The Carney government’s move to let police forces seize and search small mail will mostly affect people who order illicit drugs through the post and represents a doubling down on “war on drugs” policies, experts say.
“It’s not surprising because police organizations have been lobbying for this for over a decade,” said Ted Rutland, an associate professor of geography, planning and environment at Concordia University. Rutland studies urban policing and security as part of his work.
“It’s worrying and it’s upsetting and it demonstrates how little this current government has learned from decades of debate around drugs and harm reduction that have clearly demonstrated that a war-on-drugs approach, which this represents, is not only totally ineffective, but makes the real problems that exist in drug markets worse,” Rutland told The Maple.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government has proposed to let police forces seize and search packages weighing less than 500 grams while they are in transit with Canada Post. Police will need a warrant to do so, a spokesperson for the government told CBC News.
Previously, police could legally seize larger packages and mail sent through private providers with a warrant, but not letter mail and small packages sent through Canada Post, according to the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP), which has lobbied for the change since 2015.
“It is essential for law enforcement to have the ability to intercept contraband, firearms, alcohol, counterfeit items and dangerous drugs (including fentanyl and other opioids), being sent through the mail,” Natalie Wright, a spokesperson for CACP, told The Maple by email.
“The police are unable to lawfully obtain a judicial authorization to search and seize items that are ‘in the course of post’, before they arrive to their intended destination and enter the hands of the people who introduce them into Canadian communities.”
“Criminals are exploiting legislative loopholes to commit criminal acts that result in large profits for organized crime groups and significant risks to the health and safety of Canadians.”
But Rutland and other experts, including a longtime harm reduction activist and criminal defence lawyer, say this policy won’t have the effect CACP claims. The policy is more likely to affect users than dealers and is more likely to affect people using party drugs than people using opioids, the sources said.
“Packages of the size that they’re talking about are not really large enough to be taking on the people they’re implying it for, but they are the size of people who are just trying to get access to the safest supply that they can,” said Matt Johnson, a harm reduction activist who co-founded Toronto’s first safe consumption site.
Criminal defence lawyer Howard Morton agreed. He said he would be surprised if traffickers imported drugs to Canada in packages weighing less than 500 grams. “They would have to be for personal use, I would think,” Morton said.
Morton, however, said he was supportive of the change because it requires a warrant. With a warrant, police can also break into your house, he pointed out.
Johnson and Rutland, however, say there are more problems with the policy. Both said drugs purchased online are likely to be safer than drugs bought on the street.
On online marketplaces, sellers have profiles — which Rutland compared to ride-share drivers’ profiles — allowing buyers to see feedback from past customers. “They have every incentive to have good ratings, which means not poisoning their clients,” Rutland said.
“That’s why this is so frustrating,” said Johnson. “People who can have access to the dark web to get substances that are safer and can be tested, has been one of the few ways that people have left to try to make sure that they’re healthy and safe.”
The online supply is more important now, Johnson said, because governments across Canada are cancelling decriminalization programs, closing safe consumption sites and ending safer supply.
Studies back up Johnson and Rutland’s point of view. One 2014 study found that people who use drugs say that substances purchased online are of higher quality than substances bought elsewhere. Another study suggested that the experience of buying drugs online is safer because the risk of in-person violence is eliminated.
Research has also found that opioids are one of the drugs least likely to be purchased on online marketplaces. Sales of cannabis, stimulants and ecstasy were all responsible for larger proportions of revenue than opioids from online drug sales in 2016, according to research published in 2023.
Johnson and Rutland argue the move is part of a long tradition of failed war-on-drugs-style policies.
“What we ought to be doing is not trying to get drugs off the streets, but trying to ensure that drug use is as safe as possible for those who choose to do it. And there is no demonstration that this change is even premised on the idea that this will reduce the risks that are involved in drug use,” said Rutland.
“The notion that more enforcement, more police, more laws, more drug war, is going to make any kind of positive change or make any kind of dent or impact — the last 100-plus years of the drug war has shown that none of that is helpful,” said Johnson.
Since Carney became prime minister, there have been other signs that his government will move from a harm-reduction approach to drugs, which is evidence-based, back to criminalization.
In press releases, for example, the government has stopped using the phrase “toxic drug crisis” and has replaced it with “illegal drug crisis.” In November 2025, the feds also prevented a safe consumption site in Parkdale, Toronto — which was created under former prime minister Justin Trudeau — from staying open.
“I think the harm reduction movement has taught us to recognize that the harms that we might see can’t be attributed to the drugs alone. They’re attributable to an entire social context and environment,” Rutland said.
“There are real problems that need to be addressed in all communities in Canada, including remote communities. But what we’ll find, if this measure goes through and nothing else changes, is that the same problems will be there 10 years from now.”
