2024 Year in review: CBSA protecting Canadians and supporting our economy

December 9, 2024
Ottawa, Ontario          

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) is Canada’s first line of defence at 1,200 ports of entry across the country. Day in and day out, approximately 8,500 frontline employees play a crucial role protecting our communities by preventing illegal goods and inadmissible people from entering Canada. Keeping Canada safe is keeping North America safe.

Between January 1 and October 31, 2024, the CBSA seized more dangerous drugs and firearms, and intercepted more stolen vehicles than in 2023, while processing 4.5 million commercial trucks and welcoming over 80.5 million travellers.

Across the country, hundreds of CBSA criminal investigators, inland immigration investigators, hearings officers and intelligence officers work to support and enforce compliance with Canada’s border laws and take action against those in violation. Meanwhile, 60 international officers in 35 countries work with partners to secure our border from abroad. And, by the end of 2024, we will have welcomed over 500 new officer trainees and 18 new detector dog teams who join the ranks of our dedicated employees helping keep our border safe.

Protecting Canadians and securing North America

With the collaboration of our partners, including the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and other Canadian police agencies, provincial and territorial governments, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, the United States Coast Guard, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the CBSA protects our communities by preventing the entry of harmful goods and people. In 2024, CBSA border services officers oversaw a daily flow of about 400,000 people and billions of dollars in goods and services crossing the land border between Canada and the U.S.

Between January 1 and October 31, 2024, the CBSA:

• Made approximately 7,700 weapons and firearms seizures at ports of entry, which kept more than 15,600 weapons and 850 firearms off our streets (that is 50 more firearms than what had been seized at this time last year). Of those, 1,274 prohibited weapons and 750 firearms were seized coming from the U.S.
  • In addition to the firearms seized at ports of entry, CBSA investigators seized firearms and prohibited firearms parts in Canada during search warrants conducted as part of firearms smuggling investigations.
• Seized over 25,600 kg of illegal drugs (both inbound and outbound). We also intercepted over 15,000 kg of cannabis and 547,000 kg of undeclared tobacco preventing millions of dollars in revenue evasion and combatting organized crime. Of our total illegal drug seizures, we stopped:
  • 4.9 kg of fentanyl, an increase of 775% from the same period in 2023, of which 4.1 kg was intercepted outbound before it could be smuggled towards the Netherlands. Canada is committed to working with international partners to address the global fentanyl crisis.
  • 3,955 kg of cocaine, an increase of 168% from the same period in 2023
  • 37 kg of heroin
  • 21,457 kg of other drugs, narcotics and precursor chemicals
  • 237 kg of other opioids (including opium, methadone, morphine and morphine base)
• Conducted more than 28,600 searches by Detector Dog Service Teams, intercepting over 17,000 high-risk food, plant and animal products, drugs, firearms and currency.
• Issued nearly 2,500 penalties totalling $2,136,200 for food, plant and animal import violations.
• Intercepted 2,070 stolen vehicles before they were shipped abroad, almost 500 more than last year. Police across Canada lead investigations into vehicle theft, and the CBSA acts on 100% of referrals from them and on our own intelligence to stop stolen vehicles from leaving the country. 
• Reunited 26 missing or abducted children with their parents or legal guardians as part of the Our Missing Children Program, double the 2023 number. Since the program was created in 1986, the CBSA has helped reunite 2,054 missing children with their loved ones.
• Identified almost 34,000 foreign nationals seeking to enter Canada at a port of entry along the land border with the U.S. whom our officers believed to be inadmissible. This has increased about 30% from 25,500 in 2023.
• Removed over 14,000 foreign nationals from Canada for violating the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA). Of these, more than 4,100 inadmissible foreign nationals were returned to the U.S. and about 460 were U.S. nationals.
• Completed security screenings for over 113,000 asylum claimants.
• Updated the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations with regulatory amendments to improve processing efficiency at the border and enhance public safety. The change allows a Minister’s Delegate to issue a removal order directly at the port of entry for straightforward transborder criminal offences, such as carrying a concealed weapon, smuggling drugs or the unauthorized possession of a firearm.
• Completed national security screening for more than 34,700 permanent or temporary resident applicants, a 10% increase from the previous year. In about 775 of these cases, we identified reasonable grounds to believe the individuals were inadmissible on grounds of security, human or international rights violations, or organized crime and recommended that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada not grant a visa.
• Intervened in approximately 9,100 cases to recommend that airlines not allow a passenger to board a flight to Canada based on concerns over the validity of their travel documents. For the same period in 2023, the CBSA intervened in approximately 8,700 cases.  
• Amended and expanded the Iran designation which outlines the measures holding Iranian regime senior-officials accountable for their engagement in terrorism and systematic and gross human rights violations. Since the implementation of the designation of Iran pursuant to 35(1)(b) of IRPA, 16 cases have been referred to admissibility hearings by the CBSA. Of those, 9 have been either scheduled, opened, or completed to date. Among the completed cases, 2 are awaiting a decision from the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, 2 have been found inadmissible.
• Established a partnership with Correctional Service Canada for the temporary use of the Regional Reception Centre located in Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines, Quebec, to house a small number of high-risk immigration detainees. This location will be used to detain adult males who present a significant risk to public safety.

Supporting our economy

This year, the CBSA has taken important steps to keep Canada’s trade routes open, ensuring that our economy remains strong and responsive to the needs of Canadians.

• Processed almost 4.5 million commercial trucks into Canada, which is on par with volumes in 2023.
• Assessed approximately $32.5 billion in duties and taxes, which in turn supported the programs and services Canadians rely on.
• Successfully launched on October 21, 2024, the Canada Border Services Agency Assessment and Revenue Management (CARM) system, a new system of record for the assessment and collection of duties and taxes for commercial goods imported into Canada. CARM will help to protect and increase the approximately $40 billion in revenue collected at the border each year by providing Canadian businesses an online self-service tool and simplified importing processes. Since October 21, 2024, the CBSA reports:
  • over 4 million Commercial Accounting Declarations processed
  • over $5.4 billion duties and taxes calculated
  • approximately $2.4 billion payments received
  • over 115,240 client registrations
• Continued to protect Canadian industry from unfair trade practices by administering the Special Import Measures Act (SIMA), with over $136.4 million in anti-dumping and countervailing duties assessed, which protects approximately 30,000 Canadian jobs annually. This included launching Canada's first anti-circumvention investigation, which will examine whether container chassis imports from Vietnam are contravening existing trade protections applied under SIMA.

Welcoming travellers into Canada

The CBSA welcomed over 80.5 million travellers into Canada, a 9% increase from 2023. This includes approximately:

• 31.8 million travellers by air
• 45.1 million travellers by land
• 3.3 million travellers by marine
• 336,000 travellers by rail

Collaborating with Indigenous communities

Indigenous Reconciliation is a key priority for the CBSA. We are committed to collaboration and meaningful dialogue with Indigenous communities to help inform our policies and programs and improve Indigenous mobility.

• Hosted, in collaboration with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), roundtable discussions with First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities, governments and organizations to discuss and share views to address complex border crossing issues and Shared Priorities Measure 52 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act Action Plan. 
• Supported the implementation of temporary measures IRCC recently announced to help reunite eligible Indigenous people in the U.S. with their families in Canada. These measures are available while the Government of Canada continues to work towards a more enduring solution to address Indigenous border mobility challenges.
• Advanced the dialogue through the Jay Treaty Border Alliance Collaboration Initiative.
• Helped facilitate the repatriation and rematriation (video) of Indigenous cultural items and regalia, such as a Sit Game from a museum in the United States to the Gitxaala First Nation and a woman's headdress from England to the Siksika First Nation.
• Continued to improve the recruitment experience for Indigenous peoples and supporting their success in becoming border services officers by developing and using better tools and approaches, including the Indigenous Candidate Mentorship Program.

Collaborating with international partners

The CBSA maintained close partnerships with other countries to strengthen international and national security, border security measures and public safety, while ensuring the integrity and the efficiency of the supply chain. In 2024, the CBSA:

• Participated in the 2024 U.S.–Canada Cross Border Crime Forum which brought together U.S. and Canadian partners in law-enforcement and the justice departments to discuss joint opportunities to address border security issues.
• Co-chaired the inaugural Northern Land Border Binational Infrastructure Forum with U.S. Customs and Border Protection to plan and coordinate land border port of entry infrastructure projects.
• As part of initiatives to implement Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, joined in a multilateral exercise with Australia, New Zealand and the United States to share and build operational best practices and to conduct training to tackle the threats posed by insiders within the aviation environment.
• Signed an agreement with the European Union regarding the processing of Passenger Name Record (PNR) data and established an annual Canada-EU high-level dialogue to foster ongoing exchanges on border management.
• Signed a Trusted Trader Mutual Recognition Arrangement with the United Kingdom’s customs administration to help increase security of the international supply chain, facilitate trade at the border, and strengthen the economic competitiveness of Canadian trusted traders doing business with the UK.
• Continued to engage and support the negotiation of Free Trade Agreements with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).