Garry Clement: Canada must stem the flow of fentanyl from China

Will 2024 be the year Canada finally gets serious about the fight against fentanyl? Two weeks ago, a Winnipeg toddler overdosed and nearly died after ingesting the drug at a family gathering. Fentanyl is a fast-acting opioid that’s estimated to be up to 100 times more potent than morphine. Police have charged a 28-year-old man with criminal negligence causing bodily harm, but there are culprits that remain at large thousands of miles away. They are the fentanyl kingpins of China, source of a scourge that has killed thousands of Canadians in the past three years.
For the past 40 years, China’s government leaders have partnered with organized crime groups known as triads, enabling not only the free flow of drugs into North America, but human trafficking and the smuggling of pirated goods as well. Under the guise of “investment,” China’s powerful United Front Work Department has facilitated these activities to further the drug trade and intimidate the Chinese diaspora to bring its influence to bear across the continent.
The goal of these operations is twofold: profit for China, and pain for the West. According to U.S. law enforcement, China is the main supplier of fentanyl to the United States, Mexico and Canada. Its involvement in the distribution of this toxic narcotic is rooted in the history of the Opium Wars. In the early to mid-19th century, European powers conspired to addict millions of Chinese subjects to opium in order to profit by trading the drug. The Chinese government’s attempts to resist were ruthlessly stamped out in a series of military conflicts and they were eventually forced to legalize the trade, while its detrimental impacts on their population went unchecked. The Chinese still bear the scars of these wars, and resentment towards the West.
To highlight the seriousness of the impact of transnational organized crime on our country, it is essential to understand that Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel and the Chinese triad syndicate Big Circle Boys have expanded their fentanyl supply in Canada, which has resulted in an abundance of cocaine, fentanyl and other opioids, not to mention other synthetic and pharmaceutical drugs. The distribution and sale in Canada is either managed by the criminal networks that smuggled the narcotics in, or is handed off to local criminal groups, such as biker gangs, in exchange for a percentage of the profits.
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