CBSA whistleblower drops out of public eye after threats, advice to go low-profile

After a series of appearances on podcasts and media programs in recent weeks highlighting systemic abuse and failures in one of Canada’s protection agencies, a former government whistleblower has decided to stop talking about his experience publicly after an insider advised him to resume a low profile for his own safety.Luc Sabourin is a former junior officer with the Canada Border Services Agency. He previously testified at the House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates in 2023, describing corruption and malfeasance he alleged compromised Canada’s national security, as well as how he was targeted internally afterward for doing so. The committee hearing was in relation to Bill C-290, the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, sponsored by Bloc Québécois MP for Mirabel, Quebec, Jean-Denis Garon..Sabourin’s testimony and other media interviews have painted a dangerous picture of neglect and corruption. He has made several explosive allegations, including that transnational gangs who had likely compromised agency databases were bringing in a network of their own people to operate within Canada. He cited evidence from a CBSA unit where armed men in combat gear appeared to be smuggling migrants into Quebec, which he claims was covered up internally. People flagged as security risks, including one person allegedly tied to the 9/11 terror attacks, were allowed into Canada after being overruled by senior managers pressured to clear cases quickly, he said. A senior CBSA manager ordered him and a co-worker to illegally destroy foreign passports, and when they refused, had a subordinate perform the task, according to Sabourin. He also described the retaliation he received for following protocol by reporting what he saw as corrupt and illegal.His testimony has gained traction, particularly on social media, after appearances on programs including QUB Radio and Steel News with Ann Vandersteel.A repost from @IndocileMedia on X by Guylaine Simard, when translated to English, said: “I wish to salute the courage of the whistleblower Luc Sabourin, who is a true national hero and who nearly paid with his life for the fight against corruption within the federal apparatus.”.A post from Dan Knight on X from 2024 has also resurfaced, summarizing Sabourin’s House of Commons testimony and his view of the government’s response.“In closing this saga of Luc Sabourin's struggle against a corrupt system, let's be absolutely clear,” Knight wrote. “Luc Sabourin is a true patriot. In a world where we often despair over the lack of integrity within our institutions, Sabourin stands as a beacon of hope. He's the antithesis of the rot, the penicillin for the swamp that has, unfortunately, taken hold in parts of Ottawa.”.The attention also spurred multiple Bloc Québécois MPs to reach out to him, asking him to meet with them in June. However, Sabourin said MPs Alexis Deschênes and Claude DeBellefeuille cancelled their meetings with him without explanation, and MP Jean-Denis Garon had to back out because of a late-night responsibility at the House of Commons. The Western Standard reached out to Deschênes and DeBellefeuille for comment but they did not reply.Parti Québécois leader, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon and his team did meet with Sabourin to discuss illegal migration into Quebec and passport fraud.But he told Deschênes, DeBellefeuille and Garon he would not reschedule even if asked, after a series of threats over the past several months, culminating with a recommendation from someone he described as a “professional advisor” who has been monitoring government responses, internet patterns and hacks into Sabourin’s personal data since he began speaking publicly.“I had been told in 2025 via an anonymous phone call to shut up, or they would discredit me and say I am crazy,” Sabourin wrote in a message to the Western Standard. “And yes I became intimidated with the threats. He made me realize just how this was no longer coincidence and how dangerous speaking the truth was getting and that nobody would help me.”This recommendation followed vulgar, threatening phone calls he said he received in 2025, pressuring him to stop talking, as well as a meeting by an opposition party representative who politely encouraged him to quit talking about what he saw and experienced, Sabourin said.Threats were part of his CBSA career as well.After serving with the Inland Enforcement Unit in 2006, he was part of the team that arrested Nabil Al-Khalil..After that arrest, Sabourin believes his personal information was leaked by someone in the agency because several weeks later, carloads of men began suspiciously driving by and parking in front of his house, making threats and shouting obscenities at him. Shortly before he was to testify in court in the case, he said a man was waiting for him on his street and said, “You better think about what you're doing and what you're going to say. Think about your kids. Nice kids.”That confrontation escalated to more intimidating incidents both on his street and in a public washroom, where the threats were more graphic about killing him and what they would do to his family after they, too, were killed, he said.After his court appearance, he said he received more threatening, anonymous phone calls months and years later, and noticed a connection when his meetings with Internal Affairs seemed to coincide with the telephone threats.Sabourin isn’t the only person to have been threatened.In December 2025, a 25-year Fisheries and Oceans Canada officer, Trevor Lushington, was scheduled to testify at a House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. He, too, received a cryptic warning from what appeared to be a Government of Canada email address and had interactions with someone claiming to be from “Parliamentary Affairs.”“What I got from the conversation that I had was that my employment would be affected if I testified as an individual on that day,” Lushington said during his testimony.Deschênes, who was on that committee, asked Lushington if he felt comfortable speaking.“This was a real challenge for me,” he replied. “In all honesty it really was. It’s not that I wouldn’t extend loyalty to our current (fisheries) minister, I probably would. But when I got myself in a conversation, it was honestly troubling for me. When we began to talk about testifying, and discovery of the need to pay your bills, ‘How would you pay your bills if you had no job?’, that was worrying.”Sabourin feels betrayed by the politicians who he claims talk tough for sound bites when they show disdain toward government abuse, but abandon the insiders who expose it.“I see no public appearances by these MPs speaking out on public servants being threatened to basically shut up and not speak in Parliament,” he wrote. “Something is wrong here!”.Garon was a rookie MP when he introduced Bill C-290 in 2022, a bill to amend the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act. The bill was designed to strengthen a law often criticized for not providing an adequate forum and safety for public servant whistleblowers. It was passed unanimously in the House only to die in the Senate after Parliament was prorogued. Garon did not reintroduce the bill and ignored multiple requests by the Western Standard to discuss it and comment on whether it has a future in Canada.“We’re here in a country where very few whistleblowers are protected,” co-founder of the Whistleblowing Canada Research Society Pamela Forward said in an interview with the Western Standard. “Ninety percent of workers don’t have any specific protection. And it’s terrible. They’re not the ones that should be punished. It’s the wrongdoers that should be punished, of course.”Forward does not think Parliament was sincere in trying to pass a bill to protect whistleblowers, and the unanimous vote came shortly after Sabourin’s testimony where MPs may have faced pressure to agree to changes.According to her, they created a task force and asked for a comprehensive review, but ignored their duties and only issued a short response essentially saying whistleblowers deserved protection without bureaucracy.“It’s very clear they don’t want to protect whistleblowers,” Forward said. “There was a task force announced maybe six months after Bill C-290 was introduced. We’ve always thought it was very strange when suddenly the government said they’re going to have a task force, and they’re going to review C-290, and the 2017 report that they suppressed and blocked from ever being discussed in Parliament.“We would have had the best whistleblower protection law in the world, actually, if that one had been allowed to move forward. And it was a unanimous report by parliamentarians. Imagine all the parties agreed, we want to correct that law and here’s the report. And it was blocked from ever being debated in Parliament.”“It’s interesting times,” Sabourin said. “So it’s time for me and my colleagues to walk away from all of this. The message is clear that we need to be quiet. This from people in Parliament every day speaking about (the) dangers to Canadians and unsustainable policies and border security and accountability and unacceptable intrusive bills.”With files from Jeff Sandes

CBSA whistleblower drops out of public eye after threats, advice to go low-profile

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