RCMP officers at the Windsor, Ont., detachment have been patrolling the Canada-U.S. border in ways they’ve never done before since U.S. President Donald Trump pushed for increased security between the neighbouring countries.
Beginning in December, Const. Ian Smith and many of his more than 40 colleagues in the southwestern Ontario city have been spending their 12-hour shifts driving along roughly 800 kilometres of coastline between Tobermory, through Sarnia, up along the Detroit River and back around to Port Burwell, just southeast of London.
“We’re looking for anything suspicious in regards to people or contraband, drugs, commodities coming into Canada or leaving Canada illegally,” said Smith.
Canada announced its $1.3-billion border security plan in December following Trump’s concerns over the flow of drugs and migrants. Ottawa asked the RCMP to “secure the border,” Smith said.
In the first four months of these patrols, he said, it hasn’t really yielded much, in part because the waterways aren’t very active in cold weather.
But Smith said this type of work is hard to quantify.
“We’re out here every day doing this in order to deter, so if we’re not catching them, hopefully it’s because we’re deterring it,” said Smith.
“There’s 800 kilometres [of coastline], so how do we patrol that constantly, all the time? It’s impossible,” he added.
In January, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) announced Operation Deterrence, which joined forces with the RCMP to enhance border security. Two hundred OPP officers are dedicated to the boundary between both countries.
“A more co-ordinated, Team Canada approach that includes more boots on the ground is the only way to detect, deter and disrupt illegal activity, and ensure the safety and security of Canadian and American communities,” said Ontario Premier Doug Ford in a January news release.
RCMP helicopters now patrolling border
To help with the vast amount of coastline being covered on the ground, the RCMP also recently put officers in helicopters.
The last time RCMP officers saw illegal activity along waterways in southwestern Ontario involved human smuggling in September on the St. Clair River, Smith said.
During Smith’s nine years with the RCMP in Windsor, he spent the bulk of that time working behind the scenes on drug investigations.
The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) would discover drugs at the border. Then, the RCMP would investigate where they came from and where they were going in order to make additional arrests and seizures.
Now, RCMP officers are spending a lot of time patrolling the border while continuing to conduct those investigations.
Officers inspect trucks heading to U.S. for 1st time
Another new aspect for the RCMP at the border is its involvement with inspecting commercial trucks leaving Canada and heading to the U.S. at the Ambassador Bridge.
Philie is a four-year-old German Shepherd that’s trained to detect fentanyl. It’s one of only a few dogs with that capability in Ontario and has been with the RCMP for about a year now.
For the CBSA, it has had the authority to question outbound drivers and inspect their vehicles since 2019.
However, a spokesperson didn’t say how often that’s been done and if these outbound searches have increased in recent months.
“In general, outbound examinations are targeted and selective based on indicators,” said CBSA senior spokesperson Rebecca Purdy.
Purdy also pointed to Operation Blizzard, which launched last month and tries to intercept illegal goods coming into Canada or leaving the country. That initiative focuses on fentanyl and other narcotics, she said.
