Fentanyl seizures are up at the U.S. northern border — but Canada is still a very small player

The latest data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) shows an uptick in the amount of fentanyl seized near the American northern border with Canada — but the quantities intercepted remain a tiny fraction of what's coming from Mexico.

The figures show U.S. border guards hauled in a relatively miniscule amount of the deadly drug in the first few months of the 2024-25 fiscal year — often reporting 0.5 kilograms or less seized — before a jump in April and May, when officials captured six and 14 kilograms, respectively, near the Canadian boundary.

Those busts mean more fentanyl has been seized along the northern border so far this year than in all of 2023-24. Between October 2024 and May, the U.S. has captured 26 kilograms compared to the 19.5 kilograms taken over the 12 previous months.

At the U.S. southwestern border with Mexico, by comparison, officials have so far seized some 3,700 kilograms of fentanyl this fiscal year — enough product to potentially kill hundreds of thousands of drug users and easily dwarfing what officials uncovered coming from Canada.

A CBP spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

The border data does not offer specifics on how or where the fentanyl was seized, or why there was a notable uptick near the northern boundary in the last two months. What is known is that there were seven "seizure events" in April and five in May.

In an interview with CBC News, Canada's fentanyl czar, Kevin Brosseau, said he's concerned about the Americans taking in more of the drug, saying a single gram captured anywhere near the border is too much.

Brosseau said it's possible that, with U.S. President Donald Trump's focus on the southern border, some criminal elements may be turning to Canada.

"If additional pressure is put on one side, they'll look to go somewhere else," Brosseau said of the cartels that move these drugs.

"We've got to be inhospitable," he said, promising to continue an aggressive approach to intercepting drugs and those that traffic them. Prime Minister Mark Carney's government recently introduced legislation that would help do just that.

"We're really focused on closing them off," Brosseau said of drug-toting criminals. "Anything going south from Canada ought to be stopped."

While troubled by the slight uptick in fentanyl seizures, Brosseau said he took some comfort from a new report by the Manhattan Institute, a U.S.-based think-tank, that shows Canada has not been the main supplier of fentanyl to the States — far from it.

From 2013 to 2024, 99 per cent of pills and 97 per cent of powder-form fentanyl captured in large seizures at U.S. land borders came from Mexico, researchers found — with "large" being defined as over a kilogram of powder or more than 1,000 pills, quantities indicative of wholesale trafficking.

"The greater source of this problem for the U.S. is Mexico and this is one more study that confirms that," Brosseau said.