Trump ally on Canada's fentanyl talk: Not good enough
U.S. officials urge Canada to start tackling big, systemic problems with organized crime
The Canadian government is talking about adding helicopters and drones at the border to stop fentanyl shipments so Donald Trump drops his threat of devastating economic tariffs.
But David Asher, a Trump ally, says it should be doing more. Much more. And as someone who's worked on fentanyl policy for Trump, he says Canada should be making substantive, systemic changes.
He calls it frustrating to hear Canadians downplay their country's role in the fentanyl epidemic, just because a minuscule percentage of seized contraband comes from Canada. There's more to it than that, he says.
Asher urges new laws on racketeering, money laundering and intelligence-sharing, to fight international criminal networks that he says use Canada as a back office.
A top U.S. expert on criminal financing, Asher led an anti-fentanyl task force under Trump, has occasionally testified before the U.S. Congress, and has written a fentanyl strategic memo now reportedly circulating among Trump's transition team.
It just so happens that he was talking to Canadians at a Vancouver security summit at the very moment the president-elect threatened the tariffs, just after 3 p.m. PT on Monday, Nov. 25.
He was telling his Canadian audience about the need not just to seize pills but to wipe out criminals' bank accounts, and prosecute crooked bankers.
Asher then checked his phone while someone else spoke and saw the social media post that has upended politics across the continent: A threatened 25 per cent tariff on all goods from Canada and Mexico, unless the countries curb fentanyl trafficking and migration at the U.S. border.
The audience seemed shocked and somewhat dismayed at the news, he said.
"They kept asking, 'Why should Canada care about this fentanyl issue?'" said Asher, a senior fellow at the conservative-leaning Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C.
For starters, he said, Canada should care because fentanyl is killing many thousands of Canadians and hundreds of thousands of Americans.
But furthermore, Canada is a more important player in the fentanyl trade than it acknowledges, he said — and its role is growing.
'We've been informing the Canadian government of this for years'
"The money laundering that makes drug trafficking work is largely run out of Canada," he said, specifically mentioning Vancouver and Toronto.
"Canada has been a reluctant and a not particularly effective partner in this.
"We've been informing the Canadian government of this for years. We've had very little co-operation, frankly. And it's time, I think, with Donald Trump's threat of a tariff, that your prime minister and others take action."
Canadian officials who met Trump's team at Mar-a-Lago certainly emerged with the impression that the president-elect indeed cares about fentanyl.
What the Canadians didn't know — and still don't know — is what Trump actually wants; he never got specific about whether he's seeking more security at the actual border, or the systemic changes Asher favours.
Asher makes clear that he can't answer for Trump and doesn't speak for him. He said he did know some sort of border statement was coming from the president-elect, as he's close to numerous members of the incoming administration.
But he wasn't aware the statement would include a tariff threat, nor was he aware that the timing would coincide with his Canadian event.
"There was a big silence in the room," said David Luna, who was at the Vancouver conference, referring to the moment Asher announced the tariff threat. He previously led efforts against narcotics, money laundering and organized crime at the U.S. State Department.
"[The reaction was], 'This is for real.'"
Paper: Canada a money-laundering hub
Luna co-wrote a report calling Canada a hub for some of the world's largest criminal networks, from Mexico, China, Iran and Russia, which he says use the country as a safe haven for money laundering, and also as a source of encrypted phone technology.
Criminal gangs' use of Canadian-based encrypted communications was thrust into the spotlight, when the CEO of an encrypted-phone company in Washington State was arrested, resulting in the prosecution and conviction of the head of the RCMP's intelligence co-ordination centre.
Senior Mountie Cameron Ortis was found guilty of hoarding and leaking state secrets. Asher refers bitterly to this case; he notes that his colleagues — and all Five Eyes countries — had regularly shared intelligence with Ortis.
One of the world's top drug traffickers is also a Canadian citizen: Tse Chi Lop, who was arrested during a European layover in a multinational police operation in 2021.
Then there's the TD Bank case. The bank faces $3 billion US in penalties after employees in the U.S. were willing accomplices to Chinese and Mexican gangs using it to launder drug money — including fentanyl money.
Asher listed several friends who are assigned to top roles in Trump's Justice Department, saying he hopes they pursue criminal charges against executives at that bank and other institutions.
Some senior executives at the bank were aware of the scheme, and the current U.S. attorney general, Merrick Garland, has said that, atop the two employees already charged, more prosecutions could follow.
One former Canadian officer said it's depressingly hard to prosecute such cases in Canada, despite well-documented evidence of money laundering.
"That's what the Americans are looking at," said Calvin Chrustie, a former RCMP superintendent in Vancouver who has investigated transnational crime networks.
"They're not looking at the guy crossing the border with a backpack."
Because to be fair, if they were simply counting contraband deliveries, Canada would indeed be a negligible player.
Canada accounts for a mere 0.2 per cent of the fentanyl seized by the U.S. at its land borders in the last fiscal year: a mere 19.5 kilograms at the northern border, versus 9,571 kilograms on the southern side.
Canadian officials have been making this point repeatedly. Sources say Trudeau pointed it out to Trump at Mar-a-Lago, and Canadian officials have noted this in media interviews.
Several experts speaking at a Washington conference on fentanyl last week said they're absolutely right.
But there's an asterisk: "Canada does have, however, serious problems with organized crime," Vanda Felbab-Brown told CBC News. She hosted an event on the North American fentanyl crisis at the Brookings Institution on Wednesday.
What new laws?
Even there, Asher said, Canadians may be downplaying the country's growing role in the actual production and export of fentanyl.
A briefing note by Health Canada, obtained by CBC News, said criminal groups now have an excess supply and may be starting to sell it overseas.
This is before a massive bust of a so-called superlab in B.C. this fall. Authorities said they found enough fentanyl and ingredients there to produce over 95 million doses. That, Asher noted, is the equivalent of almost three times the population of Canada, and speaks to a growing export operation.
So what does he hope to see in Canada?
A racketeering law that's a bit closer the U.S.'s RICO statute. Sanctions for banks involved in money laundering similar to Section 311 of the U.S. Patriot Act, which Asher said he was involved in drafting. Better use of intelligence in Canadian criminal cases — an old, complicated issue.
And he's calling for the revocation of student visas, including in the U.S., for any international student depositing dirty money in a bank, something he's said happens.
"I am not a blame-Canada guy. Canada's a great country. I'm a big fan of Canadian law enforcement. The RCMP has been a great partner," he said.
"[But] we continuously have run into roadblocks when we work together. They know so much. And they confess they can do so little, given the legal limitations."
It's fixable, he says. He's certain that if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were to pass more aggressive border legislation, it'd help the country's relations with Trump.
"I don't think President Trump harbours ill will toward Canada. I think he just feels that the deal is unfair."
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With files from Katie Simpson