Vancouver MP urges federal government to reinstate port police

The federal NDP says the Liberals need to include provisions to reestablish a port policing program in the government’s new border security bill.

The original Ports Canada Police was disbanded back in 1997. A 2023 report to the City of Delta, B.C., by former Mountie and money-laundering expert Peter German says the move has allowed organized crime to take root and proliferate through Canada’s ports.

“With its disbandment, policing of port property became the responsibility of the police force of jurisdiction. For Greater Vancouver, this meant a multitude of different municipal police forces and the RCMP,” German’s report explains.

NDP MP for Vancouver East Jenny Kwan says gang activity and trafficking through the country’s ports has “increased exponentially” since then.

She says harmful goods are entering Canada and also leaving its ports for destinations like Australia, New Zealand, and some African countries.

“We have actually left a giant hole for criminal activities to target us, and that has to be closed,” said Kwan.

“We can’t be sending that message that we’re open season, because we don’t have a dedicated port police.”

Kwan is questioning why the Liberals new border security bill doesn’t include any provisions to reestablish the port policing program.

She acknowledges that the Trump administration has made the issue of port and border security a political lightning rod in its own arguments for enforcing trade tariffs on Canada.

“Even though what Trump is saying and accusing Canada of is not true, irrespective of that, we should actually be mindful of what’s going on in our ports, and the federal government should reinstate the port police.”

Kwan says the Liberal government’s controversial Bill C-2 is rightfully the subject of backlash for what it does include, but she hopes people note what it lacks.

“In that bill, they actually have no trouble bringing in a variety of different measures that will attack our civil liberties, that will undermine due process and procedural fairness and even our own privacy… The thing that they should be doing is to reinforce the need of protecting our ports.”