Senior members of President Joe Biden’s cabinet will be in Ottawa in the coming weeks to meet with their Canadian counterparts about cracking down on fentanyl.
The timing of this year’s Cross-Border Crime Forum is still unconfirmed, but U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas are expected to attend.
Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino says a continental strategy for dealing with fentanyl will be a key priority during the meetings.
The U.S. has already embarked on an aggressive law-enforcement approach, seizing more than 2,200 kilograms of fentanyl in the last month – virtually all of it coming across the southern border.
Mendicino says in addition to enforcement efforts, Canada will be advocating a “public health approach” to fentanyl to mitigate the trauma and social harm caused by the opioid crisis.
Some Republican voices in the U.S. are pushing for what critics are calling a literal war on drugs: designating Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations.