Whistleblower Alleges Systemic CBSA Failures Behind U.S. Tariff Threats, Terror Concerns

Key to Luc Sabourin’s allegations is a Canadian record that reveals a catastrophic theft of over 300,000 travel documents.

OTTAWA, Canada — Luc Sabourin, a former Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) officer, has accused his former employer of systemic failures that he believes have compromised national security, with devastating consequences for relations with the United States. In a sworn statement submitted to several Canadian MPs, Sabourin alleges mismanagement and corruption within CBSA that may have allowed hundreds of terrorists wanted by the United States to exploit Canada’s border systems. His claims come at a critical moment, as the Canadian government faces mounting pressure from the incoming Trump administration to address border security weaknesses and avert crippling tariffs.

“I sincerely believe that today’s issues at the Canadian border—U.S. Border Patrol has stopped 358 suspects on the terror watchlist from Canada—that are being raised by Members of Parliament are possibly related to the events that I am describing below,” Sabourin wrote in a November 28 sworn statement obtained by The Bureau.

Key to Sabourin’s allegations is a Canadian record that reveals a catastrophic theft of over 300,000 travel documents, including more than 283,000 blank passports ready for personalization, between May 2014 and March 2015. Sabourin traced the thefts to international locations that he says he cannot specifically identify due to government secrecy laws. He attributes the exploitation of these passports to transnational crime networks, warning that these documents likely facilitated illicit entry into Canada and the United States. Sabourin raised alarms about the potential role of these breaches in enabling smuggling networks tied to Mexican and Iranian cartels, further illustrating vulnerabilities he says were dismissed by CBSA leadership.

Sabourin also pointed to some national security compromises as a “direct result of loose immigration policies” and neglect by CBSA management.

Among his most striking allegations, Sabourin described an incident where he flagged seven individuals during his work for CBSA, four of whom were deemed serious national security threats. One individual, he alleged, was on the terror watch list as an active participant in the September 11 attacks and was renewing his visa in Ottawa at the time.

“Despite my findings,” Sabourin stated, “I was told by management to approve the case against my judgment, prioritizing volume over security.” The pressure in Ottawa to clear immigration cases quickly, he claimed, exemplifies a broader culture within CBSA that ignored significant risks to national and international safety.

The Bureau has previously reported on Sabourin’s case and his allegations of being targeted by CBSA bureaucrats in what he believes was retribution.

Regarding Sabourin’s previous allegations—reported by The Bureau—that CBSA managers improperly destroyed a number of passports, including documents linked to criminals sought by enforcement agencies in Canada, a spokeswoman stated:

“Allegations made by Mr. Sabourin with regards to the destruction of passports have been thoroughly investigated by impartial persons who have all concluded that no inappropriate destruction occurred. It is legal and necessary to destroy identity documents, and there are procedures to guide this. There is no evidence that these procedures were not followed.”

In an interview, Sabourin said he decided to renew his efforts to alert Canadians of serious alleged compromises—and send his sworn statement to some MPs—after reading independent MP Kevin Vuong’s November 26 post on X, which said:

“Everyone's been focused on the 25% Trump trade tariff instead of the reason provided. To date, the US Border Patrol has stopped 358 'suspects on the terror watchlist' from Canada. WHY ARE PEOPLE ON THE US' TERROR WATCHLIST IN CANADA IN THE FIRST PLACE?”

In what appears to be a panicked reaction to Trump’s tariff threats, Canada's government has recently proposed spending $1 billion to enhance border policing powers with measures like drones and helicopters.

But Sabourin argues that the root of the issues Washington is concerned with lies much deeper. He suggested that systemic mismanagement and a lack of robust legal frameworks to combat international mafias have left Canada particularly vulnerable. These issues, Sabourin believes, enable human smuggling and narco-trafficking operations that have ripple effects across borders.

As reported previously byThe Bureau, in one stunning allegation, Sabourin said a CBSA unit learned that a band of armed men clad in combat fatigues appeared to be smuggling illegal migrants across Quebec’s border, which was apparently covered up internally, Sabourin suspects, possibly to the benefit of foreign mafias, human traffickers, drug smugglers, or terrorists.

“I asked within the agency via email if there was any reason why the Quebec Provincial Police and the RCMP were not notified about this,” Sabourin told The Bureau. “An hour later, the email disappeared from the generic mailbox and never reached top management.”

Putting Sabourin’s allegations in context, The Bureau has reported a massive international market for the exploitation of travel documents is brokered by Chinese Triads, among other transnational criminal networks that are believed to include Middle Eastern mafias and terror-financing cells, and Mexican cartels.

Such systemic vulnerabilities have long been flagged. Reporting on the trend in 2008, the Canadian Press cited an internal memo from Passport Canada that said “lost and stolen passports are extremely valuable to criminal organizations to facilitate and perpetrate illegal/clandestine operations such as human trafficking, smuggling, money laundering, and terrorism."

A 2007 report from RUSI, a UK security think tank, further explained: “Whereas only the very best forgeries can elude detection, traveling on a stolen passport is extremely difficult to detect. Those with stolen documentation are usually only given away by a mistake when the passport was being filled out or if the passport has been listed in a database of stolen papers.”