The Liberal government’s upcoming budget includes $617.7 million to train hire and deploy 1000 new Canada Border Services Agency officers.

The federal government says it’s fulfilling that campaign promise as part of a plan to crack down on cross-border traffic in drugs, illegal guns and stolen cars.

Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree says virtually every single community across North America particularly in Canada is dealing with Fentanyl.

“Whole of Canada challenge.  It impacts us. We have 50,000 who have died to the Fentanyl crisis. We have 20 families that are burying their children, their loved ones. It impacts all of us…an ounce of Fentanyl is too much.”

Anandasangaree says the U.S. and Canada have a common distributor of fentanyl coming primarily from several Asian countries.

“And our focus and the focus of the United States should be towards ensuring that any type of goods that are coming through are free of Fentanyl. And any loopholes that exist are closed. That’s the type of action our government is taking including adding additional resources at the ports of entry but also giving law enforcement additional tools to do the work.”

In Saskatchewan according to the latest report from the Coroners’ office, of 142 confirmed drug toxicity deaths in 2025, as of October 1st, 57 were in Saskatoon, 36 in Regina and nine in Prince Albert. In total there were 236 confirmed or suspected cases of drug toxicity as manner of death in the province as of October 1st and the vast majority of suspected and confirmed deaths were due to some form of fentanyl.