The mayor of Delta says he wants the provincial and federal governments to help reestablish policing at shipping ports in the Lower Mainland.
Delta City Council is bringing a resolution to the Union of BC Municipalities next month that will ask senior governments to look at reinstating a police department specially assigned to the waterfront shipping terminals.
After a 2023 analysis, the city resolution says it wants to explore a shipping container levy as a funding mechanism for the initiative.
The report from 2023, called ‘Policing Our Ports’ notes that the Ports Canada Police was disbanded in 1997, and the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority discontinued its financial contribution to the RCMP-led Waterfront Joint Forces Operation in 2015.
“This loss of police resources has weakened the security of Canada’s ports and allowed organized crime elements to proliferate,” said a statement in the union’s book of resolutions for 2024.
The mayor of Delta, George Harvie, tells 1130 NewsRadio that the ports are a target for drug smuggling both in and out of the country.
“It’s no surprise we’re having such vast quantities coming in, because it’s very low risk for the cartels and the gangs that are shipping these products into our country; there’s very little risk for them to be actually caught,” said Harvie.
The author of ‘Policing Our Ports’ and money-laundering crime expert Peter German points to record seizures of drugs being imported and exported.
He noted that border authorities seized 106 kilograms of methamphetamine, worth $13.5 million, at Deltaport in 2020. Recently, he says, 6,330 kilograms of methamphetamine destined for Australia were seized — afterwards, it was estimated to have a street value of $1.5 billion.
“Of great concern is the reality that Canada, once a source country for marijuana, nicknamed ‘B.C. bud,’ is now producing deadly drugs for export,” said German.
Harvie says he doesn’t want taxpayers to take on the additional cost of policing the ports.
“We should be having the container industry fund this through a very meagre $15 [per] container. That would provide more than adequate funding that would be sustainable to have a solid police agency ensuring that the ports are not just being open to cartel or gang business, but there are going to be good, solid measures taken to ensure that drugs can be captured and found and people can be prosecuted,” said Harvie.
The Union of BC Municipalities’ resolutions sessions are scheduled for Sept. 18 to 20.