Front Burner - Stopping the flow of Chinese fentanyl into Canada

Episode Date: December 5, 2018

"If we were doing something killing thousands of Chinese, we would hear from them loud and clear," says former Canadian ambassador to China, David Mulroney. He argues that Canada needs to pressure China to do more to stop the flow of fentanyl, and questions why PM Justin Trudeau didn't apply more diplomatic pressure at the G20 this week.

Hey there, I'm Kathleen Goltar and I have a confession to make. I am a true crime fanatic. I devour books and films and most of all true crime podcasts. But sometimes I just want to know more. I want to go deeper. And that's where my podcast Crime Story comes in. Every week I go behind the scenes with the creators of the best in true crime. I chat with the host of Scamanda, Teacher's Pet, Bone Valley, the list goes on. For the insider scoop, find Crime Story in your podcast app. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. I'm Jamie Poisson.

So the G20 was this week. The leaders of 20 global countries in one place. And during his press conference, Justin Trudeau said he'd been talking tough. With Vladimir Putin about Ukraine. Asking him to release those Ukrainian sailors and permit free passage into the Sea of Azov. And the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia about the gruesome murder of Jamal Khashoggi. To highlight our concerns and our need for better answers. Then there was a question about a different issue.

Fentanyl coming into Canada from China. David Akin, Global News. Why would we not characterize the Chinese inaction as a hostile act by a foreign nation that is literally killing Canadians? Fentanyl is an opioid. When it's prescribed, it's pain medication. But a lot of fentanyl is made illegally, and it's sold as a recreational drug. Last year, nearly 4,000 Canadians died as a result of opioids like fentanyl. This is a national crisis. Canadian security officials,

they say that fentanyl most often smuggled into Canada, it comes from China. And the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, they say that the primary source of illicit fentanyl is China. Now, at the G20, Justin Trudeau said that Canada is working with the Chinese government to crack down. China has been actually working with Canadian officials and Canadian law enforcement over the past months. Working with. That's the important part.

Because it's not like the RCMP can just go shut down a fentanyl plant in China. So, given the scale of the fentanyl crisis in Canada, should we be demanding more from China? This is something entirely new for us. It's a foreign policy challenge that is really erupting on the streets of Canadian cities in a deadly way. And we have to be really serious about it. That's today on FrontBurner. Hi, my name is David Mulroney. I was ambassador of Canada and China from 2009 to 2012.

I spent about 30 years in the Canadian Foreign Service, much of it focused on China and East Asia. Hi, David. Good to be here. Can you give me a sense of when you came to discover fentanyl coming to Canada was a problem. Well, I was ambassador from 2009 to 2012. And that was a time of growing people-to-people exchanges. So we had students, we had tourists, we had all kinds of business people going back and forth. There was a need to carry on cases in both countries. And I saw the growth of that.

There were also allegations of drugs coming from China to Canada, but it was really before the opioid crisis, the fentanyl crisis, hit. So I only became aware of that in the years after leaving China. Last year, I know that the RCMP spoke of conducting at least 20 investigations involving dozens of vendors shipping fentanyl from China. The RCMP, it also says that according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, the primary source of illicit fentanyl is coming from China. I'm wondering if you can give us a sense who was producing this fentanyl in China. You know, I know it wasn't totally on your radar when you were there, but in the years since, what do we know about where it's coming from? So what we know and what makes fentanyl so dangerous is it's created in the lab.

You don't require vast poppy fields and things like that. China has a large pharmaceutical industry, and some of them produce legitimate opioids, which are used as painkillers. But you also have a lot of private operations, private labs, that produce this drug, which is easy to ship. So some of it comes in containers, some of it's actually coming through the mail, and very, very pure and powerful. And I say that because one of the causes of the overdose is that only a very small amount of fentanyl, compared to, for example, what an addict would require who is addicted to heroin, you'd only

need a very small amount of fentanyl. And people take the larger dose, assuming that it's like heroin, and the results are deadly. So it's cheap, small, easy to ship, and very, very hard to enforce against. Just to touch on a little bit more how it's actually getting into this country. So we have these producers in China who are producing fentanyl in pill form. And it's coming here either in shipping containers or through the mail. Is it being mailed from China to Canada? So what's happened as the Chinese underworld has realized how lucrative this trade is,

at first they were using international traffickers. They were working with Mexican cartels to get it into the U.S. and others. But increasingly, they're operating directly. And so they're shipping it directly to the port of Vancouver. They're mailing it. They're using courier services to middlemen or to end users in Canada. courier services to middlemen or to end users in Canada. Because it is so powerful, you don't require the volumes that you have with other drugs. So increasingly, they're dealing directly with Canada. One of the reasons that we're talking today is that you wrote an op-ed for the Globe and

Mail about this issue. I just want to pull out a quote that caught me in particular. Global affairs needs to understand that it cannot invoke other Canada-China issues as being more pressing or important than securing Chinese cooperation on fentanyl. Is what you're saying here that this is the single most important issue Canada is facing with China? Anything that kills 4,000 Canadians a year is a tragedy. It's a crisis and it has to be a national priority. This is something entirely new for us. It's a foreign policy challenge that is really erupting on the streets of Canadian cities

in a deadly way, and we have to be really serious about it. The problem is, while we're good at raising issues, and the Prime Minister raised a lot of issues at the G20, he raised issues with the Saudis, he raised issues with the Russians, issues at the G20. He raised issues with the Saudis. He raised issues with the Russians. We're not as good at the coordinated and sustained follow-up that an issue like this needs, and we've got to get good at it. Were you very surprised to see at the G20 this week, this issue not getting more attention? I was absolutely surprised, particularly when the prime minister was his activist on other issues. I think one of the reasons may be that we have such a poor relationship with the United States that we didn't work together beforehand.

You'll note that President Trump was very aggressive on this issue. He criticized the Chinese for their inaction in a tweet. I'll be asking the president to do something about that. I think he'll be able to. I'll be asking the president to do something about that. I think he'll be able to. If he puts that on a restricted category, we'll be able to pretty much stop it right there. That would important because we've seen a whole variety of fentanyl variants. And in the past, China would dutifully list one and the traffickers would come up with another one. And someone described it as guacamole. Right. Because you can just change the chemical composition by one or two things. And then all of a sudden you say, oh, this is a different drug

that I'm producing. Exactly. And so it was really frustrating for the Americans. There is more promise in what the Chinese say they're going to do. We'll have to wait and see if they do it. Why do you think China isn't doing very much about this? There are a couple of things. One is I think it's embarrassing for China. A number of commentators writing about this have talked about the opium wars, that opium was inflicted on the Chinese people by the British as they opened up the market for Indian opium in China. It was a way of financing the tea trade.

It opened the door to colonialism in China. So that's a very painful topic. The idea that China might be inflicting this on other countries is not something they want to advertise, nor is the fact that there are large criminal empires in China. There are large criminal empires in China, and there's a lot of corruption. So dealing with this is going to be politically very difficult for the Chinese government. Difficult, but not impossible.

What do we know about what Canada is doing now to deal with this, in addition to the comments that Justin Trudeau made earlier this week? We don't know a lot because I suspect we're not doing a lot. The Prime Minister said we're working with the Chinese. We recognize that this is a crisis that is continuing in Canada and indeed getting worse. We will continue to work with international partners like the United States and indeed engage with China as a way of ensuring that we are doing a better job of connecting Canadians. I'm sure that it's on the docket for the RCMP detachment. We have an RCMP representative in Beijing.

I'm sure it gets discussed from time to time. But I don't think there's any sustained and effective follow-up being undertaken. And this is something the Americans, I think, are increasingly worried about what we're doing. Australia is also feeling the scourge of fentanyl. With inquests into fentanyl deaths taking place around Australia, there is an official acknowledgement that we may soon have a deadly epidemic on our hands. The Australians and the Americans have set up drug task forces in China. They're pursuing this quite aggressively.

The Americans are also aggressively prosecuting drug kingpins using surveillance technology and wiretaps to track drug traffickers. I think they're worried not just about Chinese inaction, but maybe Canadian inaction, because some of that fentanyl that comes into Canada ends up in the United States. Can you explain to me a little bit about how the Americans are prosecuting drug kingpins in China? How would that even happen, and could we do it too? What's happening is they're identifying them, embarrassing them, and shining a spotlight on them. So in one particular case in the U.S. South, in the early days of the fentanyl investigation and prosecution, they found a woman in the U.S. who was dealing in fentanyl, and by looking at her Internet records,

they traced her contacts back to China and to a specific individual in China who has since denied that he is involved in this, but who seems to be quite likely a purveyor or a trafficker in this. It's just solid police work. But then following that through to identify the people and name and shame them for the Chinese, because once you've got that name, you can take it to the Chinese authorities. They will often say, well, we investigated, but we couldn't find out anything about him. Right. We're not going to extradite him. But at least you're putting the pressure on him and putting the pressure on the Chinese if these people are operating with impunity.

So currently, we're trying to negotiate a trade deal with China. A country like Canada that has natural connections and ties and affinities with just about every corner of the world is is of course looking to create better opportunities to trade around the world. Is it possible that the Prime Minister is just trying to step lightly here because we have some other interests that we need to deal with with the Chinese government? The Chinese government does not like to be criticized. I don't think so. First, because I don't think

the prime minister would stoop to that level. I don't think he could explain to Canadians that he was favoring a trade agreement over the lives of young people. And this is now something that's affecting communities, not just on the West Coast, not just in Ontario, but in Atlantic Canada. I just don't think he'd do that. We can be misguided about the nature, how robust the relationship is. If we were doing something that was killing thousands of Chinese, wouldn't matter what we were negotiating with the Chinese, we'd hear from them loud and clear. They're capable of dealing with static in the relationship. It's also really important to remember that this isn't a favor the Chinese are doing for us. The Chinese want to trade with Canada. They want to sell things to Canada. They

want to invest in Canada, and we want the same thing. They would like us to believe that to get that, we have to be on our best behavior and never criticize them. But the reality is, they're not going to do it unless they see it in their interest to do it. And they will ignore difficulties in other parts of the relationship to get what they want. So we should have the same degree of confidence. Obviously, Canada has a more complicated relationship with China, more complicated than the relationship that we would have with our other allies in Europe, for example. In your op-ed with The Globe, you wrote, quote, China is reportedly seeking an unprecedented and unwarranted degree of Chinese police presence in Canada as a quid pro quo for cracking down on the opioid issue. What did you mean by that?

The Chinese have for some time wanted to send teams to Canada, post officials to Canada, in part in recognition of the fact that there's a growing population of people of Chinese origin. And one of the things they want to do, which we've had concerns about and other jurisdictions have too, is pursue economic fugitives, people who have absconded, who've left China with a lot of money that wasn't entirely theirs. And they want to pursue this.

They call it Operation Fox Hunt, and they've roamed the globe looking for these people. The problem is they don't always do it by means that we would consider appropriate. They spirit people out of the country. We've had experience with this ourselves. They intimidate and threaten people. It's just not what we want to see happening in Canada.

So I think there is concern from the RCMP that as they talk to the Chinese about fentanyl, and the Chinese say, well, you know, if you want us to help, we need to send people there, that it's a ruse for doing this. That's a real risk. But sometimes when we say no, no, no, what the Chinese are hearing is we don't respect you. We don't think you're competent. We don't respect your police. And so, of course, the response we get from the Chinese police is not particularly very helpful. You have to build a climate of trust. That doesn't

mean being naive and allowing the Chinese untrammeled, you know, unrestricted access to Canada, but it may mean working on things like, why don't you send a team? We'll work with that team on a temporary basis. Let's build trust. We'll set some guidelines. Then maybe the people can stay longer. Here's what we want in return. You are very optimistic about a diplomatic solution here. But if talk is failing or fails, do we have any other options? I'm not so much optimistic as I'm convinced that that's really the only option that we have. Whether we could link it to other issues, that almost never works for us, in part because our system is open and full of autonomous players. The Chinese system is closed.

They're very good at linkage. They can make the system respond consistently. But in Canada, I would say it's very difficult, and for good reason, to link trade, what companies are doing, to police actions. Why should a Canadian company be penalized for something that China isn't doing? Our system is open. We need to do this using the tools that are most available to us. That includes diplomacy.

That includes police cooperation. It includes working with our allies. And even if we think incrementally, what if in the course of a couple of years we reduce the flow by 20% or 30%? That's hundreds of lives. I think it's clear that we're just beyond a crisis. Now the life expectancy rate in BC has been lowered because of the opioid epidemic. And amazing that this hasn't surfaced as a more compelling issue. more compelling issue. As we've talked about in this conversation, the United States has been a lot more aggressive on this issue. Do we even have the kind of sway that we would need to have

in order to get China to move on an issue like this? China is susceptible to consistent pressure from Canada, but we need to keep a couple of things in mind. One is it's a lot more helpful if we do it in concert with partners like the United States and Australia and the UK and others. So we've got to get our act together there. Two, it's easier if we're seen to be taking action ourselves, so cleaning up the mess in Vancouver when it comes to money laundering. Three, we need to understand that China is never going to say, you know what, we're guilty of this. They're going to have to find a face-saving way to help us. But if we can keep all of that in mind and we keep this up as an issue, I think we can make progress.

David, thank you so much for this really enlightening conversation. Thank you very much, Amy. This is a really important topic, and I'm glad we're talking about it. Thank you. After we spoke with a former ambassador, we reached out to Global Affairs Canada to ask if they felt that they were doing enough to combat Chinese fentanyl coming into Canada. They provided us a statement which says in part that the government of Canada is deeply concerned about the growing number of opioid-related overdoses. The statement also goes on to say that

fentanyl is an issue that is raised regularly with Chinese officials through our embassy of Canada to China. And it also says that last year, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau discussed continued law enforcement cooperation, especially how to disrupt the illicit trafficking of fentanyl with the Premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China. That's it for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts. It's 2011 and the Arab Spring is raging. A lesbian activist in Syria starts a blog.

She names it Gay Girl in Damascus. Am I crazy? Maybe. As her profile grows, so does the danger. The object of the email was, please read this while sitting down. It's like a genie came out of the bottle and you can't put it back. Gay Girl Gone. Available now.