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Trudeau’s Last Stand, Resignation Rumors Swirl as Liberals Face Political Oblivion

Published

3 months ago

14 minute read

The Opposition with Dan Knight
Dan Knight

With Polls in Free Fall and a Caucus Revolt Brewing, Analyst believe the Liberals will Bet on Identity Politics to Distract Canadians From Nine Years of Failure

If you haven’t already, crank up Whitesnake’s Here I Go Again, because the Liberal Party is hitting all the same notes in their spectacular fall from grace. Rumors are swirling that today Justin Trudeau, the king of platitudes and bad policies, might finally call it quits after nine long years of setting Canada on fire and calling it progress.

So, why is Trudeau on the verge of resignation? Because he’s facing a caucus revolt. Apparently, some of these MPs weren’t thrilled they didn’t get picked for the very last liberal cabinet shuffle, (or maybe it has to do with the latest Anguis Reid polls) which is funny considering they’ve had years to boot this guy. Instead, they’ve spent their time smiling for photo ops and pretending the country isn’t spiraling into chaos. Now, with the next election practically on the doorstep—2025, people—they’re panicking. And it’s glorious to watch.

Let’s set the stage: the latest Angus Reid poll is catastrophic for the Liberals. They’re sitting at 16%—that’s not just bad, that’s “we’re going to lose half our seats” bad. For context, the NDP is at 21%, which is embarrassing enough, but the Conservatives are at 45%. These are Harper-era numbers, folks. Pierre Poilievre isn’t just winning; he’s running victory laps before the race has even started.

So, what are the Liberals going to do? Well, they have three options. Spoiler alert: they’re all terrible.

Option 1: Prorogue Parliament and Hold a Leadership Race

So here’s the Liberals’ desperate move: prorogue Parliament, delay governing, and launch a leadership race to distract Canadians from their failures. It’s a political circus waiting to happen. Every ambitious Liberal—Freeland, Carney, Champagne—will throw their hat in the ring, and none of them are ready to clean up Trudeau’s mess.

But here’s the kicker: the clock is ticking. The fiscal year ends March 31, and without passing Interim Supply, the government literally shuts down. A leadership race takes months, leaving the party paralyzed while Pierre Poilievre dominates the narrative.

A new leader won’t fix anything; they’ll just inherit a sinking ship and take the blame for the inevitable electoral disaster. This isn’t a solution—it’s a slow, painful march toward oblivion while Canadians demand real leadership.

Option 2: Force a Leader Down Our Throats

Here’s where it gets spicy. The Liberals could skip the drama and appoint a new leader outright—someone like Chrystia Freeland. This would be their Kamala Harris moment. They’d toss Trudeau overboard, slap Freeland on the podium, and scream from the rooftops, “Canada’s First Female Prime Minister!” The media would eat it up. They’d call it historic, groundbreaking, revolutionary.

But here’s the first roadblock: Trudeau doesn’t have to go anywhere unless he decides to. That’s right, folks—there’s no magical “kick him out” button in the Liberal Party rulebook. Even if half his caucus is banging down his office door with pitchforks, Trudeau can just sit back, flash his trademark grin, and say, “I’m still your guy.” It’s less of a democratic process and more of a monarchy with better PR.

Now, let’s assume Trudeau does step down because, let’s face it, his ego might be the only thing keeping him there. Enter Chrystia Freeland. The Liberals would roll her out as the savior of their sinking ship.

But here’s the problem: Freeland’s record is awful. She’s been Trudeau’s loyal sidekick for years, backing every bad policy this government has pushed. From the $65 billion budget blowout to fraudulent COVID loans to the carbon tax disaster, Freeland has her fingerprints all over this mess. She’s not a fresh start; she’s Trudeau 2.0, but with less charisma.

And let’s be real, the Liberals wouldn’t run on their record because their record is a disaster. Instead, they’ll double down on identity politics. Freeland will be the face of the campaign, and the talking points will be predictable: “Conservatives hate women. Conservatives will ban abortion. Conservatives are scary.” It’s the same broken record we’ve heard a million times before. It didn’t work in the U.S., and it’s not going to work here. Canadians are smarter than that.

Option 3: Let Trudeau Go Down with the Ship

Now, this might actually be the smartest move. Trudeau built this disaster. He deserves to be the face of the loss. Let him captain the ship straight into the abyss, take the hit in the next election, and then rebuild from the ashes. It’s not pretty, but it’s probably the cleanest way to salvage the Liberal brand long-term.

But we all know the Liberals won’t do this. They’re too arrogant, too desperate, and too addicted to their own spin. Instead, they’ll probably shove Freeland into the spotlight either through a leadership race or just by bypassing the vote and just giving her the reigns and let her ride the Titanic into electoral oblivion, and then act surprised when it all goes horribly wrong.

Trudeau’s Titanic, Freeland’s Fantasy, and the Liberal Pipe Dream

So, here’s what I expect to happen, and honestly? Good riddance to Trudeau. Nine years of turning this country into a woke, bloated, over-taxed shell of what it used to be—his time is up. But let’s be real, the Liberals’ ship hit the iceberg years ago. Now they’re panicking because it’s finally sinking, and they’re trying to figure out who’s going to be the face of the wreckage. Spoiler alert: none of their options are good.

Here’s their play: they’re going to pull the Kamala Harris switcheroo. Replace Trudeau with Chrystia Freeland, slap a big, shiny label on her as Canada’s “First Female Prime Minister,” and hope nobody notices she was the co-pilot of this crash. Freeland has been positioning herself for this moment for years. She’s stood right next to Trudeau, smiling, nodding, and championing the very policies that have made Canadians poorer, angrier, and ready to vote Conservative in record numbers.

But here’s what they don’t want you to know—and here’s what they won’t campaign on: the Liberal record. Why? Because it’s abysmal. Corruption? Check. They handed out COVID loans like Halloween candy, with billions lost to fraud. Deficits? Oh, just a casual $65 billion for 2024. Inflation? A raging fire that’s destroying Canadians’ savings and quality of life. Authoritarian measures? Let’s not forget freezing bank accounts during the Freedom Convoy protests. Big government? That’s not just their record; it’s their entire identity.

And with Freeland at the helm, that’s not going to change. What’s the plan? Double down on identity politics, of course. “Chrystia Freeland: Canada’s First Female Prime Minister.” That’ll be the headline. That’ll be the news cycle. And anyone who questions her? Sexist. Misogynist. Anti-woman. Oh, and here’s the cherry on top: they’ll pivot straight to abortion rights. Why? Because they think it’s the one play that still works. Ignore the economy. Ignore the housing crisis. Ignore the fact that Canadians are literally rationing food. Just scream, “The Conservatives hate women!” and hope it sticks.

If I were a Liberal strategist—and thank God I’m not—I’d tell them to shove Freeland down our throats now. Why? Because the leader of the Titanic isn’t making it out alive. Whoever takes over the Liberal Party right now is going down with the ship, no question about it. Freeland appeals to the Liberal base: the blue-haired Twitter warriors, the downtown elites, the latte liberals. That’s her crowd. But here’s the problem: that’s it. She’s not reaching the working-class Canadians who are sick of paying for Liberal failures. Hillary Clinton has more likability than Freeland, and that’s saying something.

So, yes, they’ll run her on abortion rights, paint the Conservatives as the boogeyman, and pretend Canadians don’t notice they’ve been absolutely terrible for nine years. But let’s be honest—this is a political kamikaze mission for Freeland. The election results in 2025 are going to be catastrophic for the Liberals. And once the dust settles, Freeland is finished. She’ll be the face of the defeat, the one who led the party into the abyss.

And that’s why the real Liberal leadership race starts after the election. Mark Carney, the former Bank of Canada governor, is waiting in the wings. He’s smart enough to know the Liberals need to burn to the ground first before they can rebuild. He’s the only one who can go toe-to-toe with Pierre Poilievre on fiscal policy. If the Liberals want to have a shot at relevance in 10 years, Carney’s their guy. Pair him with someone like Christy Clark as deputy liberal opposition leader, and maybe—maybe—they can reforge the Liberal brand.

But Trudeau? He should go down with the ship. He built this disaster. He’s the reason the Liberals are at 16% in the polls while the Conservatives are at 45%. Let him take the fall. Let the party burn, and let the next generation of upstarts fight over the ashes. Freeland can have her moment, her delusion that she can fix this, but she’s only walking into political oblivion.

So here’s my advice to the Liberals: pour the champagne, play the violin, and let Justin Trudeau captain his sinking ship. And hey, as the ship goes down, maybe Trudeau can declare himself a transgender woman to grab the first spot on the lifeboat—because nothing says progressive hero like skipping the line while the rest of the crew drowns in his mess.

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2025 Federal Election

I don’t believe these polls!

Published on April 12, 2025

By

CAE Logo Dan McTeague

Cards on the table, I’m skeptical of the current state of the polling in this election. My sense is that Mark Carney and the Liberals’ numbers are, at least in part, a byproduct of sympathetic pollsters over-sampling their key demographics, and those being trumpeted to high heaven by the publicly-funded media. That, coupled with voters’ justifiable annoyance at Donald Trump’s “51st State” cracks and tariff threats, has contributed to an illusion of enthusiasm, a sense that they are running away with this thing.

That said, one polling data point has struck me as being both real and important. A recent Abacus Data poll showed that, when you cut out all the distractions, Canadians’ biggest concern remains our inflated cost of living. And that is an issue which clearly favors Poilievre and the Conservatives.

That’s because the dire state of our economy can largely be laid at the feet of the Liberals, who’ve been running the show for the past decade. Yes, they’ve made a change at the top, but not much of one. On top of being a globe-trotting member of the “Green” Elite, and champion of environmentalist banking, Mark Carney was a Liberal advisor for years, a key part of the Trudeau “brain trust” — trust me, I use that term loosely — that cooked up a whole raft of economy smothering “Green” policies which have done nothing to reduce global carbon emissions, but have succeeded in lightening our wallets.

Under Trudeau, our annual GDP growth noticeably shifted from the 3% range towards the end of the Harper years to the 1% range more recently. Household debt-to-income ratios rose steadily in the same period, while real household spending per capita dropped 2-3% below 2019 levels by 2024, as costs and interest rates went up. Disposable income growth has been outpaced by inflation and taxes, and bankruptcy filings have risen 40% since just 2019.

Canadian food prices have exploded by 35-40%, with family spending up over 50% over the past decade. Consequently, food insecurity rose to 23% by 2023, from around 8% in 2015, and Food Banks Canada has reported a 78% surge in usage from 2019 to 2023.

Meanwhile, Canada’s national debt, which was just over $600 billion when Justin Trudeau was handed the federal credit card, has roughly doubled, reaching over $1.2 trillion by the time he left. And provincial debt has risen by about $1 trillion in the same period.

It’s a frightening financial snapshot. And many of these negatives can be attributed to the Liberals’ war on oil and gas, which remains — however much Carney might wish otherwise — the backbone of our national economy.

So much of the Liberals’ time and effort in government has been spent kneecapping the resource sector, and for purely ideological reasons. From Bill C-48, the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act of 2019, which significantly reduces our ability to sell oil and gas abroad, to Bill C-69, which added mountains of red tape for infrastructure projects, so much so that it was nicknamed the “No More Pipelines” Act.

You’ll remember that the Supreme Court ruled the “No More Pipelines” act largely unconstitutional two years ago. Even so, Carney recently said he has no intention of repealing it, prompting Poilievre to tweet out, “This Liberal law blocked BILLIONS of dollars of investment in oil & gas projects, pipelines, LNG plants, mines, and so much more,” with an excellent infographic attached, listing the various cancelled energy projects throughout Canada since the Liberals came to power.

And then of course, there’s the Consumer Carbon Tax, which started out at $20 per tonne of CO2 emitted in 2019, small enough that many Canadians barely noticed they were paying it, but increased every year until it hit $80 per tonne.

By that point it became so noticeable and unpopular that the Liberals felt they had no choice but to “cancel” it (“zero it out” is more accurate), before it could reach the $170 by 2030 which they’d planned. Still, it remains on the books, ready to be raised again, without a vote, if Carney so chooses.

Even if he doesn’t, Carney has doubled down on the Industrial Carbon Tax. While the Liberals claim this is an improvement because it isn’t paid by working Canadians, only by big evil “polluters.” Of course, they said something similar about the Consumer Tax, that by some financial wizardry, we regular folks would get back more than we paid in, which turned out to be total bunk.

Meanwhile, the Industrial Tax makes our lives more expensive in essentially the same way as the Consumer Tax. It raises the cost of doing business, of heating our homes, of filling up our car, of our grocery bills. It just does so by a less direct route, by taxing businesses instead of individuals, so that we pay when the price of goods and services goes up in response.

The Industrial Carbon Tax, much like Trudeau’s Clean Fuel Regulations, is ultimately a hidden tax, and that suits Carney just fine. He’d prefer that we not know who to blame as our cost of living skyrockets.

The Liberal Party’s economic record over since 2015 has been atrocious, and it will be no different under Mark Carney. He is complicit, and he continues to support policies which would make us poorer, like Bill S-243, the “Climate-Aligned Finance Act,” which Carney testified before the Senate in support of last year. That bill sought to make it nearly impossible for banks to invest in, or loan money to, oil and gas projects in Canada, and tried to force financial institutions to appoint board members ideologically opposed to fossil fuels.

Canada needs to change course, and soon. As things stand, it will be tough for even a good captain to navigate us through the rough seas the Liberals have steered us into over the past ten years. A few more, and with Mark Carney at the helm, might make that impossible.

Dan McTeague is President of Canadians for Affordable Energy.

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Business

Closing information gaps to strengthen Canada’s border security and track fentanyl

Published on April 12, 2025

By

Macdonald-Laurier Institute

By Sean Parker, Dawn Jutla, and Peter Copeland for Inside Policy

To promote better results, we lay out a collaborative approach

Despite exaggerated claims about how much fentanyl is trafficked across the border from Canada to the United States, the reality is that our detection, search, and seizure capacity is extremely limited.

We’re dealing with a “known unknown”: a risk we’re aware of, but don’t yet have the capacity to understand its extent.

What’s more, it may be that the flow of precursor chemicals—ingredients used in the production of fentanyl—is where much of the concern lies. Until we enhance our tracking, search, and seizure capacity, much will remain speculative.

As border security is further scrutinized, and the extent of fentanyl production and trafficking gets brought into sharper focus, the role of the federal government’s Precursor Chemical Risk Management Unit (PCRMU)—announced recently by Health Canada—will become apparent.

Ottawa recently took action to enhance the capabilities of the PCRMU. It says the new unit will “provide better insights into precursor chemicals, distribution channels, and enhanced monitoring and surveillance to enable timely law enforcement action.” The big question is, how will the PCRMU track the precursor drugs entering into Canada that are used to produce fentanyl?

Key players in the import-export ecosystem do not have the right regulatory framework and responsibilities to track and share information, detect suspect activities, and be incentivized to act on it. That’s one of the reasons why we know so little about how much fentanyl is produced and trafficked.

Without proper collaboration with industry, law enforcement, and financial institutions, these tracking efforts are doomed to fail. To promote better results, we lay out a collaborative approach that distributes responsibilities and retools incentives. These measures would enhance information collection capabilities, incentivize system actors to compliance, and better equip law enforcement and border security services for the safety of Canadians.

Trade-off bottleneck: addressing the costs of enhanced screening

To date, it’s been challenging to increase our ability to detect, search, and seize illegal goods trafficked through ports and border crossings. This is due to trade-offs between heightened manual search and seizure efforts at ports of entry, and the economic impacts of these efforts.

In 2024, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) admitted over 93 million travelers. Meanwhile, 5.3 million trucks transported commercial goods into Canada, around 3.6 million shipments arrived via air cargo, nearly 2 million containers were processed at Canadian ports, roughly 1.9 million rail cars carried goods into the country, and about 145.7 million courier shipments crossed the border. The CBSA employs a risk-based approach to border security, utilizing intelligence, behavioral analysis, and random selection to identify individuals or shipments that may warrant additional scrutiny. This triaging process aims to balance effective enforcement with the facilitation of legitimate travel and trade.

Exact percentages of travelers subjected to secondary inspections are not publicly disclosed, but it’s understood that only a small fraction undergo such scrutiny. We don’t learn about the prevalence of these issues through our border screening measures, but in crime reporting data—after it’s too late to avert.

It’s key to have an approach that minimizes time and personnel resources deployed at points of entry. To be effective without being economically disruptive, policymakers, law enforcement, and border security need to strengthen requirements for information gathering, live tracking, and sharing. Legislative and regulatory change to require additional information of buyers and sellers—along with stringent penalties to enforce non-compliance—is a low-cost, logistically efficient way of distributing responsibility for this complex and multifaceted issue. A key concept explored in this paper is strengthening governance controls (“controls”) over fentanyl supply chains through new processes and data digitization, which could aid the PCRMU in their strategic objectives.

Enhanced supply chain controls are needed

When it comes to detailed supply chain knowledge of fentanyl precursor chemicals moving in and out of Canada, regulator knowledge is limited.

That’s why regulatory reform is the backbone of change. It’s necessary to ensure that strategic objectives are met by all accountable stakeholders to protect the supply chain and identify issues. To rectify the issues, solutions can be taken by the PCRMU to obtain and govern a modern fentanyl traceability system/platform (“platform”) that would provide live transparency to regulators.   

A fresh set of supply chain controls, integrated into a platform as shown in Fig. 1, could significantly aid the PCRMU in identifying suspicious activities and prioritizing investigations.

Fig. 1. Canadian purchasers and transporters would authenticate packaging, documentation, and contents for shipments of fentanyl and its precursor chemicals in a live tracking system. They would provide  transparency into shipments, and share discrepancies, payment intermediaries, and payment recipients with regulators. Banks would share payment information for fentanyl shipments with regulators. Figure provided by the authors.

Our described system has two distinctive streams: one which leverages a combination of physical controls such as package tampering and altered documentation against a second stream that looks at payment counterparties. Customs agencies, transporters, receivers, and financial institutions would have a hand in ensuring that controls in the platform are working. The platform includes several embedded controls to enhance supply chain oversight. It uses commercially available Vision AI to assess packaging and blockchain cryptography to verify shipment documentation integrity. Shipment weight and quantity are tracked from source to destination to detect diversion, while a four-eyes verification process ensures independent reconciliation by the seller, customs, and receiver. Additionally, payment details are linked to shipments to uncover suspicious financial activity and support investigations by financial institutions and regulators like FINTRAC and FINCEN.

A modern platform securely distributes responsibility in a way that’s cost effective and efficient so as not to overburden any one actor. It also ensures that companies of all sizes can participate, and protects them from exploitation by criminals and reputational damage.

In addition to these technological enhancements and more robust system controls, better collaboration between the key players in the fentanyl supply chain is needed, along with policy changes to incentivize each key fentanyl supply chain stakeholder to adopt the new controls.

Canadian financial institutions: a chance for further scrutiny

Financial institutions (FIs) are usually the first point of contact when a payment is being made by a purchaser to a supplier for precursor chemicals that could be used in the production of fentanyl. It is crucial that they enhance their screening and security processes.

Chemicals may be purchased by wires or via import letters of credit. The latter is the more likely of the two instruments to be used because this ensures that the terms and conditions in the letter of credit are met with proof of shipment prior to payment being released.  Payments via wire require less transparency.

Where a buyer pays for precursor chemicals with a wire, it should result in further scrutiny by the financial institution. Requests for supporting documentation including terms and conditions, along with proof of shipment and receipt, should be provided. Under new regulatory policy, buyers would be required to place such supporting documentation on the shared platform.

The less transparent a payment channel is in relation to the supply chain, the more concerning it should be from a risk point of view. Certain payment channels may be leveraged to further mask illicit activity throughout the supply chain. At the onset of the relationship the seller and buyers would link payment information on the platform (payment channel, recipient name, recipient’s bank, date, and payment amount) to each precursor or fentanyl shipment. The supplier, in turn, should record match payment information (payment channel, supplier name, supplier’s bank, date, and payment amount).

Linking payment to physical shipment would enable data analytics to detect irregularities. An irregularity is flagged when the amounts and/or volume of payments far exceed the value of the received goods or vice versa. The system would be able to understand which fentanyl supply chains tend to use a particular set of FIs. This makes it possible to conduct real-time mapping of companies, their fentanyl and precursor shipments and receipts, and the payment institutions they use. With this bigger picture, FIs and law enforcement could connect the dots faster.

Live traceability reporting

Today, suppliers of fentanyl precursors are subject to the Pre-Export Notification Online (PEN Online) database. This database enables governments to monitor international trade in precursor chemicals by sending and receiving pre-export notifications. The system helps prevent the diversion of chemicals used in the illicit manufacture of drugs by allowing authorities to verify the legitimacy of shipments before they occur.

​To further strengthen oversight, the platform utilizes immutability technologies—such as blockchain or secure immutable databases—which can be employed to encrypt all shipping documents and securely share them. This presents an auditable form of chain-of-custody and makes any alterations apparent. Customs and buyers would have the capability to verify the authenticity of the originating documents in a way that doesn’t compromise business confidentiality. With the use of these technologies, law enforcement can narrow down their investigations.

An information gap currently exists as the receivers of the shipments don’t share their receipts information with PEN. To strengthen governance on fentanyl supply chains, regulatory policy and legislative changes are needed. The private sector should be mandated to report received quantities of fentanyl or its precursors, as well as suspicious receiving destinations. This could be accomplished on the platform which would embed the receiving process, a reconciliation process of the transaction, the secure upload and sharing of documents, and would be minimally disruptive to business processes.

Additionally, geo-location technology embedded in mobile devices and/or shipments would provide real-time location-based tracking of custody transactions. These geo-controls would ensure accountability across the fentanyl supply chain, in particular where shipments veer off or stop too long on regular shipping routes. Canadian transporters of fentanyl and its precursor chemicals should play an important role in detecting illicit diversion/activities.

Digital labelling

Licensed fentanyl manufacturers could add new unique digital labels to their shipments to get expedited clearance. For example, immutable digital labelling platforms enable tamper-proof digital labels for legitimate fentanyl shipments. This would give pharmacies, doctors, and regulators transparency into the fentanyl’s:

  • Chemical composition and concentrations (determining legitimate vs. adulterated versions of the drug)
  • Manufacturing facility ID, batch ID, and regulatory compliance status
  • Intended buyer authentication (such as licensed pharmaceutical firms or distributors)

Immutable digital labelling platforms offer secure role-based access control. They can display customized data views according to time of day, language, and location. Digital labels could enable international border agencies and law enforcement to receive usable data, allowing legal shipments through faster while triggering closer shipment examinations for those without of a digital label.

International and domestic transporter controls

Transporters act as intermediaries in the supply chain. Their operations could be monitored through a regulatory policy that mandates their participation in the platform for fentanyl and precursor shipments. The platform would support a mobile app interface for participants on-the-move, as well as a web portal and application programming interfaces (APIs) for large-size supply chain participants. Secure scanning of packaging at multiple checkpoints, combined with real-time tracking, would provide an additional layer of protection against fraud, truckers taking bribes, and unauthorized alterations to shipments and documents.

Regulators and law enforcement participation

Technology-based fentanyl controls for suppliers, buyers, and transporters may be reinforced by international customs and law enforcement collaboration on the platform. Both CBSA and law enforcement could log in and view alerts about suspicious activities issued from the FIs, transporters, or receivers. The reporting would allow government personnel to view a breakdown of fentanyl importers, the number of import permit applications, and the amount of fentanyl and its precursors flowing into the country. Responsible regulatory agencies—such as the CBSA and PCRMU—could leverage the reporting to identify hot spots.

The platform would use machine learning to support CBSA personnel in processing an incoming fentanyl or precursor shipment. Machine learning refers to AI algorithms and systems that improve their knowledge with experience. For example, an AI assistant on the traceability system could use machine learning to predict and communicate which import shipments arriving at the border should be passed. It can base these suggestions on criteria like volume, price, origin of raw materials, and origin of material at import point. It can also leverage data from other sources such as buyers, sellers, and banks to make predictions. As an outcome, the shipment may be recommended to pass, flagged as suspicious, or deemed to require an investigation by CBSA.

It’s necessary to keep up to date on new precursor chemicals as the drug is reformulated. Here, Health Canada can play a role, using its new labs and tests—expected as part of the recently announced Canadian Drug Analysis Centre—to provide chemical analysis of seized fentanyl. This would inform which additional chemical supply chains should be tracked in the PCRMU’s collaborative platform, and all stakeholders would widen their scope of review.

These new tools would complement existing cross-border initiatives, including joint U.S.-Canada and U.S.-Mexico crackdowns on illicit drug labs, as well as sovereign efforts. They have the potential to play a vital role in addressing fentanyl trafficking.

A robust, multi-pronged strategy—integrating existing safeguards with a new PCRMU traceability platform—could significantly disrupt the illegal production and distribution of fentanyl. By tracking critical supply chain events and authenticating shipment data, the platform would equip law enforcement and border agencies in Canada, the U.S., and Mexico with timely, actionable intelligence. The human toll demands urgency: from 2017 to 2022, the U.S. averaged 80,000 opioid-related deaths annually, while Canada saw roughly 5,500 per year from 2016 to 2024. In just the first nine months of 2024, Canadian emergency services responded to 28,813 opioid-related overdoses.

Combating this crisis requires more than enforcement. It demands enforceable transparency. Strengthened governance—powered by advanced traceability technology and coordinated public-private collaboration—is essential. This paper outlines key digital controls that can be implemented by global suppliers, Canadian buyers, transporters, customs, and financial institutions. With federal leadership, Canada can spearhead the adoption of proven, homegrown technologies to secure fentanyl supply chains and save lives.

Sean Parker is a compliance leader with well over a decade of experience in financial crime compliance, and a contributor to the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

Dawn Jutla is the CEO of Peer Ledger, the maker of a traceability platform that embeds new control processes on supply chains, and a professor at the Sobey School of Business.

Peter Copeland is deputy director of domestic policy at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

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