#235: Peter Copeland, Canada’s Border Blindspots - Fentanyl and the Myth of Security

I’m joined by Peter Copeland, Deputy Director of Domestic Policy at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, to unpack the truths and myths around Canada’s border security. From fentanyl trafficking and human smuggling to legal blind spots and our fractured jurisdictional model, Peter offers a research-backed, nonpartisan perspective on the known unknowns we face. What can Canada learn from its allies? Why are our legal frameworks outdated? And is our public safety strategy more reactive than proactive? This conversation brings much-needed depth to an issue that often escapes the spotlight.

Transcript

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (00:00.962)
Welcome to another episode of the Open Minds podcast, folks. I'm your host, Christopher Balkhren. Folks, this is going to be a special one. Peter Copeland joins us today, the deputy director of domestic policy at the McDonald's Laurier Institute, one of Canada's leading nonpartisan think tanks. And I absolutely love that not only from a brand of open minds, but also from someone who's genuinely interested in the topic of border security with no

no perspective to force, but is looking at this truly objectively. And this type of research, or this type of research, is what really gives me a lot more energy to continue the pursuit I have with having open and honest conversation here in Canada, which we're sorely missing. Peter, welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to have you.

Peter (00:57.023)
Thanks so much, Christopher. Yeah, we think it derives from the McDonald and Laurier, know, a grit and a Tory in our name. We strive to be balanced and certainly non-partisan. Yes, thanks for having me on.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (01:10.926)
Peter, we're going to get into a lot of detail about Canada's border, but at a high level, I'd love to know from you first, what do you think are some of the misnomers, misunderstandings of Canada's border, what Canadians perceive versus what actually is happening on the ground?

Peter (01:30.941)
Yeah, well, it's a big question. I mean, there are flows of people. And then obviously, some of the things we're going to talk about today are the public safety related concerns. Obviously, everyone is aware that Canada's border is massive, you know, one of the largest in the world. We also tend to think of ourselves, you know, as and with some justification, you know, of a polite northern neighbor.

to the US, the world's superpower. generally speaking, Canada border security issues do not feature front and center in the national imagination. And I think for that reason, we may have been neglecting for some time some public safety related concerns with respect to border security.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (02:28.75)
And when it comes to public safety, sometimes when we only hear about the border, it's when there are, you know, protests like the Freedom Convoy or there are the current rhetoric that's happening in the White House saying that Canada is sending all this fentanyl to the United States and it's always these kind of doom and gloom issues. What other public safety issues also occur at the border?

Peter (02:58.057)
Yeah, great question. there are crossings with respect to migration. So, you know, there's the Roxham Road crossing that's quite infamous in this regard. So illegal border crossings related to migration. Canada, know, Ontario in particular, and some of the biggest bigger provinces are some of the biggest destinations for human trafficking, mostly sex related human trafficking.

the world Toronto is notorious in this regard. And obviously drugs increasingly in the news and of course there is some exaggeration, I think on the part of the Americans about the volume, but it's certainly not unwarranted when you zoom out and look at the...

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (03:27.907)
Wow.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (03:31.459)
Wow.

Peter (03:52.521)
the way in which organized crime operates in Canada and the way in which it is influenced by foreign state actors in particular, you know, in recent decades and some of my colleagues are senior fellows at MLI have documented this well, among them Calvin Crusty. There's been a shift in the way that foreign actors operate and attempt to

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (04:00.622)
Hmm.

Peter (04:22.325)
Influencer or combat I should say adversaries And they're increasingly using organized crime to do so so you know, basically funding and supporting organized crime as a type of hybrid hybrid warfare and You know Canada is seen as a relatively weak and easier place to operate in compared to other

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (04:31.949)
you

Peter (04:50.197)
Western countries, Anglophone, Anglosphere countries, for example. And so, you know, much of what the Americans may be concerned about is not necessarily how much is flowing south, although we can talk about that more just how much we in fact know about that. And interestingly, just today, the OPP had its largest fentanyl bust in its history for 43 and a half grams, kilograms, sorry.

found and you know at different parts of the province right along the kind of trade corridors and corridors leading to the borders and I would surmise that that is no doubt as a result of the increased attention and resourcing now being put towards this. So all to say you know Canada has a certain self-image that these issues aren't that prevalent and you know in the past five, ten

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (05:20.461)
Mm-hmm.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (05:40.259)
Wow.

Peter (05:50.149)
years, perhaps longer, there's been a shift in the way in which foreign actors and organized crime operate in Canada, exploiting these these loopholes, financial crime, many of our legislative frameworks are just not up to stuff, certainly compared to peer jurisdictions.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (06:13.646)
Peter, you know, this is where I find your research so interesting because for many Canadians, when they cross the border, it feels like the border is tight and secure. There are in some cases that Pearson International secondary checks, screenings, going through bags, you know, if you have food items, there's searches, you know, the show Border Security Canada is prominently featured there. But when I read your research,

Peter (06:26.175)
Mm-hmm.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (06:42.08)
and I read more about what's happening, I get the sense that there is a more porous border for some of the items that you've mentioned. Can you help us understand that a little bit more?

Peter (06:55.343)
Sure, yeah. And another is auto theft. And I think it's really illustrative to think that it's not so much the flow of people, although, you know, there's certainly some associated with that. It's the economic import-export regime. You know, it's one of the trade-offs of having a very, you know, open kind of dynamic society is that there is a lot of flow of goods and people. And realistically,

there is not the time or resources and the economic impact of significantly increasing manual inspections, whether intelligence informed or not. It's just simply out of the question. And so it's not so much looking at what transpires at the border, but using intelligence and ensuring our

reporting and enforcement regimes are properly equipped so that we're able to identify sources of illegal activity. And then we have the resourcing as well as the legal tools to act on that. And there have been some recent changes in January of this year. And then again, just a week or so ago, some border act changes that we could talk about further.

but yeah, it's really just to underline that

focusing on the border itself and kind of the manual day-to-day operations there. Yes, important, but realistically, we need to look upstream and outside of the country and then upstream and supply chains and all of that to really have an impact.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (08:50.286)
And for those that are listening, I just want to throw out some numbers so that people are aware. CBSA processes over 93 million travelers, five million trucks, two million containers, 145 million courier shipments. These are all numbers from 2024. But to your point, Peter, only a small fraction of any of those undergoes a secondary inspection. And that points, I think, to your point about

capacity. Can you help the audience understand what peer jurisdictions are doing, say with a comparable size, how they triage that secondary inspection?

Peter (09:34.195)
Yeah, great, great question. I'll speak maybe more about the additional tools that they have at the border and that we may be adding given some recent investments. And then I'll also speak about some of the legal tools that are in place. Again, some of which have been added recently. So again, when we're talking about inspection capacity at the border, like it has to be intelligence informed.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (09:49.336)
Hmm.

Peter (10:01.501)
if you're going to be doing secondary and tertiary inspections, because people simply would not tolerate a great deal of stop time and what have you for this level of searching. So it has to be intelligence informed. And indeed, it is, there was randomization at Montreal ports and what have you. Some time ago when I was at the,

government of Ontario looking at the auto theft issue. But realistically, what is needed and some changes have been made to this effect is putting the onus on other operators in the supply chain to do better reporting, as well as increasing the intelligence gathering capacities of law enforcement.

and setting up joint operations because like in many areas of government policy, it's very easy to get into silos and work in your own space and what have you. And so creating those partnerships, formalizing them, requiring it can be very beneficial.

with respect to what some of the peer jurisdictions do. I mean, yeah, the United States, of course, is the world's, you know, most sought after economic market, know, world economic, you name it. They have, you know, a much more robust, you know, intelligence and security and law enforcement presence, not just municipally, but geared towards these these sorts of issues. And Canada, you know, wouldn't make sense for us to replicate that. No one's saying it should.

But some of the things that they do is they have legislative regimes in countries like Australia have it as well, wherein there are carve outs made for various types of purposes like seeking warrants, like redacting various types of information and not disclosing them in prosecution under strict judicial supervision.

Peter (12:19.989)
even allowing law enforcement when there are national security or organized crime connections to operate somewhat outside of some constraints of the law so that they're able to identify and act on information and deal with oftentimes, again, organized crime entities that are pushing this sort of thing. And Canada, we just don't...

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (12:20.046)
Wow.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (12:41.122)
Hmm.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (12:46.008)
Wow.

Peter (12:49.681)
have that yet. And so some of some of the examples we could point to are our disclosure requirements. So because our requirements require all types of information that's going to be brought forward in a prosecution to be disclosed, our foreign partners like the Five Eyes intelligence partners

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (12:51.054)
Yeah.

Peter (13:17.427)
won't share certain sensitive information about organized crime or foreign state actors because that would compromise their sources. And we also have limitations on how long court cases can go on, again, with some justification because it can be contrary to justice to draw.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (13:28.472)
Wow.

Peter (13:44.595)
draw things out, you know, and not move things along expeditiously. But when you're dealing with very complicated cases, and cases of a certain threshold, I think it's reasonable to state that, you know, the same rules don't apply. And then the Charter and you know, the the history of the jurisprudence on the Charter, you know, has been one in which rights are heavily emphasized at

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (13:57.87)
Hmm.

Peter (14:12.841)
perhaps the expense of other objectives. And so, yeah, these things conspire to create an environment in which we are somewhat constrained, handcuffed, you might say, in dealing with the organized crime and foreign state actors involved in many of these issues.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (14:17.134)
Hmm.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (14:39.682)
Peter, in other topics that I've covered on my podcast, I've heard the same or similar argument, which is the constraints of acts that govern certain actions bureaucrats and officials can take. And I'm perplexed by how these acts can't be transformed in some way, updated or

Peter (14:55.689)
Mm-hmm.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (15:07.594)
informed by real world experience of, you know, in this case, border officials, research institutions like yourself. What are some of the kind of mechanisms that we could open up these acts to be more informed?

Peter (15:27.881)
Yeah, great question. So, yeah, opening up an Act, the legislative level, it's more difficult than regulation, which you can do under ministers authority sometimes with posting requirements. So, you know, that's part of it. It has to pass through the legislature. But really, when we're talking about these issues, I think...

you can speak to the, you can look to the Canadian culture around this that I already alluded to and the legal tests and whether these things will be overturned potentially. So I'll speak to both. you know, we have seen in the past few months, simply because, you know, permission structures basically were opened up.

after the second Trump administration came into play. I would say that for some time, discontent has been building around a suite of issues such as public safety concerns, drugs and addictions, which is very connected to this issue, diversity, equity and inclusion, a whole host of things. And there had seemingly been

no action. And perhaps that is because of, you know, a concentration of opinion among, you know, the, the dominant class that holds power in the commanding heights, major institutions in Canadian society and across other Western countries. And that was that has quickly changed. I would say long overdue, although potentially with some very unsavory

roll out. And of course, we're witnessing that right as Trump's kind of bullying and, and all of that and worse. But all to say, look, we've known about these issues, nothing has been done because that's what it takes to get things changed in the political world like politicians respond to incentives, they are careful on what I say here.

Peter (17:52.339)
you know, they will do things when they're politically advantageous or when they have to. They won't otherwise. And look, the Liberals have not been, like these are not winning issues for them. Public safety, you know, hasn't been. And so I think there's been a lot of inertia because of that. Now, you know, in the space of just a couple of months, you've seen all of these changes. And then just very quickly, I'll speak to...

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (17:52.43)
They're motivated.

Right. Yes.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (18:14.146)
Mm-hmm.

Peter (18:19.827)
I'll speak to the kind of legal questions because, you know, certainly we have seen countless laws aimed at, let's call them public safety objectives, overturned on the basis of charter arguments based on, you know, section seven, life, liberty, security, the person eight, unreasonable seizure, 12.

cruel and unusual punishment. I would say, you know, my view is that the jurisprudential philosophy in Canada is one that affords the courts a great deal of leeway in interpreting and even overturning and creating new tests that are effectively kind of policy, and that is not constrained in its understanding of the meaning of words or

you know, the legal tradition that precedes it. You know, I would say it is not in the main, not on kind of, let's call them boring or ordinary stuff, which is very good. Our courts are excellent. But on the politically charged topics, the courts, I would say are activist and there is pretty good evidence for that. I would encourage your listeners to check out some MacDonald-Laurie Institute work in that regard.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (19:28.396)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (19:44.686)
Peter, we could spend a lot of time talking explicitly about that because I 100 % agree with you and I feel like we should find some time to talk about that. But I just want to mention fentanyl because I want us to chat a fentanyl. In your research from 2025, you write, we're dealing with a unknown, a risk we're aware of.

Peter (20:00.499)
Yeah.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (20:09.966)
but don't yet have the capacity to understand its extent. And this is really interesting because I did not know this in 79 % of all opioid deaths in Canada between January and June of 2024 involved fentanyl. And the molecule is so small that it goes undetected by conventional screening measures. And the trafficking networks are just very established.

Sometimes when we think organized crime, we don't think organized to the extent at which it is, it operates almost like a government agency. And so to combat this and start taking some of the steps and perhaps looking to the United States and other jurisdictions, what are some of the small steps Canada can start taking to help us understand the known unknown?

Peter (20:48.393)
Mm-hmm.

Peter (21:04.391)
Yeah, yeah. And what I mean, that's great. Great question, Chris. And what I'd say what I mean by the metaphor is, you can see the damage, so to speak. That's what's known. And what's unknown is the extent of production and the who and the networks and all of that. But we can certainly see it from the the end state. What I would say, I mean, first, I would commend the federal government for its

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (21:16.654)
Mm-hmm.

Peter (21:33.621)
you know, it's January and late May, early June changes here. They have certainly done some things. They've given police additional powers to open mail and couriers and enhance data collection and intelligence capacity, more border resources. They've even allowed for greater cooperation between

police services, you know, in federal, federally regulated areas such as ports or rail yards. It's the, you know, a federal kind of rail police report authority that has had authority in municipal, provincial, and even the CBSA, the border security has had limited operational capacity. And so they changed that as well.

it's still a memorandum of understandings that govern the municipal and provincial police terms of operation with those entities, but these are all good signs. What I would say and what we allude to in that paper, my co-authors Don, Yitla and Sean Parker, who know a lot more about the technology and the space and the money laundering regime.

credit them for good work on it. But what we highlight is that it's important to be able to put more of the onus on other people in the supply chain. And again, some of the some of the changes the establishment of the precursor chemical risk management unit does increase reporting requirements and that sort of thing.

among exporters, know, logistics companies is this sort of thing, which is good. I think what we're going to have to see is to what extent it's enforced. And of course, whether there are easy workarounds for organized crime, because that's one of the things in dealing with criminal entities is like whack-a-mole, you know, and they quickly shift.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (23:50.414)
Mm-hmm.

Peter (23:52.273)
business lines when avenues are closed and you saw that with auto theft a little bit. It was kind of the topic of the day for some time in Ontario and Quebec anyway, BC to a certain extent. And then it shifted. So I would say that it's good to see that they have made legal changes. They've increased resourcing, including intelligence gathering capacity. They've strengthened partnerships.

and they've added more onus on different parts of the supply chain, so to speak, and the import export regime. The question is, I still think without some more streamlined legislative carve-outs for national security organized crime activity, we may not get to the kind of tools we need.

So the one thing to say in addition is that the tools that they give, you know, police, for example, the ability to open mail, what have you, but that's great. You know, if you have it, right? If you have the mail, for example, but you need to be informed properly so that, you know, you know what you're doing, right? And it's effective. So I'd say good things, but we'll have to see how it rolls out.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (25:18.926)
Peter, you mentioned the supply chain and I know Sean Parker is very deep in the financial aspect of this, but I would love to know from you, given your research too about some of what some may perceive as willful ignorance by some of our financial institutions. I know that with cryptocurrencies and digital currencies, wire transfers to chemical production companies,

Peter (25:27.54)
Mm-hmm.

Peter (25:40.137)
Mm-hmm.

Peter (25:48.586)
Mm-hmm.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (25:48.778)
inside China, etc. Those do occur and some say that there are not enough checks on those. Whereas in other instances for Canadian citizens, there are many checks inside the Big Five banks on any types of irregular activity. some Canadians may be perplexed to hear that there are still these gaps that exist with a bank which is seemingly airtight.

Peter (26:16.789)
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the financial crime and money laundering component of this is, you know, it's kind of like the engine that makes it work, right? Because all this comes down to money to a certain extent. Although there's, of course, the foreign influence component as well in the geopolitical dimension. I would say, yeah, this is another area wherein, you know, Canada is kind of being singled out as a bit weaker than comparative jurisdictions.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (26:31.371)
Mm-hmm.

Peter (26:47.219)
You know, we have, we had that big TD case in which it was fined, know, billions by the US, which really should be a strong signal to the banks that they need to clean up their act a little bit in this regard. I mean, ultimately, we just did some work on mortgage fraud as well with former Toronto police investigator. And, you know, he puts it this way, like,

Ultimately, these things cost more for banks or for real estate entities and what have you. if in kind of, you know, sales and nonprofit making environment, which is all fine and well, there's kind of, you know, we don't want to do this unless we have to. So I think unfortunately, yeah, there've been some instances now where I think the financial institutions are waking up to the need to

to do more here and be regulated more. So we've advocated, you know, for a beneficial ownership registry, which the federal government has, you know, has committed to and enacted, which should bear fruit. It needs to be made, I think, consistent across the provinces so that there are no loopholes. And what that does is just ensures that owners of public listed companies, they...

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (27:45.838)
Mm-hmm.

Peter (28:14.293)
beyond a certain share of ownership, they must disclose their information. It must be made public or accessible by certain means. And this prevents entities from setting up basically front companies to launder funds. So that's a positive change. Yeah, so all of these things, I think...

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (28:22.765)
Mm-hmm.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (28:35.81)
Mm-hmm.

Peter (28:44.085)
And I should say Canada is up this year for a review, a country review by the Financial Action Task Force. So that'll be delivered later this year. So there had been some changes, I think, in anticipation of that and not wanting to get a bad grade from the task force.

which would not bode well for our credit ratings and various things of this nature.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (29:13.997)
Mm-hmm.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (29:22.142)
Yeah, and for many Canadians, sometimes it's hard to see the impact of task forces, but to your point, they can influence policy both positively and negatively in a very prominent way. there's really a lot of importance given to task forces. Peter, I wanted to chat about Canada's vertical and horizontal integration of our governance model.

which I know you've explored further. Federal, provincial, municipal, that's our vertical. And then horizontally, we have agencies, I believe, at every level. And I think this is the confusing point for a lot of Canadians who are just looking for that one agency, whether it's the CBSA or someone, to help regulate or be at least the body accountable.

And perhaps it's not the citizens alone, but it's also industry. It's also other neighboring countries. But our unique vertical horizontal organization can make it very complex and confusing. Do you agree? And what are some tools that can kind of demystify that?

Peter (30:40.371)
Yeah, I mean, you generally we have a, you know, our country's premised on federalism, we have strong provinces and the municipalities are creatures of the province. you know, I think it serves us well generally given the country's so large, you know, it's good to have a certain degree of decentralization. But I think over time, we have, people have not stuck to their lanes and

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (30:57.528)
Mm-hmm.

Peter (31:05.277)
when it's politically opportune to, you know, invest more in healthcare as the federal government or, you know, whatever on the part of the provinces, you know, we're seeing now with energy, of course, an inability for the national interest to, you know, do some things that would have significant economic impact. So, so I would say like the structure serves as well, but unfortunately, maybe it's not working so well in practice on certain areas in general terms with respect to

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (31:15.918)
Hmm.

Peter (31:34.197)
public safety. A big difference between, you know, say the US where there's a, you know, more of a culture and recognition of the importance of being able to take swift action on these things is, you know, as I understand it, there is more direction setting. And then other supporting agencies fall in line.

in the US. Whereas in Canada, because we just don't have the same sort of overall strategy, like what's Canada's national security or national public safety strategy, you know, it's kind of, it's kind of like, for, it's almost like, you know, we're there, don't worry, as law enforcement, public safety, security, but, you know, we don't want hear about you.

You know, we don't want to, we don't really want to all of that. And again, like a lot of this is, good and fine. It's not good to be overly, you know, concerned about public safety all the time and, kind of militaristic and all of that. Certainly. but yeah, it's, it does lead to a bit of, inaction and, lack of lack of leadership and strategic direction.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (32:34.392)
Yeah.

Peter (32:56.373)
I think, you know, there are various, you know, not to get into legislative minutiae, but, you know, certain provinces do it well sharing, you know, crime scene and investigatory, you know, evidence collection, that sort of thing. There's a major case management system in Ontario that's quite good in this regard.

you know, it kind of establishes the criteria for what a major case is. And, you know, when it meets that threshold, and it gets uploaded to a system and agencies share information. But in other instances, it's kind of, you know, you don't have to share with your partners. And so there's kind of a culture of not doing so. And there can be jurisdictional silos and not enough

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (33:48.992)
Mm-hmm.

Peter (33:54.037)
cooperation on certain issues. Now, when political will is such, for example, I'll again use Ontario as an example that I'm familiar with, with the auto theft and gun and gang issues, for example, you know, there have been joint operations created between, you know, for example, the OPP and various polices of jurisdiction.

and sometimes with federal government involvement as well. But that takes resourcing, takes sometimes legislation, often not, and it requires the establishment of memoranda of understanding between the entities in question. And yeah, you know, to be honest, I've seen examples returning to this, the cultural component of just inertia because it's not

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (34:25.422)
Mm-hmm.

Peter (34:51.869)
It's not like political issue of the day or or what have you. So really, I think a lot comes down to that.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (35:02.038)
Peter, know, a lot of the change we've seen more recently came from an existential threat, perhaps, from the Trump administration and really forcing Canada to re-examine border security issues, perhaps many of which had already been acknowledged and written about extensively by many researchers and officials in the field.

Peter (35:15.967)
Great.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (35:31.794)
Yet sometimes I find Canada, we get burdened by the bureaucratic machination that needs to happen to facilitate that change instead of making the change. You mentioned political will. How can we, guess as Canadians, make sure that what we want to see can be done in an expedient amount of time?

Peter (36:00.277)
Yeah. Yeah, great question. Well, I'll just comment on again, the rapidity of change and the force it took, because it's really interesting. I certainly, you know, I'm not a fan of all of Trump's mannerisms and his way of going about things. But realistically, what he did in just a few months time is he woke Europe up, who are now, you know, going to commit to 5%, which is unheard of.

defence spending, you know, kind of just taking looking after your own backyard, I would say, after decades of, you know, inertia on this. Same with Canada, we just said this year, now we're going to meet the 2 % target that we weren't able to meet for I don't know how long. We're now having serious conversations about public safety, about immigration, about border control, about

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (36:31.608)
Yeah

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (36:44.654)
people.

Peter (36:58.485)
cost of living and energy production. And so I'll just leave that for people to, to mull on. It's interesting, I'm conflicted about it myself, you know, it. But, but there you go. There you have it. And so what can Canadians do? Yeah, bureaucratic inertia and things of that nature.

look, like there's a lot of lenses you can take like there are, you know, there's the advocacy route, right, like, people get involved with issues, and they understand and learn communications and approaches and strategies to carry out effective campaigns, you know, that, that's a, that's a way of doing things, I think you see a lot of success from the successful ones, I guess, in doing that.

know, bureaucracy is like it's fine to an extent. It's the machinery of government and it needs to be there. Yeah, ours is ours is maybe maybe too bloated.

Peter (38:15.398)
I think like, you know, I'm just struggling with your question, its formulation, like Canadians in general, it's

Peter (38:27.317)
I don't see Canadians in general as a collective group able to act. mean, people with certain interests can get together and act. But yeah, sorry, Chris, don't have a great answer for you.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (38:37.166)
Hmm.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (38:43.808)
No, that's great. think it's it points to some of the challenges I think are that the border raises and you you mentioned auto theft, right? So one thing I remember seeing is people who lost their cars in the GTA were told by law enforcement was part of a larger network of organized criminals. I can imagine if I were a car owner that doesn't really give me

Peter (39:05.384)
Okay.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (39:13.102)
the satisfaction knowing that this is being tackled effectively. And I love what you said in your 2025 research on the fentanyl crisis. You said, combating this crisis requires more than enforcement. It demands enforceable transparency. And what I really like about that is you point to the clear

translucent nature that government needs to unpack so that the average Canadian citizen understands the proactive measures that they're doing.

Peter (39:55.731)
Yeah, yeah. Well, and just to respond to that, but a quick point about your law enforcement response times, like people, you know, who've had have had exposure may know, but others probably don't. You know, like the vast majority of of calls or crimes, you know, just just can't be acted upon. Like even in Toronto, for for

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (40:18.744)
Mm-hmm.

Peter (40:24.031)
Priority one calls, like the average response time is like 19 minutes or something like that. And the vast majority of thefts or incidents.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (40:31.404)
Yeah.

Peter (40:40.605)
simply cannot be acted upon. So law enforcement is really, really hard pressed. They have a very difficult job. People need to remember that. Yeah, with respect to your point about, I guess you're saying like, Canadians awareness of these issues and how that how that could be improved. I mean, yeah.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (40:42.509)
Yeah.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (40:49.848)
Mm-hmm.

Peter (41:07.285)
with respect to the context that article we suggest some of the things we've already discussed which are you know increasing the requirements upon supply chain actors in the import export system because there are information gaps and that's that's what's filling it in that regard with respect to I guess like

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (41:33.442)
Mm-hmm.

Peter (41:36.467)
governments being more transparent or law enforcement about, you know, what's going on, I would say like, it's a broader issue. we, there is a, there has been an explosion in communications and information in the past few decades, the internet, social media, what have you. And we are living in a new economy, the attention.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (41:57.379)
Mm-hmm.

Peter (42:05.773)
one that could is the commodities are attention and and so maybe they need to change their communication style a little bit but

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (42:14.444)
Mm-hmm.

Peter (42:18.461)
I think that's something for governments to grapple with, how when most people, you know, consume psychologically appealing forms of information to make it more accessible for public.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (42:37.454)
Yeah, and Peter to close this all out, think organized crime seems to also be modifying their behavior, changing with the times, becoming more adapted to a changing reality where their sole goal is to, you know, outrun the government and that by its nature will force government to stay and be adaptable and to work in concert, which Canada is already with its partners.

It's so interesting. We've covered such a vast array of different topics today, Peter. So I'd love for you to speak on what you see as the next like 18 to 24 months in Canada. We have a new government that was elected in April. What do you see for their mandate for the border moving forward that perhaps previous governments of all stripes have not perhaps focused as much on?

and where we can see some real pivot points there.

Peter (43:40.113)
Yeah, great question. You know, so much is going to depend upon upcoming negotiations with the Trump administration and the push and pull involved with that. One thing that is tightly related to the border that we haven't talked about in this more public safety focused conversation, but this very much does have a public safety dimension, is migration.

This is going to be, you know, something that the government will have to turn its attention to. Eventually, the federal government, you know, that we had, we had, I would say, a world class immigration system, know, points based primarily system that focused on economic, the economic stream, and that ensured into integration, you know, and not not kind of like assimilation or forced but

know, you're coming somewhere and you know, we want you to belong to a country, what have you. And the volume and the pace of change, all that just increased kind of way too much. And I think even we're going to see the questioning of the model of multiculturalism at the core of this because, you know, any you can't maximize any value or good.

the returns are not infinitely great. know, like, I agree, you know, diversity is good. I think it's good. But I don't think that limitless diversity is going to, you know, simply yield increasing benefits, you know, there are things like social cohesion, like integration, like common values, identity, what have you, that, that are going to need to be addressed. The government, realistically, there, we don't know as

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (45:08.91)
All right. All right. right.

Peter (45:35.871)
how many people we have here in the various categories, undocumented, students, temporary workers, et cetera. And we have to be willing to enforce and take some concrete actions at least so that there's a clear incentive or disincentive to kind of abusing the system. And that's going to be very difficult.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (45:41.026)
Mm-hmm.

Peter (46:05.493)
for the government to, I think, properly address is going to be very politically challenging for them. And, you know, just a difficult thing in general, right? Because the expectation has been one thing and a lot of people kind of came here expecting through temporary visas or, you know, the education pathway that it would be a pathway to citizenship, right? And I think that...

You know, so it's a very, it's a very thorny issue. especially coming up against housing issues and all these affordability challenges, you know, right now it's the honeymoon period and they are, I think, I think they're doing good things, you know, for the most part, gotta give them, give them credit, but there's some really tricky things coming up. and of course, yeah, the nexus with border asylum claims, you know, refugees, both ways.

That's something to watch out for.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (47:05.934)
Peter, that's great way to cap this because I've been posting on social media a lot about social cohesion in Toronto in particular, and the response has actually been quite positive. I thought I would receive a lot of negativity, but so many Canadians see the same thing. And I think we're living in a moment where being liberal and being conservative is being redefined as we speak.

because, know, as you mentioned, Mark Carney announced 2 % NATO military funding. That's a conservative thing. You've got a liberal doing that. It's we're halfway through June. haven't heard much, if any, about pride month and the two SLGBTQ community. What's also interesting, as you mentioned, the temporary foreign workers and the international students. If the government will have to cross that bridge with some type of restrictive measure, which

Peter (47:37.173)
I completely agree.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (48:05.61)
historically has been pinned to conservative movements, the liberals find themselves doing exactly that. So what it means to be liberal, what it means to be conservative, I think it's shifting quite dramatically. Canada has never seen this before.

Peter (48:09.215)
Mm-hmm.

Peter (48:24.009)
Very astute observation. completely agree. Interesting times.

Christopherbalkaran@gmail.com (48:29.634)
Peter, this is great. We covered so much. I can't wait to have you back to talk more about your research. And folks, I'll leave links below to check out Peter and the MacDonald-Laurier Institute where you can find more. Thanks again for coming on, Peter. And I can't wait for more conversations on what Canada needs to do moving forward.

Peter (48:48.949)
Thanks so much Chris, it was a lot of fun, real pleasure.