Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has proposed mandatory life sentences on anyone involved in the trafficking, production and distribution of over 40 mg of fentanyl. In a press release, Poilievre said he is doing this to crack down on mass fentanyl production and organized crime “superlabs” that have appeared in Canada in the last nine years, producing drugs that are killing Canadians and increasingly being sent abroad, including to the United States.
“Making and selling fentanyl is mass murder. Selling 40 mg of this poison is enough to kill 20 people. I will lock up fentanyl kingpins and throw away the key,” Poilievre said. “It’s like spraying bullets into a crowd—even if you don’t aim, you will kill people. The penalty should be the same as murder. I will pass mandatory life sentences so fentanyl kingpins never get out of jail and stop killing our kids.”
Poilievre has promised life sentences for anyone caught trafficking, producing or exporting over 40 mg of fentanyl and 15 years for traffickers caught with between 20mg to 40mg.
He said Canada has become a drug-manufacturing hot spot. Superlabs in Canada synthesize the drugs using precursor chemicals, the ingredients that make fentanyl. In November last year, the RCMP uncovered the “largest and most sophisticated fentanyl and methamphetamine drug super lab in Canada.” Police found enough fentanyl and ingredients to make over 95 million lethal doses, enough to kill every Canadian twice.
These superlabs, controlled by organized crime networks, are mass-producing fentanyl that is not only killing Canadians, it is being exported abroad. A Government of Canada report confirmed that “seizures of Canada-sourced fentanyl in places like the U.S. and Australia suggest that domestic production is likely exceeding domestic demand, and that Canada is now a source (and transit) country for fentanyl to some markets.”
Poilievre pointed out that radical NDP-Liberal policies have caused this crisis. In addition to their failed hard drug legalization experiment, Liberals passed Bill C-5, with the support of the NDP and Bloc, and eliminated mandatory jail time for the production and trafficking of hard drugs like fentanyl, he said.
A Poilievre government will reverse this disastrous NDP-Liberal policy to stop the flow of drugs by going after the real cause – the kingpins and organized criminals who produce, traffic and supply fentanyl.
Over 80 percent of accidental opioid deaths in Canada involve fentanyl. It takes just 2 mg of fentanyl to kill someone. That means just 40mg of fentanyl is enough to kill 20 people. Poilievre will treat mass fentanyl production like mass murder.
