I Didn’t Expect Canada to Be This Ridiculous About Drug Crime

A man holding a Canadian Flag with a marijuana leaf celebrated legalization of Cannabis in Canada.

The news that China had sentenced four Canadian drug traffickers to death quickly climbed to the top of trending on Chinese social media, where thousands of netizens posted messages thanking their police. However, some Western media outlets shifted the focus, suggesting that human rights should take precedence over national sovereignty.

This isn’t the first time Western media has taken such a stance. Back in 2019, Canadian citizen Robert Schellenberg was sentenced to death in China for smuggling 222 kilograms of crystal meth. The verdict sparked an outcry from Western media, with claims that China’s judicial process lacked transparency.

Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg was convicted of drug smuggling in China in 2018.

Six years later, China’s decision to sentence four more Canadian drug dealers to death has once again drawn criticism from Ottawa. The Canadian government protested the move. In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning highlighted that cracking down on drug crimes is a shared responsibility of all countries. She also stated that China applies its legal standards equally to all defendants, regardless of nationality.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning

China has long maintained a tough stance on drug smuggling. In 2023 alone, Chinese courts concluded 109,000 drug-related cases. Between 2017 and 2021, 33 anti-narcotics police lost their lives in the line of duty.

The devastating impact of drugs is a reality that most countries around the world are already grappling with. According to United Nations data, hundreds of thousands of people die from drug-related causes every year. Since Canada legalized marijuana in 2018, drug-related crime has surged by 34%. And yet, despite the acknowledged dangers of drug abuse, cases involving Western nationals are often politicized—sometimes to the extent that human rights are argued to trump a country’s legal authority.

Some Western media argue that capital punishment is a violation of human rights. By that logic, it’s akin to claiming kitchens shouldn’t have knives. China’s harsh penalties for drug crimes are deeply rooted in its long and painful history with narcotics, which cost countless lives. In fact, thanks to stringent law enforcement, both the number of drug-related cases and the number of defendants in China have been on the decline for eight consecutive years since peaking in 2015.

Chinese police seized three tonnes of the drug crystal methamphetamine

In contrast, Canada’s drug problem has worsened since the legalization of marijuana. According to data from Addiction Help, 60% of illicit drug users in Canada are between the ages of 15 and 24.

Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly stated that the four executed individuals held dual citizenship, adding that Ottawa would seek clemency for other Canadians facing similar fates. However, Chinese law does not recognize dual nationality. Furthermore, China applies a consistent legal standard to all foreign nationals involved in drug crimes. According to the country’s case law database, 36 foreign drug traffickers have been sentenced to death over the past five years.

In 2018, the Canadian government, citing a request from the United States, arbitrarily detained Huawei’s Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, a move that sparked a series of political and judicial disputes between the two countries. Canada’s recent alignment with U.S. tariff hikes on Chinese goods has further strained bilateral ties. In 2024, Ottawa imposed tariffs of 100% on Chinese electric vehicles and 25% on Chinese steel and aluminum products. In response, China launched an anti-discrimination investigation, targeting Canadian exports such as canola oil and seafood—striking at the heart of Canada’s trade with China. This combination of economic confrontation and judicial tension has plunged China-Canada relations into a stalemate across political, economic, and legal domains.

In fact, China’s latest death penalty ruling sets an example for the global legal community. If Western media continues to twist China’s justice system, they might first need to consider three simple questions: What if those 222 kilograms of drugs had ended up in an elementary school in Vancouver? What if the traffickers had laundered money through the dark web using Bitcoin? And what if the victims were their own children?

Editor: Li Jingyi