The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - June 16, 2026


Canadian airports should be secure. Not a playground for organized crime.

Hosted by
Jamie Schmal
Mentioned
Jamie Schmael Dan Albus Steve McKinnon Charles
First they denied it. Now they’re admitting it. Uncertainty. That is what the current government has left Canadians with.

Episode Stats


Length

18 minutes

Words per minute

169.51

Word count

3,131

Sentence count

196

Harmful content

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

On today's show, we bring on Dan Albus, Transport Critic and Member of Parliament for Okanagan Lake West, South Kelowna, to talk about the growing problem of illegal drugs being brought into Canadian airports.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprints. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your
00:00:07.660 host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton Court of the Lakes, with new content
00:00:11.260 for you every single Tuesday, 1.30pm Eastern Time, even throughout the summer. So don't forget to
00:00:16.340 like, comment, share, and subscribe to this program. Tell your friends, too, to download
00:00:20.440 it on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play, and Spotify. You name it, it is out there.
00:00:25.300 On today's show, we are talking about illegal drug activity going through Canadian airports,
00:00:31.040 specifically Pearson Airport in Toronto, among many others, and so much more.
00:00:35.780 So, to go into a deeper dive, we bring on the one, the only, Dan Albus, the transport critic,
00:00:41.880 and the Member of Parliament for Okanagan Lake West, South Kelowna.
00:00:45.880 Thanks for coming on the show.
00:00:47.100 It was great to be here. Usually it's the one and lonely.
00:00:49.680 Well, I wanted to, you know, you did agree, so I wanted to boost you up a bit.
00:00:54.280 Thanks, Jamie.
00:00:54.760 And you also have your own podcast, too.
00:00:56.820 Well, Finding Solutions with Dan Albus, but anyway, we do need to find some solutions
00:01:01.800 to how the Liberal government manages our air system, particularly right now, what's
00:01:06.860 happening at Pearson.
00:01:07.580 Okay, so we got a graphic up here.
00:01:09.600 In Pearson Airport, a couple of investigative reports came out, went into a deep dive and
00:01:16.480 noticed that, wait a second, drug dealers are using the airport to smuggle drugs in,
00:01:21.640 one way in particular, of switching baggage tags and getting unsuspected people involved
00:01:28.460 in a potentially very dangerous situation.
00:01:31.460 Oh, and there's lots going on here.
00:01:33.800 So from some of the reports that I've seen, not just on the W5 expose on this specific
00:01:40.280 bag tag switching issue, there's been lots of incidents over a decade.
00:01:48.240 So, for example, in 2012, a government report flagged a particular individual that worked
00:01:54.720 at Pearson.
00:01:55.840 In 2023, there was that Air Canada gold heist.
00:02:00.080 Right.
00:02:00.600 Now, in that 2012 report, it actually said that this person was the ringleader.
00:02:05.100 And so that person was still working there 10 years later.
00:02:09.140 So, Jamie, there's a lot of things wrong at our airports, particularly at Pearson.
00:02:13.760 I've seen, again, the Russian mafia, cartels, they're all involved in this.
00:02:20.320 And unfortunately, it's Canadians that are paying the price.
00:02:24.440 So the government knew about it.
00:02:26.000 Well, the government knows that there's big issues here.
00:02:28.540 Transport Canada is the lead agency.
00:02:30.280 So effectively, what's been happening is sometimes it's the baggage workers and sometimes it's ramp workers.
00:02:37.540 What they're effectively doing is they'll get your bag after you've given it to your airline, and they'll just take the tag and switch it out to a different luggage.
00:02:49.480 And usually that luggage has an air tag in it that someone on the other side, when you're traveling internationally, will just pick it up.
00:02:55.720 So when you go to pick it up at your location, oftentimes you'll just see it, and it'll have a rush tag on it instead of the original bag tag.
00:03:04.400 Now, most people wouldn't think anything of this, but what's happening is sometimes the government through CBSA is catching it early, so they'll stop people from getting on board the plane.
00:03:14.580 They've done a random search, found the drugs, and then so they detain and then arrest these innocent Canadians who had no idea that they were involved in this.
00:03:24.580 In other cases, we've seen where Canadians have traveled to places like the Dominican Republic or the Philippines, where they have very stringent laws.
00:03:35.540 And in one case, it took months to resolve the case of a couple that found that their bags had been swapped out for a drug bag.
00:03:44.300 So these are very serious.
00:03:46.600 These are innocent Canadians. 1.00
00:03:48.000 The WFI reporting talked about 16 that we know of.
00:03:52.360 But, Jamie, it's anyone's guess because this could have happened to other innocent people.
00:03:56.500 Right, and this was mostly at Pearson, but you're right, it could be elsewhere.
00:03:59.660 Let's go up cut one.
00:04:00.640 This gives a bit of the reporting that was done, kind of shows exactly the process,
00:04:05.640 and sadly how easy it could be.
00:04:07.780 Play cut one.
00:04:09.020 Up one escalator.
00:04:12.660 And down another.
00:04:17.540 Now I'm in the baggage pickup area.
00:04:21.620 So imagine that this is a drug bag waiting to pick up.
00:04:26.020 All I have to do is grab it and walk out.
00:04:35.960 And here's how easy it is to get into that baggage area
00:04:39.460 for both the public and employees.
00:04:42.420 In a span of minutes, we watch airport workers repeatedly
00:04:46.280 entering without swiping their pass,
00:04:49.040 meaning there's no electronic record of their movement into that area.
00:04:53.600 Isn't that interesting?
00:04:55.160 Well, and this is the problem, right?
00:04:56.720 We've all seen where employees are in a rush to get somewhere, and it's called tailgating.
00:05:01.480 So someone will swipe properly to enter a restricted area,
00:05:05.220 and another employee will just zip in alongside of them.
00:05:08.920 And again, there's no electronic record of that.
00:05:12.620 In this case, we saw where people were coming, exiting the restricted area,
00:05:16.420 and people were just rushing through very quickly.
00:05:19.040 So many cases, it's probably a legitimate activity.
00:05:22.360 The problem is, is it undermines our collective security
00:05:25.660 when we have people entering into these restricted areas
00:05:29.620 that shouldn't be or have something to hide.
00:05:33.180 Yeah, that's incredible.
00:05:34.200 Okay, Q-Up Cut 2, this is the second half,
00:05:36.300 talks about the baggage tags, the other issue.
00:05:38.660 Play Cut 2.
00:05:39.460 I never thought about this little tag being the difference
00:05:42.880 between your bag getting somewhere
00:05:44.260 or you being accused of smuggling drugs.
00:05:47.300 Okay, how is this working?
00:05:48.560 Okay, so what happens is you take your bag to the airport and you check it in, and it goes on the conveyor belt back into the area that you never get access to.
00:05:56.380 There are 4,000 cameras at Pearson Airport, and as you mentioned, 16 of the cases happened at Pearson.
00:06:02.660 But those cameras are not always monitored, and there are blind spots.
00:06:06.740 And all it takes is for one corrupt baggage handler or ramp handler to unstick this off your luggage and put it onto a bag full of drugs.
00:06:18.520 Now, that bag full of drugs is traveling to the same destination as you.
00:06:22.640 And if it makes it, there are usually air tags in the luggage of drugs.
00:06:26.840 Somebody on the other end is going to pick it up and take it.
00:06:29.540 That's absolutely incredible.
00:06:30.820 So people have no clue what's going on.
00:06:33.860 And we'll have a graphic a little later on that shows some of the countries that have some pretty severe penalties if you're caught smuggling drugs into their neighborhood.
00:06:43.520 And you said earlier, right off the bat, there's some people who've been there for months in different countries stuck because they were caught up in this.
00:06:49.760 Well, how do you prove that it wasn't you?
00:06:52.260 Exactly.
00:06:52.700 Because you went to claim your bag thinking that it was yours, but it had been switched out.
00:06:56.920 And sometimes, as I said, some of these individuals will get pulled by local CBSA, detained.
00:07:05.580 Basically, I spoke to a husband and wife that were flying internationally to Europe.
00:07:10.540 And a foreign national who didn't even speak any English or French was caught up in this, as well as another individual.
00:07:17.520 And what happened?
00:07:18.240 Not only did they miss their flight, they had eight hours of detention where they were grilled before they were finally exonerated and released.
00:07:25.840 Now, in their case, it was because they had a video of them exiting their home.
00:07:31.780 They actually had one of those security cameras that recorded them and switched on.
00:07:37.200 That's the reason why they were let go, because they could see clearly that the husband was wearing a different backpack than the one that he checked in.
00:07:47.340 And so here in Canada, you know, it's pretty standard.
00:07:50.800 You just throw down your check baggage, they weigh it, they then put the tag on and it's gone.
00:07:56.840 Many countries, actually, what they'll do is they'll take a picture and includes the weight so that when you get handed your check baggage claim, it has that right on there.
00:08:09.960 And so that's one way to handle this problem.
00:08:12.220 Another way to handle, though, is to actually have Transport Canada, which has responsibility
00:08:16.380 for screening of these individuals that are in those sensitive, restricted areas, both
00:08:21.080 for ramp as well as for baggage workers, would be to have them actually do their job.
00:08:27.920 And when I asked the Minister of Transportation, Steve McKinnon, what concrete measure, just
00:08:34.740 I said, Minister, give me one concrete measure that you have done besides simply talk to
00:08:40.100 your officials, to solve this problem, he couldn't give me a single example.
00:08:45.840 You think this would be a bit of a priority?
00:08:48.240 Well, in fact, he made the statement that this was one of many, many priorities the
00:08:54.100 government have, and there's no hierarchy.
00:08:56.980 So meaning that someone being stuck in line, waiting for the CBSA computers to switch on,
00:09:05.100 or someone delayed because an air traffic controller labor shortage in Vancouver, for example,
00:09:12.700 those have the same priority as someone who is facing criminal prosecution either here in Canada or outside of the country.
00:09:20.040 So I didn't feel much relief by having him say that.
00:09:23.440 In fact, it made me think, do you not have a sense of priorities here, fellow?
00:09:28.440 Yeah, you would think the minister would say, this is pretty serious stuff.
00:09:32.480 People could be arrested.
00:09:33.480 Their lives could be at risk here.
00:09:35.340 Let's put out the graphic here.
00:09:36.640 This is what it looks like normally when someone gets their stuff ripped apart.
00:09:39.760 I think this is pretty gentle, actually.
00:09:41.640 That looked pretty gentle.
00:09:42.820 Well, and this is the thing, is once they're in that CBSA system, they're flagged.
00:09:48.260 So when they travel abroad, so maybe they were detained, arrested for a period of time,
00:09:53.940 and then found that they were totally innocent and released, their names have been flagged.
00:09:58.340 And so when they travel internationally and when they come home, they may be immediately pulled over to the side, have all their luggage ripped open forevermore because they're in that CBSA watch list.
00:10:10.500 And when I asked the government about that, the minister just simply said, well, that's something that CBSA has to deal with.
00:10:16.740 That's not fair to these innocent Canadians who are stuck now in this perma cycle of searches.
00:10:24.260 And as you saw in that picture, it can be quite invasive.
00:10:26.580 This is absolutely remarkable because the Liberals don't seem to have sympathy for problems they aren't experiencing, right? We talk about affordability. We've never had it so good. Like, what are you Canadians complaining about? And now, when there are people being detained in other countries that may have the death penalty, as we're seeing on the graphic here, it's like we don't have a hierarchy in terms of priorities.
00:10:49.020 Well, we're not experienced. We get the fast lane, you know, the minister gets the fast lane, that's what I'm talking about, at the airport.
00:10:55.480 They don't have to worry about this kind of stuff. And if something did happen, there's a way to talk this out.
00:11:00.560 The minister would have a way out of this. But everyday Canadians, well, good luck to you.
00:11:05.240 Well, and this is what really drives, I think, most people mad when they see this, is that, first of all, everyone waits in that long line.
00:11:12.000 They often, if you had an artificial hip or knee replacement, you get flagged, you have
00:11:18.380 this invasive search.
00:11:19.920 If you have a baby bottle full of liquid, you have to empty it all, and you get your
00:11:25.040 stuff torn apart on a regular basis.
00:11:27.800 And yet, Transport Canada, with this baggage handling, there was one particular employee
00:11:35.560 that they disguised his face and gave him a different name, Charles, in this W5 reporting,
00:11:41.480 said that they joke amongst themselves, and this is someone who's been there for a long
00:11:46.000 time.
00:11:47.200 He said, we joke that you could carry a cruise missile through it, and no one would know.
00:11:53.540 So this is the problem we have here, Jamie.
00:11:55.640 We have a government that right now, by the way, we've spent apparently a billion dollars,
00:12:00.200 is what the parliamentary budget officers have said, towards FIFA, the big soccer games
00:12:04.960 that are happening in both Toronto and Vancouver, and yet we have serious security gaps that
00:12:10.400 don't seem to be a priority for the minister.
00:12:12.540 Now, why did this all pop up?
00:12:14.000 Did the government do something differently here?
00:12:16.080 No, no.
00:12:16.820 There's just no budget cuts or anything like that?
00:12:19.160 Oh, well, so on that, so the W5 expose certainly has raised this.
00:12:24.140 But it's interesting you say that because the government was warned by the Canadian Union for Transportation Employees.
00:12:32.840 They specifically cited that some of the service levels of certain departments,
00:12:39.400 including the one that handles screening, you know, they've had pink slips.
00:12:44.680 I know when I asked the minister when he came to the Transportation Committee,
00:12:48.800 would there be cuts and would that affect safety levels?
00:12:52.560 He said, absolutely not. These changes won't compromise safety one iota.
00:12:58.500 I just received an order paper question response where I asked some very pointed questions
00:13:02.480 around the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Directorate.
00:13:07.740 This directorate usually gets about $17 million a year.
00:13:11.680 And what they do is they make sure our rail cars, our transportation system, we're talking about dangerous goods like propane and other forms of energy.
00:13:22.960 So if there's a problem with transporting these things, it can lead to big environmental or possibly safety issues.
00:13:29.600 From a $17 million a year enterprise, they've cut $7 million from it, largely with pink slips for employees.
00:13:39.080 So this is the problem.
00:13:40.320 We hear on one hand that the government says, well, we want to see Canadian energy.
00:13:45.360 We want to help our allies who need things like liquefied natural gas.
00:13:49.820 We want to make sure that we can see affordable prices for gasoline, et cetera.
00:13:55.940 and yet they're actually cutting the people that make sure that we can have safe transit of these
00:14:02.420 dangerous goods. And that's the problem I have here, Jamie. Whether it be pink slips for the
00:14:08.060 screening that's done at Transport Canada that we're talking about here with Pearson, or whether
00:14:12.620 it be getting our energy to market. This government has no sense of priority and they're just cutting
00:14:18.400 things, making things less safe for Canadians. And again, it's just like anything. They'll say
00:14:23.680 to your face that everything is okay, that they have it handled, but really we have 16 people
00:14:29.440 that we know of, and that's just from Pearson. We actually don't know if other airports are having
00:14:34.580 the same problems. I often wonder what, like it's good W5 did that investigative report,
00:14:40.940 but I often wonder what the difference would be too if we were in government and that W5 report
00:14:46.840 came out. There would be follow-ups upon follow-ups, ministers be hounded, there'd be a relentless
00:14:52.580 coverage cycle, morning, noon, and night. But this was a W5 report. Some people know about it.
00:14:59.280 Lots probably don't. It just disappeared into the memory hole. Well, it's interesting because
00:15:03.740 Transport Canada immediately responded with an anonymous public statement that said that they
00:15:10.000 vowed that they would fix the problem, gave no concrete measure. And so then when the minister
00:15:16.320 came a week and a half after this original reporting went out
00:15:20.120 for him to actually say, you know, this is all being
00:15:24.300 handled, we have a good handle on it, but not naming one
00:15:28.280 thing that they're going to do different. This is one of the reasons why in question period I had
00:15:32.240 to confront the minister, and I specifically asked, are you going to apologize
00:15:36.380 to these Canadians? And instead it got answered by a
00:15:40.360 different minister. So it seems that Transport Canada is radio silence
00:15:44.380 on this. The minister, like I said, gave a real non-answer answer. And we still don't know,
00:15:50.680 because specifically, are there other airports? And what we need here, Jamie, is to have some
00:15:56.620 transparency and some action. So if I were the minister, do a press conference. Say,
00:16:01.600 these are the five measures we've put in place now, and these are the safety audits we're going
00:16:06.320 to commit to over the next 90 days, and we'll give a state of play at the end of it, and you
00:16:10.460 can hold me accountable. That's what I would expect from an accountable government, but that's
00:16:15.960 not where we're getting from this Liberal government. No, far from that. Dan, the show is
00:16:19.620 pretty much over. We're almost out of time, but as you know, the guests get the last word, so the
00:16:24.140 floor is yours. Well, again, Steve McKinnon, the minister, is a part-time minister. He doesn't like
00:16:30.700 it when I say that, but really, if you think about it, he is the House leader. He also is dealing
00:16:35.400 with democratic institutions. So he has a bill specifically on that. So this is the problem when
00:16:41.240 we have someone who's in charge of a very, very important system protecting Canadian safety.
00:16:47.880 And so rather than keeping Canadians safe on the rails or safe in the skies, what is he doing?
00:16:54.120 He's keeping his government on the rails and says that it's all blue skies, no dark clouds at all.
00:17:00.720 So this is the problem we have.
00:17:02.560 I'll keep hounding that minister.
00:17:04.420 Maybe we'll get some action, Jamie.
00:17:05.860 Dan, you're doing a great job.
00:17:06.940 Thank you very much.
00:17:07.620 And don't forget to tune into his podcast as well.
00:17:10.300 How often does it run?
00:17:11.500 Well, again, I'm not as up to it as the blueprint,
00:17:15.620 but we try to put out new content
00:17:17.300 and it's finding solutions with Dan Albus.
00:17:19.320 So thanks for the plug, Jamie.
00:17:20.780 Hey, that's cross-collaboration.
00:17:22.700 I do appreciate it.
00:17:23.920 I have to do that.
00:17:24.620 Probably won't get you on the show if I don't do that.
00:17:26.380 I'm just kidding.
00:17:26.840 Dan Albus, Member of Parliament
00:17:28.280 for Okanagan Lake West South Kelowna.
00:17:30.980 Thanks for being on the show.
00:17:31.900 He's also the Transport Critic.
00:17:33.120 Thank you for your time as well.
00:17:34.800 Don't forget, this is a pretty important message.
00:17:36.760 You may or may not be finding this out for the first time,
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00:17:48.280 New content for you every single Tuesday,
00:17:50.220 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time, even throughout the summer.
00:17:52.940 Until next week, remember, low taxes, less government,
00:17:55.460 more freedom.
00:17:55.920 That's the blueprint.
00:17:58.280 Thank you.