-15-style rifles and submachine-guns as well as small explosive devices, ammunition, silencers, high-capacity magazines and body armour. All these items have been seized criminally.

The so-called super lab has been noted in international reporting about Mr. Trump’s allegations against Canada.

Last month, two reports from Canadian financial and criminal intelligence agencies noted that organized crime groups are producing an increasing amount of fentanyl in Canada, with a growing proportion of those drugs being exported abroad.

The number of organized crime groups in Canada manufacturing illicit drugs such as fentanyl has nearly doubled in the past year, from 51 in 2023 to 99 in 2024, with those groups increasingly looking to export their wares, according to a report published by the Criminal Intelligence Service Canada.

Former RCMP deputy commissioner Peter German, whose twin reports for the NDP government on West Coast money laundering precipitated the three-year Cullen Commission, said it is unclear where the drugs in the Falkland lab were headed, but likely that they were being exported to Australia or Asia.

Mr. German said the Falkland lab clearly shows Canada is a source country for dangerous drugs.

This is the weekly British Columbia newsletter written by B.C. Editor Wendy Cox. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.