Prime Minister announces the appointment of Canada’s new Fentanyl Czar

Fentanyl is a lethal drug that has torn apart communities and families across Canada and the United States. The scourge of fentanyl must be wiped from the face of the Earth, its production must be shut down, and its profiteers must be punished. The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today announced the appointment of Kevin Brosseau as Canada’s new Fentanyl Czar, effective immediately. 

As Fentanyl Czar, Mr. Brosseau will work closely with U.S. counterparts and law enforcement agencies to accelerate Canada’s ongoing work to detect, disrupt, and dismantle the fentanyl trade. Mr. Brosseau brings extensive law enforcement experience, having served in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) for over 20 years, including as Deputy Commissioner and top cop in Manitoba. Recently, as Deputy National Security and Intelligence Advisor to the Prime Minister, Mr. Brosseau navigated Canada’s most sensitive security challenges. His demonstrated expertise tackling drug trafficking, organized crime networks, and other national security threats will bring tremendous value to this position. 

Canada is taking significant action to stop the production and trafficking of illegal fentanyl. We are adding new and expanded detection capacity at border entries to find illegal drugs and guns and shorten cargo container processing time. We are building a Canadian Drug Analysis Centre to analyze illegal drug samples and identify where and how these drugs are manufactured. We are deploying new chemical detection tools at high-risk ports of entry, new canine teams to intercept illegal drugs, and a new Precursor Chemical Risk Management Unit to better track precursor chemicals and distribution channels. In the 2024 Fall Economic Statement, we introduced strong measures such as steeper penalties and regulatory changes to fight financial crimes, including money laundering, that often enable fentanyl trafficking. 

While less than 1 per cent of the fentanyl intercepted at the U.S. border comes from Canada, any amount of fentanyl is too much. With Canada's $1.3 billion border plan, we are reinforcing our strong border and stopping the fentanyl trade – with new Black Hawk helicopters, drones, mobile surveillance towers, and nearly 10,000 frontline personnel working on protecting the border. As an important legal tool to enforce criminal investigations in Canada, we will also be listing organized crime cartels as terrorist entities under the Criminal Code. 

This listing will strengthen the RCMP’s ability to prevent and disrupt cartel activities in our country. Last week, the Prime Minister signed a new intelligence directive, backed by $200 million in investment, that will give our security agencies more capacity to gather intelligence on transnational organized crime and share with our American partners and law enforcement across the continent. This complements joint law enforcement co-ordination efforts, including through the Canada-U.S. Joint Strike Force to combat organized crime, fentanyl, and money laundering.

Fentanyl and its analogs

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that was originally developed as an analgesic – or painkiller – for surgery. It has a specific chemical structure with multiple areas that can be modified, often illicitly, to form related compounds with marked differences in potency.

For example, carfentanil, a fentanyl analog formed by substituting one chemical group for another, is 100 times more potent than its parent structure. Another analog, acetylfentanyl, is approximately three times less potent than fentanyl, but has still led to overdoses. Despite the number and diversity of its analogs, fentanyl itself continues to dominate the illicit opioid supply. Milligram per milligram, fentanyl is roughly 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine.

Lacing or replacing drugs with fentanyl

Drug dealers have used fentanyl analogs as an adulterant in illicit drug supplies since 1979, with fentanyl-related overdoses clustered in individual cities.