Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Security and Defence
Issue 8 - Evidence - June 22, 2009
OTTAWA, Monday, June 22, 2009
The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence met this day at 4 p.m. to examine and report on the national security policy of Canada (topic: border security).
Senator Colin Kenny (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: I would like to call this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence to order. My name is Colin Kenny, and I chair the committee.
Before we begin, I would like to briefly introduce the members of the committee. On my far right is Senator Sharon Carstairs, who was appointed to the Senate in 1994 to represent the province of Manitoba. She is the chair of the Standing Joint Committee on the Library of Parliament, a member of the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples, the Special Senate Committee on Aging and the Standing Committee on the Conflict of Interest for Senators.
To her left is Senator Wilfred Moore, called to the Senate in 1996. He represents the senatorial division of Stanhope St./South Shore in Nova Scotia. He has been active at the city level in Halifax-Dartmouth and has served as a member of the Board of Governors of Saint Mary's University. He is also a member of the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce and the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations.
To his left is Tommy Banks from Alberta. He was called to the Senate in April of 2000. He is known to many Canadians as an accomplished and versatile musician and entertainer. He is a member of the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources.
On my immediate left is Senator Larry Campbell. He was appointed to the Senate in 2005. He has a Masters of Business Administration. He is a member of the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples and the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs.
To his left is Senator David Tkachuk. He is from Saskatchewan and was appointed to the Senate in June 1993. Over the years, he has been a businessman, a public servant and a teacher. He is also the deputy chair of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration and a member of the Senate Committee of Selection.
Colleagues, we have before us again the Customs and Immigration Union, CIU, National President, Ron Moran. At the fifteenth national convention of the Customs Excise Union Douanes Accise, CEUDA, today called the Customs and Immigration Union, CIU, held in Ottawa on October 2008, Ron Moran was acclaimed to his third consecutive term as the union's national president. As the CIU national president, Ron Moran is the chief executive officer. He is an ex-officio member of all CIU committees and directs the day-to-day operations in the national office in Ottawa. He chairs their national executive and national board of directors meetings as well as meetings of the CIU-SDI Holdings Limited. Mr. Moran is also a member of the Public Service Alliance of Canada's, PSAC, national board of directors.
With him is Jean-Pierre Fortin, the CIU 1st National Vice-President. Jean-Pierre Fortin was re-elected to the Customs and Immigration Union as 1st National Vice-President at the fifteenth national convention held in Ottawa on October 2008. As 1st National Vice-President, Mr. Fortin is accountable for the following portfolios: grievances and appeals, national office operations and national office staff collective bargaining. He is also the chair of the Border Security Committee of the CIU NBOD. I am not sure what ``NBOD'' means.
Jean-Pierre Fortin, 1st National Vice-President, Customs and Immigration Union: National board of directors.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Mr. Fortin is also responsible for four CIU district branches in the Quebec region, as well as three district branches in the Atlantic region. He also overlooks the CIU-SDI Holdings Limited.
Welcome, gentlemen. Mr. Moran, I understand you have a presentation you would like to make, so you have the floor.
Ron Moran, National President, Customs and Immigration Union: Thank you very much, senators. It is a pleasure to be back before you. The relationship that our organization has had and maintained with this committee has been productive, certainly in our view to say the least, with respect to how this committee is very straightforward in how it asks the pertinent questions. Some of the people responsible for the services to Canadians are not necessarily pleased to hear those questions; however, they become very important in policy-making, and certainly many recommendations this committee has made over the years have seen vulnerabilities to this country in the criminal area. Implicitly they become public security threats as well. I do not think there is a committee on the Hill that understands that better than this committee. Certainly, Canadians should sleep better knowing that work is being done. You always task us with your specific and pertinent concerns, and we are more than pleased to do the work.
We would like to inform you that we are working with volunteers on the eve of conducting a survey, which is what we had done in 2006 and which led to the Secure Border Action Plan, which we are following up on today. It is considerably challenging. There is a big turnaround in terms of the officers we deal with who involve themselves in the union movement. It is quite labour-intensive to receive all of the input from those officers.
The last time we conducted a survey, after initially sending out the surveys and then following up with phone calls and then basically harassing some of them at the tail end of the process, we had a 100 per cent success rate with the input we received from all 119 points of entry along the border. A great deal of interest was generated initially from this committee, but it became pertinent to our concern as well on such things as connectivity, that the majority of those ports did not have, for example, any type of connection to the mainframe of databases along the border.
Most of us go through larger or medium-sized border crossings and assume all are like that, when in fact the reality is they are quite small and remotely located. It is pleasant when that type of work leads to those improvements because they are fundamental.
We have a brief and have made it available to the committee members ahead of time, and we will be pleased to answer questions on it. We cover such things as the look-out system, which in our view still has some fundamental data bank interface difficulties. The reality is that no interface exists between all of the different data banks when we enter a name at the primary inspection line.
We have a sustained push toward biometric technology. I and others have said for the past year that within the next four years, biometric technology will take up as much importance as email has to the office-work environment in that we will ask ourselves at some point how we were ever able to convince ourselves that we were effective prior to these technologies being in place and being effective. Certainly the technology exists; it is there, and it is a question of tapping into it and putting it into place.
The segment on border patrol is certainly encouraging to an organization such as ours, although we consider ourselves one of the organizations that led the way and pushed that agenda forward, yet we are not involved or invited into any of the talks known to be ongoing about putting it into place. Nonetheless, it was interesting when the assistant commissioner of the RCMP confirmed at the House of Commons Public Safety and National Security Committee that what was missing at this stage was a visible, uniformed presence at the borders — that is, one that is intelligence-led to fill all the voids to which we keep referring.
Rather than go into any of the specifics, sometimes what we find the most predominating are things that the committee is not necessarily focused on at this stage. I also want to point out that we have made Scott Newark available to the committee. Mr. Newark has a long-standing relationship with our organization as a consultant. He was the primary author of the Northgate Report, which is the report that was the precursor to the Secure Border Action Plan. We continue to consult Mr. Newark on his opinions on public safety and public policy. For those of you who know him, you know he has an opinion on pretty much everything. He certainly has opinions on public policy, particularly when they intertwine with public security. He is certainly available to the committee should committee members wish to ask him questions as well.
We will take questions from the committee at this stage.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Moran. Thank you for the offer of assistance from Mr. Newark. You have raised a number of interesting points in your opening comments, and I have a list of senators who wish to ask questions.
Senator Wallin: Welcome. Thank you for being here, and you too, Mr. Newark.
I will start with a specific question about your position, Mr. Moran, on the situation in the Akwesasne reserve, which is, I think, your long-standing desire to move the post off the reserve.
Can you give us your sense of what you think is happening there? If you move it, would you want the Americans to move it and have it in proximity so that you people are side by side? How do you see that unfolding if it were to unfold, given that people are looking at evaluating the long-term viability of the point of entry at Cornwall?
Mr. Moran: Looking at it long term, it is a way of saying ``remove the port from the island.'' The facility is on Akwesasne land has been the source of the historic tensions that have existed between the service and the community of Akwesasne. That is certainly the case with the situation at hand. This time around, it has led to an entrenched position by the Akwesasne community that they will not allow the officers of the Canada Border Services Agency, CBSA, to be issued their firearms to do their work. It has been followed up by both the government and the agency taking the firm position that every officer across the country will have the same level of protection. Certainly, the port of Cornwall will not be an exception to that.
It escalated to the closing of the port. Some escalating intimidation tactics were used, which climaxed the evening that the first officers were to start their shift with their firearms. Fires were lit around the office, and a small bulldozer was in place. Messages came through the media by the warriors saying that they would swarm the building and remove the firearms themselves if that implementation measure took place. That led to the government making the only logical decision at that stage.
It must be underscored that, in spite of all the historic tensions and the incidents that have occurred on Cornwall Island because of the facility being there, never has there been any incidents of grave bodily harm or violence that has led to any type of serious injury. Sustaining that became the priority. Having said that, the rest of us are left to imagine what it was like for those officers to work there. They are hardened officers. Certainly, they will endure more than the average officer who works at the average point of entry. As you pointed out, our historic position is that, fundamentally, the facility should have never been on Native land to begin with. That has been the source of all of the concerns.
You are asking my opinion on solutions. The short-term solution would be to reopen the facility on the U.S. side, side by side with our American counterparts. If we remove it from the island, there are only two options: Open it on the Canadian mainland side or on the U.S. mainland side. Opening it on the Canadian mainland side would encompass being able to cross onto Cornwall Island without having been subjected to either a customs or immigration checkpoint. That also implies that we would have to verify everyone coming off the island, whether or not they are residents of the island who have not been stateside. That would be just another layer of irritation for the people of the island to have to answer questions to the likes of us, although they have not been stateside.
We have more legislated and technical obstacles to opening it on the Canadian side than to opening it stateside. It is not without precedent to work side by side out of the same facility. We have facilities such as that across the country, though it would be the only one that does not straddle the border. The other facilities, for example, in Coutts, Alberta, or in British Columbia, have a joint facility. For those facilities that exist, it is not a question of if the U.S. people go for their lunch, we do their traffic; it is the integrity of each country.
Senator Wallin: To be clear, when you say that members on the reserve or members of the Native groups would ``not allow'' this, I am assuming you have suggested and hinted, with fires starting and bulldozers, that that would be a violent situation.
Mr. Moran: They had gone to some media reporters and basically made declarations that they would swarm the building. It must be underscored that at around 11:15 on that Sunday night, Chief King and the chief of the Akwesasne police came into the office and told us that from that point, they could not ensure the security of the staff on the premises if they chose to stay there. It was clear that it was a perfect storm. The potential for tragedy to happen was there, and we saw no point in risking that for principles at that stage.
Senator Wallin: My second question arises in part because of the arming of the guards and because of the references that you cite about where we work side by side between Canadians and Americans.
From your point of view, either as individuals or as representatives of your union, is there some profound, philosophical difference between you and your U.S. counterparts that you think would make that difficult, or any differences in approach that would create problems there? What is your view of that as you look at this issue today?
Mr. Moran: I think the law enforcement community in general tends to get along well with each other. With communities across the border, often a lot of community exchange happens between the two. They will do their shopping on one side; they will go to the bingo on the other side; you know what I mean. The people know each other and will play hockey together. We have joint facilities where they work closely, and where they do not work out of the same building, that camaraderie and law-enforcement bond still exist.
Senator Wallin: You do not foresee any issues in working together that closely?
Mr. Fortin: I personally have worked for over six years in one of the common facilities at Noyan, Quebec. These people are our friends. The border patrol comes, we get to know them, even their personal lives, and we socialize with them. It goes as far as that. I do not see a problem. I have visited their arming academy. The training is obviously similar to what we have.
Senator Wallin: Thank you.
Senator Campbell: Welcome. I see from your briefing that it has been three years since I was on this committee. Where are we on single crossings? In 2006, you had 138 and, according to Mr. Jolicoeur, it would take about three years before we would have no work-alone posts in Canada. How are we doing now that it is three years down the road?
Mr. Moran: Roughly three quarters of the 400 or so officers that are required to double up every facility have been trained at this stage and are in place.
Senator Campbell: How many is that? There were 139 in 2005. I am sorry. They jumped. There were only 138 in 2006. I would like to know how many there are now, three years later.
Mr. Fortin: I am not sure of the specific numbers, but it would be over 100 at this point in time.
Senator Campbell: We have taken care of 38.
Mr. Fortin: No, 100 posts are being doubled up out of the 138 or 139. Quebec was certainly highly impacted by that because out of 27 offices, more than three quarters had a situation of work-alone. Delays happened due to failures at the academy in Rigaud and the need to recruit another person and train them.
Senator Campbell: Is CBSA is moving along satisfactorily on the work-alone places?
Mr. Fortin: Yes, they are, but we do have concerns about ensuring that the commitment remains at 139 offices. I suspect right now it could be a little less due to certain facilities not being entitled to accommodate more than two persons because the office would be too small. I think they are looking at that situation right now.
Senator Campbell: Turning to my second question, perhaps you can explain how long the training is for one of your officers starting out.
Mr. Moran: At the Rigaud, Quebec facility, it is nine weeks. Our officers have to go through modules prior to going to Rigaud, so it depends on the pace at which they are capable of doing those. They are pre-required modules. Their training is completed when they go into their work-specific location, so they get an air-mode-specific training, or at least they are supposed to, when they go back to their respective ports.
Senator Campbell: When they are trained, do they get firearms training at the same time so that they come out of there in a position to be armed?
Mr. Fortin: That is very good question. As a matter of fact, I am provided with some notes here. They are not planning to start building the new arming facility at Rigaud before the fall of 2010. That is a concern because more and more officers get in right now without being trained. These new officers become officers who need to go back to get the training.
Senator Campbell: The training facility you have is not capable right now of doing firearms and regular training; is that correct?
Mr. Fortin: That is wrong. They are not being trained at all as far as the firearms.
Senator Campbell: Do you have firearms training capability there?
Mr. Fortin: Not yet.
Senator Campbell: Where is this academy?
Mr. Fortin: We have only one in Canada, and it is in Rigaud, Quebec, between Montreal and Ottawa.
Senator Campbell: It would seem to me there is a lost opportunity here as you go along in training because the ones you are training will be carrying a gun for the next 25 or 30 years. As you are training, you should be training in firearms and, at the same time, bringing in the senior officers who are not trained as well. I know this is a strange word for government to use, but it would seem as though it would be efficient.
The last thing I want to deal with arises from your briefing and the other notes here. Is there a lack of confidence between all of the police forces with respect to trustworthiness? I ask that because it does not make any sense to me to have an intelligence-gathering apparatus in all of these different agencies and not have all of those agencies involved in it. You seem to be left out of that position more often than not, rather than just being accepted in there. I do not understand why that is. The only thing I can think of is that perhaps, on the part of the other agencies, there may be a lack of confidence in your officers. I do not believe there should be, and I do not believe that there is a reason for there to be. However, as an ex-cop, I tend to look at it and ask why I am not talking to these people. Almost always, when intelligence is involved, it is that lack of confidence that what is happening here will stay in here. Is that a fair statement, or why are you not in the loop?
Mr. Moran: In my view, senator, the fear of providing us with too much information is more from within our own organization than it is from other police forces. We were speaking earlier, when answering a question from Senator Wallin, about joint facilities. You have an office, using the example of Noyan, Quebec, where the officers from the U.S. and Canada work side by side. When the U.S. side runs a name, it automatically runs that name against all of the data banks that are of interest to them, whether it is criminality, a history with the immigration, warrants, wanted terrorists or FBI lists and so on, which includes running it against our data.
Senator Campbell: Canadian Police Information Centre, CPIC.
Mr. Moran: That is correct. When we were having connectivity problems, that was one of the offices. Across from them was the U.S. running a name across all of their data banks. We had no mainframe connectivity at all. When we wanted CPIC information, and I should not be saying this, I guess, in this context, but informally, we would obtain our own Canadian information from U.S. colleagues, which was not proper protocol, but were doing it to assist us.
To answer your question, I think it is more from within that this fear exists about us having too much information because CPIC gives you information not only about admissibility but also all of the criminality.
Senator Campbell: Would you get their NCIC, which is the American equivalent of CPIC, or the National Criminal Information System?
Mr. Moran: Correct. It is the equivalent of our criminal CPIC. It is the criminal data bank. In the context of us having shared it, those are questions that should be better asked probably to Ms. Hébert.
Senator Campbell: I still have not received an answer to the question I asked. Senator Banks pointed out, in 2006, that you could phone the Gobi Desert, but you cannot get information into one of our border stations.
I think that is outrageous. My question still goes back. Are you not allowed to be a part of Shiprider? I do not understand that. What would the reasoning be behind that?
Mr. Moran: We are asking your committee to ask those questions because we are asking them and not receiving acceptable answers, either. The biggest and the most present law enforcement agency that is already on the border, that is already at the marinas and everywhere else, and that is now armed is not being asked to participate in that.
Senator Campbell: Why is it happening, in your mind?
Mr. Moran: It is for the same reason that there is a denial that is, unfortunately, being sustained in the senior management ranks of the organization. Those ranks are not accepting that the organization has evolved from being a primarily revenue-generating mindset organization. One would have thought that, when the service was carved right out of the Canada Revenue Agency and placed as a stand-alone agency alongside the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, CSIS, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, RCMP and the newly created Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada, that would have been a cue to those who were still skeptical.
Generating revenue will always be central to the work we do, but the primary focus is now public safety and law enforcement. I think the denial being sustained is a big issue. The answer we received was that they still feel the pain on their backside from the last report of the Auditor General, and there is always another one around the corner. Those are areas where it is our mandate.
Therefore, they feel it is not their mandate to fill those voids that are obvious between border crossings. Their message to government, I guess, is: If you are to ask us, you had better give us the proper legislative framework, and you had better give us the proper funding to do it or else we will concentrate on where we believe our mandate lies and where we will hopefully be able to stop getting some bad report cards from the Auditor General in areas such as immigration.
The Chair: Mr. Morin, can you clarify a point for me? You talk about the access to intelligence that you had. What intelligence is needed at the primary inspection line, and what intelligence is needed at secondary? Is it the same, or is it different?
Mr. Moran: The window of making a decision on whether you will send someone to secondary is roughly 20 seconds. It happens at primary. Therefore, if you do not know at the primary that the person has criminality, a history with immigration, an arrest warrant, is suspected of travelling with abducted children and so on, they will never be referred for secondary, unless it is on a fluke.
The Chair: Would it not be satisfactory at the primary simply to have a ``red light-green light,'' and if a red light comes up, you want to spend your time talking to that individual?
Mr. Moran: A flag, yes; certainly. If the person has a history of being violent with law enforcement officers, we want to have that information so that we can prepare our colleagues in the secondary area that we are referring someone to them that has already done that.
The Chair: In 20 seconds, you cannot read very much. You are busy talking to people, asking for IDs, et cetera; you are doing a lot of other stuff. Only at secondary could you take your time to sit down and look at what is happening. That is why I am asking whether you just want a green or a red light.
Mr. Moran: Beyond green and red, we want a flag, as I was pointing out. We want some type of caution if the person has a history of being violent. We want to be able to, at least, tell the people in the secondary area that we are referring such a person.
However, I agree with you. The point is we do not need the whole history of the person at primary. We will not do anything with it there, anyway.
Mr. Fortin: In comparison to the American side where they would, for example, punch a name, they will have different interfaces coming into one system. At least they know a problem exists. The problem we have is the interface. Right now, the systems are not talking to each other: CPIC versus immigration versus customs versus other systems. That is a problem.
The Chair: Are there plans to do that?
Mr. Fortin: We have been pushing for that. We are still wrestling, basically, in order to get the full accessibility to the different systems, which we do not.
The Chair: We will raise it with the next panel. Finally, you mentioned you are not part of Shiprider. Are the U.S. Customs and Border Protection part of Shiprider?
Mr. Moran: Absolutely.
Senator Banks: I have to preface my questions by saying that I am asking them out of ignorance, as I always do. The ignorance does not derive entirely from failing in the past to have asked the questions.
I am looking at a CBSA officer — is ``officer'' the right word?
Mr. Moran: Absolutely.
Senator Banks: I am looking at a CBSA officer who is at a border crossing and who is armed. I am returning to the question you raised about the statutory legislative basis from which many of these problems derive.
Tell me exactly what that officer is. He is not a police officer. Is he a peace officer? What are his powers of arrest, for example, by comparison with a police officer?
You will remember, Mr. Morin, my personal view about who should have guns at borders. What is the status of an armed CBSA officer?
Mr. Moran: I will tell you, senator, that it is almost the same as any police officer across Canada.
Senator Banks: Can he pursue?
Mr. Moran: By ``pursue,'' do you mean to jump in a car and run after someone?
Senator Banks: Yes, if someone runs the border, can he pursue?
Mr. Fortin: No. Technically, the agency policies stop us from doing that. We totally disagree with that; it does not make any sense. We do have cars at most of our offices, especially at the large offices. We should be entitled to at least get in the car and bring that person back to the station.
Senator Banks: However, they cannot.
Mr. Fortin: They cannot, due to policy.
Senator Banks: We already know that when someone does run the border — and that happens more times than we ever dreamed, or it used to the last time we heard — the best you can do is call the Mounties. In some cases, they are two hours away. If someone runs the border, they are gone.
Mr. Fortin: Yes.
Senator Banks: There is nothing your officers can do about that?
Mr. Fortin: Not at this point in time.
Senator Banks: What are the other differences between a CBSA officer and a police officer? Are the powers of arrest the same?
Mr. Fortin: Yes.
Senator Banks: Are the powers of response to threats the same?
Mr. Fortin: Yes.
Senator Banks: Are the responses to protection of the public the same?
Mr. Fortin: Yes. You will recall, senator, that we do have new officer powers. I think it was approximately in 2000 that the chamber legislated that. Basically, they made certain amendments to the Criminal Code in order to incorporate us into the family of law enforcement agencies.
The Chair: Senator Campbell, is this on exactly the same point?
Senator Campbell: It has to do with pursuit.
The Chair: Perhaps we can come back to it.
Senator Campbell: That is fine.
Senator Banks: I am only speaking personally and not for the committee. My personal view, however, was respected to some degree in committee reports. In June 2005, this committee recommended against the arming of CBSA officers. Instead this committee said that armed enforcement at the borders ought to be provided by the RCMP.
In a subsequent report in 2007, in response to the fact that the Liberal government would apparently not provide sufficient RCMP officers to do that, this committee then recommended that CBSA officers should be armed if the government is not prepared to provide RCMP officers at Canadian border crossings.
You have just said, in answer to Senator Campbell, that Rigaud does not have an armed training facility, but you have armed officers on borders now.
Mr. Fortin: Yes.
Senator Banks: Where do they learn?
Mr. Fortin: They learn in two places, senator: in Ottawa, in the Connaught Building and in Chilliwack, British Columba. These are the only two facilities that have the ability to train our officers.
Senator Banks: Who are the proprietors of those facilities? Are they RCMP facilities?
Mr. Fortin: The RCMP is overseeing the implementation of arming. We have basically the same training as any police officer.
Senator Banks: Are CBSA officers trained in arms to the same level as the RCMP? That was the second part of our recommendation of 2007 — that the certification program meets or exceeds the firearms course training of the RCMP. Is that now the case?
Mr. Fortin: Right now, yes, we do have 29 officers who are trainers at the RCMP standard.
Senator Banks: How many CBSA officers today, in a normal shift, are armed at our borders?
Mr. Fortin: They are not deployed in every office at this point. That is hard to answer because it varies, especially if you are looking in the northern part of Ontario; I would say approximately 30 per cent to 40 per cent. They are deployed right now at 55 land borders out of 119.
Senator Banks: Close to half.
Mr. Moran: It is a total of about 1,000 officers at this point.
Senator Banks: We are skipping around a bit. I want to ask one final question, chair, in this round, and I am sure we will lead to this. You have already talked, in answer to Senator Wallin, about Akwesasne. I am in complete ignorance of this.
I know you cannot explain this, but to an ignorant Canadian, it sounds as though there is a flouting of the law. The existing legal authorities say that they cannot guarantee to keep the peace. In the threat of violence in those situations — and in Akwesasne, in particular — the practice is that when there is a threat of violence by one side to flout or not observe the law, the other side, Canada, backs down as a matter of course. Have I got that right?
Mr. Moran: Sadly, you do have that right. It basically makes it, from the point of view of the majority of the officers there, irreconcilable at this stage when government basically concludes that the community is ungovernable. That is not me making a statement; it is just the reality of what happened there for the reasons that you stated.
If any other group of individuals, such as myself and a few of my buddies, did one tenth of what went on there, we would have already been in front of a judge and treated accordingly by the law. That does not happen in situations such as the one at hand. Under those circumstances, we have very few or probably no assurances to give to the people who we would ask in the future to work at that facility that they need not worry about their safety in those working conditions.
Senator Banks: Is your understanding of that problem being extant because it is a constitutional problem?
Mr. Moran: I do not think it is for me to say whether it is a constitutional problem. I can tell you as a law enforcement officer that there are obvious law enforcement violations. Whether it is intimidation, making threats or obviously being equipped to carry out those threats, as you pointed out, the modus operandi becomes that you just back away from the situation.
Senator Banks: I am sure criminals will be happy to know that.
Mr. Moran: I also said during my testimony that I do not think the issue was worth risking officers' safety, risking the safety of people from the community of Akwesasne who chose to involve themselves in that conflict or the safety of the travelling public. I do not think, under the circumstances — given the landscape, given the backdrop of the situation — that there was any other decision that could have been made. I would not have liked to have been the one who had to make those decisions.
Senator Carstairs: I want to be very clear here that this is on Akwesasne land.
Mr. Moran: Correct.
Senator Carstairs: This land is their property. When we come along and try to do something different on their property, surely they have a right to a position on that.
Mr. Moran: I am not challenging their right or questioning their opinion, but the reality is that the issue is bigger than they are. Border officers have a duty to evaluate the admissibility of individuals; they have a duty to evaluate the admissibility of goods; and they have a right to do so in the safest work environment possible.
Experts, including in this committee, have made recommendations that in order to do so, they require a level of protection which includes a side arm. The report conducted by the Northgate Group concluded that if anything, many of the duties that are undertaken by officers need that level of protection. That is because the search ability goes beyond the powers that most police officers have in the level of intrusion. If you are working undercover in a remote area — for example, sometimes you are just two officers in the middle of nowhere and you stumble upon half a kilo of cocaine — you need the same level of protection. It is not us that made that determination or that conclusion.
As I have stated, senator, we do not question their right to have an opinion, and I do not even question their opinion; but the reality is that the circumstances make it a place that is impossible for the people I represent to work at in any reassuring or secure way.
Senator Carstairs: You can argue that, but for many years they were not armed. The decision was made that they would be armed.
To your knowledge, was any discussion entered into with Akwesasne with respect to the fact that they had an option — that this was their land and they did not want to have armed people patrolling their land?
Mr. Fortin: If you allow me to make comment, fair enough, I understand what you are saying when you say that it is a different approach to have an armed force; but it is no different than anywhere else in Canada. When the government made the decision that there would be implementation at land borders, they did not make a distinction. They decided to arm our officers because of the role we have, to protect ourselves. We are arresting people who have been drinking and driving, for example. That is the only comment I wanted to make at this point.
Senator Carstairs: Except that the other places in which border offices are located are actually owned by the Government of Canada. These are owned by the people of Akwesasne.
The Chair: To clarify this, your position is that you would like the post moved off of the reserve?
Mr. Moran: Correct. That has been our position for over two decades.
Senator Meighen: Welcome, gentlemen, it is nice to see you again. I did not realize that four years have gone by so quickly.
Mr. Moran: Time flies.
Senator Meighen: Can I go back to the question of training? Four years ago, we were talking about 13 weeks of training, which had gone to 9 weeks, and then there was some talk of moving it back up to 13. Could you tell me what the situation is now?
Also, could you tell me whether I am right or wrong in saying that whatever the period, the duties for which your members are being trained are broader than they were four years ago? Now they are being trained for immigration purposes and for the use of firearms — I cannot remember the other ones, but certainly more than just asking how many dollars worth of clothing I bought on the other side of the border.
How many weeks are you trained now, and am I right in saying that your duties are broader than they were four years ago?
Mr. Fortin: We are talking about nine weeks of training. As well, all candidates have to be successful in the pre- training exercise, which takes approximately two weeks. If they are successful in the pre-training online exercise, they are allowed to go to Rigaud, Quebec, for nine weeks. By the way, the training will change to ten weeks, I have been told.
Senator Meighen: What does the two weeks of pre-training involve?
Mr. Fortin: It entails general questions on what we do. They go through various exercises after which they take a test at the end of the module.
Senator Meighen: Is it a test for general intelligence and judgment?
Mr. Fortin: No. The pre-training exercises pertain to our assignment.
Senator Meighen: Someone who applies to become a border officer must take a two-week online training course. Is that correct?
Mr. Fortin: Exactly.
Senator Meighen: There is a course on border security work.
Mr. Moran: This is after pre-screening, senator. The applicant has been approved to attend the college but is expected to complete the modules, which take approximately two weeks before they show up at the Rigaud training centre.
Senator Meighen: It has been lengthened from nine weeks to ten weeks, added to the two-week pre-training exercises.
Mr. Fortin: Plus, we have is post-training on the job, depending where the person is assigned, whether at the airport in Lacolle, Quebec or in Lansdowne, Ontario. Post-training on the job is with another person.
Our position has been clear. We think the entire training should be done at the college in Rigaud. The agency took that decision only because of their budget. When you apply for any police force, you have pre-training first. If you are successful, then you go to the academy, followed by more training. We think that all training should be done at Rigaud.
Senator Meighen: Why?
Mr. Fortin: The facilities and the trainers are there, and the quality of training would be better, in our view.
Senator Meighen: You agree with ongoing on-site training?
Mr. Fortin: Of course, because depending on where you will go, there is the reality of core training followed by a move to the assigned place. Keep in mind that training for arms takes three weeks. The officer deployed to an armed area, will require the ten weeks plus three weeks of training. The RCMP is 16 weeks I believe, more or less.
Senator Meighen: Are the individuals paid throughout the time of these introductory courses?
Mr. Fortin: Yes, they are paid $250 per week.
Senator Meighen: That is payment during the online pre-training exercises.
Mr. Fortin: No, they are not paid during that time.
Senator Meighen: I was referring to the two-week introductory online module.
Mr. Fortin: My understanding is that they are not paid for that, senator, although I am not positive.
Senator Meighen: When we talked last, about 22 per cent of your staff were replacement hires, most of which were students in the summertime. You will remember that we talked at length about students, their training and the advisability of having students. We also discovered that contrary to some evidence that we had received, it appeared that students were not always working under the supervision of a senior officer. At times, they were working alone and some students were conducting secondary inspections. That is the evidence we heard.
Can you tell me what the situation is with students today with their training and responsibilities that they are asked to undertake?
Mr. Moran: At land border crossings, we are told that this will be the last summer for student hires for a range of reasons. The main reason is the arming initiative, which changes the landscape of the work environment considerably. Once it was determined that the level of protection of officers in a given environment is such that they require the protection of a side arm, then it becomes difficult to sustain a student program, certainly given the way in which it was conducted at the CBSA.
We do want to underscore the fact that we have never objected to a student program as they should be conducted. The problem, as you pointed out, is that they became a cheap labour product within the agency to replace full-fledged officers. We provided rosters to this committee where the majority of a shift at Pearson International Airport, for example, could have 35 students and 3 symbolic officers working on a shift.
It is impossible for anyone to pretend that they are being properly mentored. Student programs exist to give an opportunity to young people to make a determination on whether they want to go into law enforcement to supplement their income.
Senator Meighen: Do you have any control over that?
Mr. Moran: The majority of the officers from the student program stay with us, such as Mr. Fortin who is here with me today. It is not a question of the program but more so of how it was bastardized. That is the only word I can think of to describe how the program became a source of cheap labour.
Senator Meighen: At a border crossing, such as St. Stephen-Calais, where one individual sits in a booth, a driver pulls up and the officer asks him how long he has been in the United States, what he bought, et cetera, and the driver provides the answers, if there is reason to conduct secondary inspection, would that be done by a full-fledged officer? Is that how you see it working?
Mr. Moran: The primary inspection line is where you would make a determination for admissibility, which is probably more important than any other position. The students are supposed to be supervised by someone they can ask. Once you send a person down the road, you cannot second guess your actions because it is too late by then.
Senator Meighen: If the student is doing the primary inspection, an experienced officer should be close at hand.
Mr. Moran: The experienced officer should be close enough to assist if the student has doubts, but that does not happen given the way in which the infrastructure is set up. Each person has a booth to conduct primary inspections. They should have the same level of training, access to data banks and protection. Anyone working there should meet all of the same work criteria that the other workers meet. That is the only safe way for an officer and the only secure way as a country to operate those points of entry.
The Chair: To clarify a point, it was our understanding that three or four years ago, the length of training was 13 weeks. Since then, you have added food, immigration and side arms. With these additional responsibilities, how do you reduce the training to nine or ten weeks?
Mr. Moran: The side-arm training will be an additional two weeks once the facility is up and running with the shooting range.
The Chair: That is two extra weeks.
Mr. Fortin: It is three extra weeks.
The Chair: Has the additional responsibility of food and immigration been easy?
Mr. Moran: I went through the course in 1991, before there was food and immigration, when it was a 14-week program. It was already condensed. I still felt that I learned most of my real training once I was assigned to the port and had seasoned officers coaching me. I can see the direction you are taking. The training was a challenge to complete in 14 weeks. It is a concern to have added those additional responsibilities to this hybrid border service officer that is expected to know immigration, agriculture and, of course, customs duties.
At the same time, they also removed the salary from the job. When I started, we were already getting wages. We were covered by the collective agreement when we went to Rigaud for the 14 weeks of training. Not many people — at least who I know — can afford to go into that if they already have a mortgage or financial responsibilities. It is impossible to join the agency now because all they receive is an allowance that will not pay the bills. As my colleague pointed out, it is strictly focused on cutting costs, and you get what you pay for. It is the same as anything else.
Senator Moore: I want to ask about the use of unmanned surveillance aircraft. A story was published in Halifax's The Chronicle Herald last Friday that talked about U.S. Customs and Border Protection using the remote-controlled Predator B on the Mexican border for several years. They began flying it on the northern border in February and are now testing it along Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. It goes on to report that they plan to fly patrols from Fort Drum until the end of the month:
The Predator flies at about 6,000 metres and can stay aloft for up to 18 hours. It can take high definition and infrared video of anything within a 40-kilometre radius and has extra-sensitive radar.
. . . the drone has been carrying out surveillance missions for American and Canadian law enforcement agencies during its test run in upstate New York. . . .
The border protection agency owns seven Predators. . . . The agency estimates 18 unmanned aircraft could adequately cover the southern and northern U.S. borders . . . .
Is your agency participating in this exercise?
Mr. Moran: A number of initiatives incorporate radar technology. I understand that is one of them. The Canadian side is being provided with the same data. That leads to comments such as those made by the assistant commissioner of the RCMP pointing to the obvious, which is that we do not have a border patrol.
It is nice to have access and to be told that there is movement, where that movement is happening and to detect movement between border crossings. However, we have to be able to follow up with a force actually on the ground that can pursue the detection that has been done.
Senator Moore: This report says that missions are being carried out for American and Canadian law enforcement agencies. Is your agency one of those law enforcement agencies? Are you involved in this exercise?
Mr. Moran: No, not to the best of my knowledge.
Senator Moore: You do not look as though you are.
Mr. Moran: No.
Senator Moore: You are not involved in the scheduling of the flights or in the area that the flights cover. Is that correct?
Mr. Moran: When you ask representatives from the agency, there may be intelligence staff working in collaboration with them. CBSA intelligence may be tapping in at some point or drawing intelligence from movement that this equipment is detecting should that be funnelled into CBSA. However, I do not have answers to those questions.
Senator Moore: Is information provided by this unmanned aircraft shared with your agency?
Mr. Moran: If there were a liaison or link between the agencies. However, I do not have an answer.
Senator Moore: Is there any link currently?
Mr. Moran: Not that I am aware of. If we look at the decision made not to include CBSA in Shiprider, it would appear that the tendency is not to involve this agency with those types of initiatives.
Senator Moore: However, your job is the border.
Mr. Moran: I totally agree.
The legislation is clear as we point out in our brief. Section 99 of the Customs Act provides the authority to intercept someone — when they report to customs or shortly after they have entered the country if they failed to report. It is an indictable offence not to report to customs.
As my colleague pointed out, it is a question of policy. It is not a question of having legislative authority. We are detecting a decreasing appetite, if anything, from the agency to participate in the obvious shortfalls to which everyone is pointing.
The more we become effective at the points of entry with technology, data banks and so on, the more the criminal element simply moves and finds other corridors, which become the frontier — unguarded roads, the waterways and fields.
Senator Moore: Does your agency own any of these aircraft?
Mr. Moran: No, definitely not.
Senator Moore: Do you anticipate acquiring any?
Mr. Fortin: Not that we are aware of. However, you are right, senator. We strongly believe that if language in the legislation is weak in giving us certain powers, it needs to reflect the reality of our work, which has changed significantly. If there is a problem with the act, it should be fixed to reflect reality.
We were talking about whether we can go after a car that went through the border. It does not make any sense, and it is frustrating for our officers to see those cars going by and not be able to react to it.
What you are pointing out is the same. If it needs to be corrected, then we would urge the government to do so.
Senator Lang: I want to pursue the line of questioning that Senator Meighen started. In your last response, you said that things have changed significantly. Senator Meighen asked whether your responsibility had changed in four years, and if it had changed dramatically with respect to training. Is that true?
Mr. Fortin: That is correct.
Senator Lang: Do you feel nine weeks increasing to ten weeks, with two weeks online, is sufficient for your personnel in view of your increased responsibility?
Mr. Fortin: We heard from our members that the immigration module especially could be longer. The core training for customs remains basically there. It could certainly be improved, and training could go from 10 weeks to 14 weeks.
Senator Lang: I have one other question that goes back to past experiences at our Yukon border in the North. We travel extensively between the United States and Canada. On a number of occasions, it has been an unpleasant experience going across the border either from the Canadian side or the American side.
In order to get a sense of whether those officers at particular border posts are overreaching their authority or not exercising it properly, have you ever considered creating a website so that people can inform you of their experiences as opposed to the individual who goes home and says that he or she will write a letter and, of course, does not? It would inform you of what is occurring at the various border crossings.
Some unpleasantness is experienced simply because of personnel — nothing else. I had a situation the other day where an individual who works for the Government of Canada had to cross the border three times in the course of a day, and he was nearly strip-searched. Obviously, he is not very happy. He has the authority, and he has all his identification.
The other reason I am pursuing this is that it was quite interesting when former presidents Clinton and Bush came to Canada and admitted that they did not know if any problems exist at the border or not. That reflects what is happening on the United States side. Therefore, for the purposes of informing yourselves and the American side, I am wondering whether you have thought of that idea. Then the common citizen can contact you directly and keep you informed of what is occurring along the border.
Mr. Fortin: In which sense do you mean?
Senator Lang: I am talking about a complaint line, such as a website. Then if you get a number of complaints in one particular area, you should investigate. Otherwise, it goes on for years until it becomes a crisis.
Mr. Fortin: From what I understand, when we have complaints, most of them are being addressed directly on the site, especially when we are talking about a large site.
However, in your case specifically, in the North, my understanding is they would write a complaint directly to an officer in charge.
As far as creating a website where people can complain, I am not aware of that. Perhaps Ms. Hébert, who will appear after us, could elaborate on that.
Mr. Moran: We are aware that they are looking at all of those options. I think a website is one of the options that they indicated they would be prepared to look at.
Oversight is something we mention in our brief. In light of the fact that the force is now armed and so on, some oversight is necessary. There is nothing right now, other than a letter written to the president.
He testified before the House of Commons committee that that was no longer an appropriate or acceptable level of access for people to voice any concerns they may have with the service or how it is being delivered. They are looking at that.
We would urge committees such as this that oversee those types of initiatives to ensure independence in who would be conducting investigations of a more serious nature, when there is, for example, an alleged abuse of force or an alleged inappropriateness of a higher level. Those investigations should not be internal.
Keep in mind that the RCMP is part of the same department, so one could easily argue that giving it to the RCMP is not considered objective. Certainly optics would be such that that would raise questions. It is a good point.
Senator Moore: I want to follow up on Senator Lang's question. For example, I come into Canada at the Halifax airport, and I go to the person in the booth and give them my passport and make my declaration. Who is that person; one of your officers?
Mr. Moran: Absolutely.
Senator Moore: I go along further and pass a customs form to someone else. Who is that person? Is that one of your people?
Mr. Moran: That is another CBSA officer. The primary line is the booth, and then when you exit you have what we call the point officer. That is the officer who looks at your card and whether the primary officer has determined that you will go into secondary or not.
The Chair: In his case, he is going to secondary.
Mr. Moran: Apparently.
Senator Moore: Because I am bringing back stuff for him.
At both stations, are those personnel part of your group?
Mr. Moran: All three stations. If you refer to secondary, those are also CBSA officers.
Senator Tkachuk: Thank you, witnesses. This question is for the other members as well, but I want to get your views on the Akwasasne reserve. Is the objection of the chief and the band council a constitutional question or a policy question? In other words, do they object totally to border officers having guns, or do they say that the only way they can have guns is if they issue their right to have guns? Do they support the principle of having guns, but on the basis that they are the ones who should authorize it?
Mr. Moran: Again, senator, with all due respect, I would feel out of school answering those types of questions. I can give you my personal opinion, but that would be just from my take on it.
Senator Tkachuk: What is your take?
Mr. Moran: My take is that they, culturally, are of the view that no one brings weapons onto their land without being authorized, or it can be interpreted as a conflict.
Senator Tkachuk: Does that include the RCMP?
Mr. Moran: That is where it gets a little fuzzy and confusing to try to keep track of it. Fundamentally, that is my understanding of the position that was taken, unless they authorize it.
To answer your question, from what I have read, heard and been exposed to, it is a question of them not being properly consulted and then not having given the authorization for that to take place.
Mr. Fortin: They were also pointing out the training; they thought our officers were not sufficiently trained to carry weapons. I would like to highlight to this committee that this training is provided by the RCMP.
Senator Tkachuk: I want to clarify something on the 13 weeks of training because we did not get a precise answer. After the 13 weeks' training in Quebec, you said that they then have what I would call mentor training at other border crossings. Exactly what does that entail, and how long does it take? Is there a precise length of time for that to happen before they are told that they are fully trained border officers and can now have guns? How does that work exactly?
Mr. Moran: Many things are at play. For example, if you are assigned to an airport, you will only learn the mode- specific part of the work once you get to the airport.
When I went through to Rigaud in 1991, we used to learn a bit of every mode. Although I was going to an airport in my particular case, I learned some things about the border that I may never use in my career. It would be the same for an officer going to the border who would have learned how to conduct a search in the airport environment and so on.
That part of the training is now supposed to be given in a mode-specific way, but many inconsistencies exist. Due to a lack of resources, sometimes you are taken out of the pan and thrown into the fire.
The level of mentoring and the consistency of it are not there to begin with, which is a concern.
Senator Tkachuk: Let us be more specific because I am a little confused by this. You go to training for 13 weeks.
Mr. Moran: Nine weeks.
Senator Tkachuk: Nine weeks. That is your core training.
Mr. Moran: That is core training.
Senator Tkachuk: Let us say that you are assigned to the airport. How long does that training take, and does it take the same amount of time as it would at a border crossing?
Mr. Moran: We are supposed to be coached or mentored for three weeks when we get to our work location.
Senator Tkachuk: Then is there an assessment done, an appraisal, or an exam?
Mr. Moran: You have already begun work, so you are already a full-fledged officer at that time, and you have started your probation period.
Senator Tkachuk: The same pay as anyone else?
Mr. Moran: Correct. The same pay, same benefits, you are on the roster; you are scheduled, but you are going through this mentoring and coaching mechanism. You are supposed to be assessed during that entire year of probation.
Mr. Fortin: I think it is more like $125 that the officer gets for the nine weeks, but, comparatively speaking, if you go to the academy to be an RCMP officer, you get $500 per week.
Senator Tkachuk: They do now.
Mr. Fortin: Yes. We feel we are not able to compete with the RCMP in recruiting because if you have a mortgage — and we would like to attract these people to our organization — who can pay a mortgage on $125 a week?
Senator Tkachuk: I want to go to the question of violent situations. For example, you talked about car chases. Do you have incident reports? How many times would an automobile bust through a border, crossing from the United States?
Mr. Moran: The fresh data, we do not have. You may recall, if you were on this committee, it was quite alarming to all of us to realize that there was no such data being kept initially.
Senator Tkachuk: Was that in 2006?
The Chair: We did receive a report from CBSA for a six-month period.
Mr. Moran: That is correct. They produce those reports regularly now, which is comforting to that level. The question would be better put to them because I do not have the fresh data in terms of port running.
Senator Tkachuk: Do you have information as to where the most dangerous sites would be or anything similar, or is it equal across the whole border?
Mr. Fortin: We do not necessarily agree. The agency's tendency is to think that if you are at a high volume the greater the risk is, whereas sometimes we could argue that it is if you are in the middle of nowhere. I could certainly argue that sometimes it could be very dangerous to work in certain territories. That would be my take on it.
Senator Tkachuk: I take it the department keeps information on violent incidents as well, does it?
Mr. Fortin: Correct.
Senator Tkachuk: When customs officers would be confronted with a violent person and perhaps a gun pulled, or something similar, would you have that information as well?
Mr. Moran: Correct.
Senator Tkachuk: How many customs officers are female?
Mr. Moran: I do not have that information with me. It would be easy to find out.
Senator Tkachuk: Do you not have any of that? Would the department people have it?
Mr. Fortin: They would definitely have it. I know that prior to the Arming Initiative it was fairly close as far as male versus female. Apparently the Arming Initiative did have an impact on that, having more males. Beyond that, or being more specific on the numbers, I am sure Ms. Hébert could provide that.
The Chair: I would like to thank you very much on behalf of the committee. It has been an instructive session for us. You have raised a number of issues that we will pursue further, if we may. We would also like to send further questions to you, and that would be of great assistance if we could. Thank you very much for your help with our study today.
Honourable senators, we have before us as our second panel today Ms. Barbara Hébert, Vice-President, Operations Branch, Canada Border Services Agency. Ms. Hébert joined the public service in October of 1981 to work for Transport Canada. In September of 1983, she moved to Revenue Canada, Customs and Excise, and subsequently held more progressive and senior positions both at headquarters and in the field.
On May 10, 2004, she assumed her duties as the vice-president of CBSA's Operations Branch. She is accountable for ensuring national consistency of program delivery and the application of service standards in all regions. She is responsible for coordinating regional operations and integrating programs in the field; implementing new programs and initiatives; and building relationships with key stakeholders, including overseeing regional union and management relations; allocating program delivery resources; directing the training and learning agenda, its priorities; and managing media on sensitive operational issues.
With her, we have Kimber Johnston, Vice-President, Enforcement Branch. Prior to joining CBSA, Ms. Johnston was most recently the director general of National Security and Emergency Management, Policy Directorate, within Public Safety Canada. She has held several other executive positions in the Government of Canada.
In her role as the vice-president of the Enforcement Branch, Ms. Johnston is responsible for developing national procedures, strategies and operational policies relating to intelligence, investigations and enforcement programs. As the focal point for the CBSA's relations with security, law enforcement and the intelligence community, she also develops and manages partnerships with other departments, agencies, provincial and foreign governments and the private sector. Ms. Johnston also provides strategic leadership and advice on the creation and coordination of comprehensive domestic law enforcement and border policies and directs various enforcement and intelligence program development initiatives.
I would like to welcome you both here. I understand you have a brief opening statement.
Barbara Hébert, Vice-President, Operations Branch, Canada Border Services Agency: Thank you and good evening, Mr. Chair. On behalf of Stephen Rigby, President of the Canada Border Services Agency, I thank the committee for the opportunity to address the status of recommendations dealing with border issues made in the Canadian Security Guide Book 2007. I would like to first offer some context for the conversation.
[Translation]
The formation of the Canada Border Services Agency in 2003 brought together functions of customs, immigration and food inspection with long histories and rich, diverse cultures. Customs officers have long been Canada's first line of protection. The customs agency was created in 1841, predating both Confederation and the RCMP's formation in 1873.
[English]
Immigration enforcement can be traced back to the Immigration Act of 1906, mandating greater scrutiny in admitting persons to Canada, with a border inspection service established in 1908 at 37 points of entry along the Canada-U.S. border. Given the perennial importance of agriculture to Canada, the health and safety of food, animals and plants crossing the border has always been vital.
Our legacy organizations have been active at the border for a long time. As for the CBSA, its roots are sturdy, but it is only five years old as an organization. It is still growing and developing and is doing so within the most dynamic risk environment of our generation.
As the agency has evolved, we have had an abundance of insightful research material with which to take stock; in particular, the report we are addressing today and two Office of the Auditor General of Canada reports, one on how we manage the balance between security and facilitation and the other on immigration enforcement. These reports and others, combined with internal audits and evaluations and the daily management of border issues, have given us the perspective to assess what is working, what is not and what we need to change.
[Translation]
Over the past five years, significant investments have been made to manage risk, improve border operations and tighten border security.
The agency has worked towards the government's commitment of arming officers and eliminating work-alone sites to provide greater protection to officers at the border and to those engaged in border-related enforcement activities within Canada.
[English]
Most recently, Bill S-2, which has now received Royal Assent, paves the way for vital changes to the Customs Act. These amendments will enhance our national security profile by strengthening the CBSA's ability to interdict contraband and other illegal items in customs-controlled areas such as on airport tarmacs and seaport docks. Bill S-2 will also enable implementation of eManifest, the third phase of our Advanced Commercial Information initiative.
[Translation]
While we have taken concrete steps over the past two years to meet the concerns noted in the committee's report, work still needs to be done. We need to do a better job of maximizing our resources and allocating them according to risk.
[English]
Clearly, free nations cannot guarantee absolute safety against border threats. We can, however, optimize our response to those threats. To do this, we must become more effective at bringing risk information to bear at the earliest possible moment. This will give us greater latitude as we allocate our scarce enforcement resources.
The CBSA already has a substantial international platform of officers. We are reviewing this platform to assess whether our international resources are doing the right things in the right places, and whether we are managing these resources in the optimal fashion.
We need to continue to deploy technology that enhances risk management by providing advanced information, identifying trusted travellers or examining cargo.
We have been on the leading edge in deploying electronic advanced information systems in the commercial import stream, in using biometrics to identify trusted travellers in our NEXUS program and in implementing detection technologies for examining cargo containers and conveyances. These include the radiation detection systems recently implemented at the five major marine container ports.
Finally, we need to build a more nimble and focused organization. We need to increase the extent to which the CBA manages standards and goals, sets clearer targets, directs resources to those endeavours and accounts to our stakeholders on the extent to which we are successful.
We are currently subject to a strategic review, a process all departments and agencies are required to complete every four years, to ensure resources are allocated to programs that meet the highest government priorities. This review is timely and will guide us in shaping our organization to meet the challenges of the future.
To conclude, the CBSA has a considerable agenda for change. Much needs to be done and considerable progress has already been made. However, in order to sustain our momentum, we need to work with this committee and other parliamentary representatives, as well as partners in other government departments and agencies, international allies and the wide range of stakeholders with an interest in how Canada manages its border.
We are confident that our early progress and our plans for the future will optimize the degree to which our borders promote both public safety and economic prosperity.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Hébert. Just before we go to the questioners, you said on page 4 that you have taken concrete steps over the past two years to meet the concerns noted in the committee's last report and that work still needs to be done.
Does that mean that the organization has accepted the recommendations that the committee made and it is simply a question of implementation, or are there some recommendations that we made that the organization has not accepted?
Ms. Hébert: Senator, I do not think it is a question of accepting or not accepting. Certainly the CBSA was already interested in some of the suggestions in the report and has moved forward with them. I will give two examples: I know you were very interested in port running, and we have taken steps to address that. You obviously are interested in the arming of officers or having an armed presence at our borders, and I think, through the government's initiative, steps have been taken in that regard also.
The Chair: Do you also have two examples that the organization does not agree with?
Ms. Hébert: I am not in a position to answer that today.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Banks: I am sorry to ask that question again, but that report was some time ago. Surely the agency has considered the contents of the recommendations in our committee's report. Do you accept them? Do you agree with them, or do you have reservations about some of them? You are the deputy director. There must be an answer to that. We did not issue the report last Thursday.
Ms. Hébert: Mr. Chair, I fully recognize that the report has been out for two years now. There are certainly some very interesting ideas. I have spoken about two of them. Some of the other suggestions in the report relate to ensuring that we have, I will say, sufficient control mechanisms, sufficient evaluations of processes, that type of thing. Since the CBSA was created, we have had 42 audits and evaluations that have been undertaken and, in fact, posted on the website, so that is a direct example of representing some of the interest in your report.
I know there is great interest in ensuring efficient use of intelligence and that we improve our efforts there. Certainly the CBSA has undertaken steps to do exactly that.
The Chair: Can we take it as a ``yes,'' that you do support the recommendations that the committee has made?
Ms. Hébert: I am not sure it is my place, to be honest, Mr. Chair, to accept or not. I am here to respond to questions about the programs that we have in place and the changes we have made.
Senator Banks: You referred, in your report, to ``substantial international platform of officers.'' What does that mean?
Ms. Hébert: I will ask my colleague Ms. Johnston to reply to that.
Kimber Johnston, Vice-President, Enforcement Branch, Canada Border Services Agency: Senator Banks, we have a network of migration integrity officers. We have approximately 60 migration integrity officers stationed in approximately 60 locations around the globe.
Senator Banks: I understand what that meant.
Ms. Johnston: In addition, we have five container security officers stationed in foreign locations at foreign ports to do marine container examinations.
Senator Banks: Thank you. That answers the question.
On the question of arming officers, without answering, ``yes, it has improved the security and safety of officers,'' which is certainly important to us, is there a metric by which you can and have measured the ways in which, if it is demonstrable, arming your officers at border crossings — land or airports or wherever — has had an effect? Has it changed something? Has it changed the number of times that people try to get stuff across? Has it reduced the number of violent incidents? Are there some measurables that we can look at resulting from armed border officers?
Ms. Hébert: To begin with, senator, perhaps I will just note that we are arming officers at land borders, marine operations and other enforcement activities as well. For clarity, we will not arm officers that work within airport terminals.
Senator Banks: The police do that, right.
Ms. Hébert: We are in the early stages of the rollout. While the government announced the initiative in August of 2006, we began rolling out our first trained officers at the end of July 2007. We currently have 917 officers across the country deployed with their firearms. We are so early in the rollout of this 10-year program that it would be hard to have specific metrics.
If you were asking my opinion about what I think a good metric might be, one of the benefits of having officers armed would be the ability to respond to perhaps more events or interactions, given the benefit of the extra tool, than perhaps they could have done before. To my knowledge, we have not had an example thus far in the rollout of the arming initiative where that was required.
Senator Banks: Pursuing that line a bit, we have talked before, and I think you probably have seen some record of our having talked before, about what was, to us, at the time that we adduced the evidence, an astonishing number of people who run the land borders with automobiles. We have expressed concern in the past that, first, the RCMP are not readily available at border crossings, and that was one of the reasons that your officers have been armed, in fact; and second, that when someone does — and the number of people who do run the border is in the hundreds, or at least it was the last time we asked the question — it is not possible for your officers to pursue those people. Therefore, for all intents and purposes, no one does. Is it your agency's position that your officers ought to be able to pursue people who run the border in automobiles?
Ms. Hébert: You are entirely correct, senator, when you talk about the numbers of port-running incidents in the past and our policy about officers not pursuing those that evade the port of entry, at least initially.
Senator Banks: My question is partly based on the fact that your officers do not and the RCMP apparently cannot, so no one does.
Ms. Hébert: I perhaps have some good news for you senator. We do have examples where we would contact the local police of jurisdiction, which frequently would not be the RCMP, to pursue people who perhaps have left the port of entry before we thought their process had concluded.
I have examples certainly in the City of Windsor where someone left the port of entry prematurely, and the Windsor city police pursued those individuals. I also have concrete examples in the province of Quebec where the Sûreté du Québec would undertake that if we called them and asked them to find a vehicle that had prematurely left the port of entry. We do have examples of success where people have been brought back to the port and perhaps had a penalty applied. We have some examples where prosecution unfolded, so we do have some examples.
Senator Banks: Would that be a significant percentage of the 500 or so that we learned went across every six months or so or a small percentage?
Ms. Hébert: There would not be a significant number of prosecutions, senator.
Senator Banks: What about pursuits?
Ms. Hébert: Approximately 415 incidents of port running occurred in 2008, and a full 73 per cent of them had some follow-up work done. That would be a combination of local police of jurisdiction returning those individuals to the point of entry; it might be that we had intelligence and were then able to issue a lookout in the future, that we applied a financial penalty, a combination of all the tools at our disposal. I do know that in excess of 50 per cent have some result as the result of that activity, so I do think we are making progress.
Senator Banks: Does your agency, though, want to be able to have your officers pursue people who run the border in an automobile?
Ms. Hébert: The legislation allows my officers to be peace officers while they are administering the legislation at ports of entry. I think it is more acceptable to have police forces of jurisdiction do that pursuit.
Senator Banks: I have one final question about safety.
The Auditor General asked questions in her report about your lookout capability and was critical of it. On the same line, we have had pretty credible testimony from the Integrated Threat Assessment Centre and the National Risk Assessment Centre, which I think are functions of your agency.
Ms. Hébert: The National Risk Assessment Centre is part of the operations branch, yes. However, the Integrated Threat Assessment Centre is not part of the Canada Border Services Agency.
Senator Banks: In terms of the National Risk Assessment Centre, am I right in connecting that with part of what the Auditor General was looking at? We have heard that it is sometimes less than effective. Have you reacted to those criticisms, to those perceived shortfalls?
Ms. Hébert: I will start by responding to your question, and then I will ask my colleague again to add to that.
We took the recommendations of the Office of the Auditor General extremely seriously, and we developed an action plan that covers several areas including addressing the point that you raise. It is what I call connect the dots, namely, ensure that the linkages are there, including those for intelligence and risk assessment. Perhaps I will ask Ms. Johnston to add to that.
Ms. Johnston: With respect to risk assessment, we continue at the CBSA to refine our risk assessment capabilities on an ongoing basis. We were grateful for the observations of the Auditor General, but the continuing refinement of risk assessment is something that we do on an ongoing basis within CBSA. By that, I mean continually reviewing the effectiveness of our targeting, for example. We take a risk that is evaluated and assessed usually against a fairly sophisticated risk algorithm. We continue to refine our risk assessment methodologies over time, as a result of the targeting practices and the results that we get. I think it is fair to say that this work is being undertaken in response to the Auditor General's report, but it is the refinement that we do on a continuing basis, namely, to take our intelligence, do a thorough risk assessment and base our targeting activities on that risk assessment.
That being said, there are always opportunities for continuing improvement. As I mentioned, we just updated our risk algorithms in our TITAN system, which is our commercial targeting system. We continue to work not only internally but also externally, with our counterparts in the U.S. and with like-minded countries and so on, to refine our risk assessment approaches.
One of the key things we are trying to institute within CBSA that we feel is absolutely essential — and this was a recommendation contained in the Auditor General's report — is tying into what is called a feedback loop, whereby we identify risk. We do our targeting activities, but we need to look at the results and how the results compare with the referrals in the targeting in order to better inform whether or not we will have the risk assessment at the outset. We call that an intelligence feedback loop. That is something that we instituted about this time last year, in August 2008. Its name within the organization is the Process Monitoring Framework. That is where the officers who are doing the examinations and who have the results feed that back in so that we can complete the story, if you like, in our risk assessment. That is another major step forward for the agency when it comes to risk assessment.
Senator Tkachuk: Thank you, witnesses, for coming here today.
Following up on the training for armed border officers, how many officers would have to be trained? Could you tell me how many you train per year? When do you expect that officers will be fully trained at all the border crossings in the country, with the understanding that airports are not part of the equation?
Ms. Hébert: We began this initiative with the first trained officers at the end of July 2007. When the government announced this initiative in August 2006, they laid this out over a 10-year period. We would expect to have completed the arming training for approximately 4,800 officers by 2016. We are on a pace of training approximately 500 per year. I mentioned earlier that, as of the end of May, we currently have 917 officers. We are clearly on track to do exactly that.
I expect that we will continue to be on track.
Senator Tkachuk: You spoke about border incidents where a car or a truck or some other vehicle crashes through the border and gets into the country. How many did you say there were per year?
Ms. Hébert: In 2008, we had 415 incidents.
Senator Tkachuk: How many in 2006 and 2007? Would that figure be increasing or decreasing?
Ms. Hébert: We saw a decrease from 2007 to 2008. We had 485 in 2007. I apologize; I do not know the number from 2006.
Senator Tkachuk: A little over 90 million crossings take place per year. That includes airports. How many crossings would there be if you discount the airport crossings?
Ms. Hébert: You are correct, senator, approximately 95 million people cross the border every year. About 70 million of those cross at the land border. About 20 million are at airports, and the remaining 5 million would be a combination of marine, cruise ships, rail so on.
Senator Tkachuk: Of those 415 incidents, would they be Canadians crossing back into Canada, or would they be Americans or others crossing into Canada?
Ms. Hébert: It is certainly possible to have a combination of both. Many times, we have people in Canada who are heading to the United States without intending to head to the United States.
Senator Tkachuk: Say that again, please?
Senator Campbell: For example, heading from Saskatchewan down to the United States, where you do not really want to go.
Senator Tkachuk: Or you do not know.
Senator Campbell: Yes, you are not sure you crossed the border.
Senator Tkachuk: In Saskatchewan, you can always cross the border without knowing.
Ms. Hébert: We have many incidents in the Lower Mainland, B.C., where people head toward the ferry to go to Victoria and, in fact, do not take the right turn — and I literally mean ``right turn'' — and they keep going. They find themselves between the Canadian port of entry and the American port of entry. They do not want to enter the United States — that was not their intended destination — so they turn around to come back north, as it were.
They feel that they never intended to leave Canada. They did not think they were required to stop and report at our port of entry, so that is not an insignificant occurrence.
Senator Tkachuk: Is that similar to most of them? Are there 100 of those types of incidents per year? Out of the 415, how many of those would there be?
Ms. Hébert: I do not know the exact break down for 2008, but at a previous time when I testified before this committee about this issue, the numbers were well over 100.
Senator Campbell: They were not from B.C.
Senator Tkachuk: Only about 300 of these would be serious incidents, or more serious incidents than those would be. Of the 300, do we have statistics? Are they kids getting a little tight and going through the border or are they potential criminals? What happens to them? If you report them, how many of them are actually caught within the Canadian border, after they get through the border, by the RCMP, the police, or good citizens? I have no idea. Are they lost forever?
Ms. Hébert: Of the 415 to which I referred for 2008, we were able to do something with in excess of 50 per cent. That would be a combination, senator, including having them brought back to the port of entry by the police of local jurisdiction, maybe a penalty or, very few times, a prosecution. It could be that we have intelligence on the vehicle and, therefore, work with our enforcement partners to deal with that. We might put a lookout on the vehicle or that type of thing. We have in excess of 50 per cent with whom we are able to take some action.
Senator Tkachuk: Are the others just sort of lost in the country? Are they just sort of in and you have no idea? Would you at least have their licence plate number? Would you know if it is an American car or a Canadian car or a truck or other vehicle that got through?
Ms. Hébert: In almost three quarters of the cases, we are able to refer some information, but that is not 100 per cent.
Senator Tkachuk: Would you not have a camera that would take their picture so that you would know what their licence plate number was?
Ms. Hébert: In some circumstances we do have cameras that can take the licence plate information, and that is helpful in the follow-up work that we would do, but that does not happen in all of the cases.
Senator Tkachuk: I want to focus on this, if I could. Although this issue has come up, it would be nice to learn exactly who these people are. Let us discuss the ones who you catch. Suppose 100 people who meant to go to Tsawwassen got mixed up and went through the border. It is mostly B.C. It is not the Saskatchewan people. I cannot help if we populated the two provinces west of us, but we did. Of the 100 that you caught, were they serious criminals, misdemeanours or kids who were a little tight? Who are these people who go through the border without checking in?
Ms. Hébert: Of the people with whom we have been able to take follow-up action, when I referred to prosecution, it was prosecution for not reporting properly to the CBSA, but no other criminal activity has been identified for any of those people.
Senator Tkachuk: I am trying to get testimony. We do not make assumptions in this committee, or we should not. We should try to get testimony.
On the question of violent incidents or violent situations at a border, how many of those would there be per year where perhaps there might be a need for an officer to draw a gun?
Ms. Hébert: Senator, since we started the rollout of armed officers at the end of July 2007, to date, we have had 46 incidents where an officer has drawn his or her firearm. We have had no incidents where a firearm has been discharged in the course of duty.
Senator Tkachuk: How would you compare that to before having firearms? Do you think this low incidence is because of prevention or because people knew they had a firearm? These numbers are pretty low. Was it never a serious problem in the first place?
Ms. Hébert: I cannot compare to what might have happened before July 2007, but certainly it is well known by the Canadian public and others that officers are armed. In fact, many people assume that officers have always been armed. The training we give our officers is second to none. The officers are able to respond accordingly to incidents and hopefully defuse them.
The Chair: Just for clarification, the last time you were here, I believe you gave us information for a six-month period as opposed to a one-year period. Is that your recollection?
Ms. Hébert: To be honest, Mr. Chair, I appeared before you several times. I do not recall what I may have said the last time or the previous time, but I have certainly discussed port running with you before.
The Chair: Would it be possible for you to provide to the committee in writing the amount of port running that has taken place over the last decade?
Ms. Hébert: I probably cannot give you for the last decade.
The Chair: What is a more reasonable time?
Ms. Hébert: We have been collecting these statistics for the last three years. I would be able to provide you with that.
The Chair: If you could send that to the clerk, that would be wonderful. Thank you.
Senator Campbell: It is interesting. I read your report, and I wrote down here that this is a young, fast-growing organization. Basically, that is what you said. I want to clear the decks, first, on border running. This is a red herring. I have no idea who puts this up, but 415 out of even, let us say, 35 million, if there are two people in a car, is nothing. It is not even of significance. This idea that we would be wasting time training your members on pursuit when we cannot even get them all trained fast enough with weapons is a red herring.
One of the difficulties that we see from the previous witness is that they are extremely disappointed to see that the government has chosen to deliberately exclude CBSA from the Canada-U.S. Shiprider agreement. I go back to this as a young organization that is fast growing. Perhaps you could give me some rationale for that, and then perhaps I could give you some from my point of view.
Ms. Hébert: I will start, and perhaps my colleague will be able to amplify my comments.
The Canada Border Services Agency is responsible for the administration of border legislation at ports of entry. It does not have responsibility to administer that legislation between ports of entry. That is an interesting point to keep in mind as we consider this.
Senator Campbell: Would this move into the realm of we would like to be border patrol and be moving back and forth along the border, such as the U.S. does? Would that be the intent? For instance, this was the union position.
Ms. Hébert: I do not think I am able to speak to the intent of what the union may have said.
Ms. Johnston: I have nothing further to add.
Senator Campbell: By 2016, you will have 4,800 officers trained; correct?
Ms. Hébert: That is correct, senator.
Senator Campbell: You are assuming there would be only 4,800 officers in 2016. You hired 400 more, or I believe you are in the process of.
Ms. Hébert: That is correct.
Senator Campbell: What is to say that we are not up to 6,000 or maybe 6,500 officers by then? At this rate, you could not possibly train all of those people, unless you are planning on setting up a new centre over and above what you already have planned.
Ms. Hébert: When the government announced this initiative in 2006, the 4,800 estimate was derived based on the officers that we thought we would have within our organization and the responsibilities that would be subject to an arming environment. Certainly, if the government decides to increase that number, we will respond accordingly.
Senator Campbell: The 4,800 officers is actually a number for 2016.
Ms. Hébert: Based on what we knew in 2006, that was the number planned for 2016.
Senator Campbell: How about now?
Ms. Hébert: I am still working with that number. Depending on how we allocate resources or whatever, there is some flexibility. The essential point is that we would be implementing arming in the agreed-upon areas that the government had articulated in 2006, but basically we are working with the same general number.
The Chair: Just for clarification, my understanding is that the government has authorized an addition of 400 personnel over a five-year period. Are you aware of any other authorizations for increases in personnel in CBSA?
Ms. Hébert: Mr. Chair, you are correct if you are referring to the 400 additional resources for the elimination of officers who work alone. Those 400 officers are included in the 4,800 that we have previously discussed for arming.
The government has allocated resources for a variety of issues. However, if you are primarily interested in front-line border services officers in the arming environment, that is the only one I can think of right now.
The Chair: My impression was that CBSA was not growing in terms of personnel, other than the 400 to deal with the single-post issue.
Do I have it wrong? Are there other areas where the government has authorized further growth?
Ms. Hébert: Yes, the government has authorized growth in other areas. Some of those relate to our enforcement program, generally. Perhaps my colleague can speak to that.
Ms. Johnston: For example, just last year the government authorized additional resources to help combat fraud, particularly immigration fraud. We received additional resources, again additional complement to our migration integrity officers overseas. We added another 12 posts overseas on migration integrity. Additionally, we added some additional resources around inland detection for fraud. That would be an example of where there is a specific government initiative, and we have received additional resources.
The Chair: Could we please have a list of how many programs and how many people are associated with each program?
Ms. Johnston: Absolutely.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator Lang: I would like to welcome you here this evening. I know it is a little later than most nights at your workplace.
I asked a question of the previous witnesses. It is an area that I think should be looked at by the administration. The issue is how a private citizen is able to inform the administration when they feel they have not been served properly at a border crossing.
We have had some instances up North sometime in the past. However, I also know you get situations where personnel sometimes over-extend their authority, which makes the situation at the border a very unpleasant experience. I also know that most people will probably not complain. They will just think there is no use; it will take too much time to write a letter, mail it, et cetera. Subsequently, you are never really informed that an incident may have happened.
Have you ever thought of setting up an advertised website so that if people do have a concern, they can contact you and you can become aware of it? If there is one situation, that is fine. However, if all of a sudden, you have 20, 30 or 40 over a short period of time, I would say that you have a bit of a problem and maybe you can deal with it.
Conversely, have they thought of doing that on the American side? That is especially important. I can tell you that I do not like going across to the United States because I have to come back — the American side can be a bad situation, as well, at times.
Have you considered doing that?
Ms. Hébert: I will answer the question in two parts, if you agree: the mechanisms that exist for someone to bring their lack of satisfaction to our attention and initiatives that we are undertaking to try to make it a more pleasant experience for the travelling public.
On the first point, there are various mechanisms that travellers can use to let us know if they were not completely satisfied with their experience. I personally believe it is very helpful for locations with management on site, which would certainly be all the large crossings — whether on land or at airports — and all the medium crossings, to ask to speak to the supervisor and be able to have a conversation right there and then. That would bring immediate satisfaction to the traveller if something inappropriate occurred.
Certainly, many people write to us, either with a handwritten letter or another kind. We do have the availability on our website for people to make their concerns known, as well. I personally receive feedback from all three of those examples: I have oral conversations with the travelling public; they write to me or other members of the management team; or they email the website to let us know. Every single one of those representations is reviewed. Officers are aware that those representations have been made and corrective action, as may be required, is followed up on.
I will talk about next steps — things we would like to undertake within the agency. We have what I am calling our border courtesy initiative. If you are travelling in certain large crossings in the next little while, you might have the opportunity to be handed a questionnaire intended to do a survey of people's experiences and know if they are satisfied with that. We are certainly trying to work to ensure that officers understand the expectations, not only from their program responsibilities but also from the need to respect the travelling public and other entities with whom they have to interact. We want to ensure that we reinforce the training available to officers; and that they are well equipped to be able to deal with situations that, to be fair, might be confrontational. We are undertaking a plan to try to help everyone in that regard.
Senator Lang: I appreciate that. I would like to move on to another area and that is the situation with the failed refugee claimants. Perhaps you could give us an outline of the success levels of the removal of the refugee claimants. Are you doing anything new? Perhaps you could just give us a description.
Ms. Hébert: My colleague is well prepared to address that, senator.
Ms. Johnston: Senator Lang, we remove approximately 12,000 people a year. These are people who have lost any legal entitlement to remain in the country. The vast majority of those — over 90 per cent of that 12,000 figure — are failed refugee claimants.
That being said, the working inventory of failed refugee claimants is much higher; it is probably around 18,000. Therefore, at this point in time, we are running around 6,000 short annually. The inventory of the backlog of failed refugee claimants continues to grow.
Another aspect of that — and it is certainly not every case, but it is not unusual — is that when a refugee claimant has been told that their legal right to stay in the country no longer exists, they abscond. That depends on the amount of time they have already been here because part of the process through the various channels that they have to appear, et cetera, means that their refugee claim can actually be pending for quite some period of time — up to several years.
After that period of time, to be told that their claim has failed and that they no longer have a legal right to stay here, there is a tendency for some of those people to abscond or to go underground. That is what contributes to our immigration-warrant inventory. This was mentioned by the Auditor General in chapter 7 of her report about detentions and removals. Our outstanding immigration-warrant inventory stands at 44,000. The vast majority of that number would be failed refugee claimants.
Senator Lang: I want to understand this: We have 44,000 people in Canada who should not be here.
Senator Banks: We do not know where they are.
Senator Lang: If they did not leave when they were supposed to, we can assume we have 44,000, can we not?
Ms. Johnston: We recently conducted an interesting pilot where we put specific resources against some of these outstanding warrants and did a full court enforcement press on trying to find these people. We enlisted the assistance of our counterparts in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and we ran the list of the names of the people we were looking for against their database.
Interestingly enough, that revealed that approximately half these people had left the country. They were living in the United States.
Senator Lang: Illegally.
Ms. Johnston: I cannot speak to their status in the United States, but they were probably living there illegally.
As a result of that, we have now undertaken, with the assistance of our colleagues in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to run the entire inventory against their database to see what number of that outstanding inventory we might be able to close if we know that, in fact, those people might be residing in the United States.
Senator Lang: Let us go on the assumption that you have enough numbers there to give you an average. Let us say that it is 22,000 people who are in Canada and 22,000 have left, for the sake of this discussion. Are we doing anything new or taking different approaches to see what we can do to find those 22,000 people who are residing here illegally and do not meet the criteria of becoming a Canadian citizen?
Ms. Johnston: Absolutely. One of the things we are doing is enhancing our data-mining initiative. Our intelligence people do a large amount of work to assist us in trying to find these people who have absconded. However, much of the information that you can get is often open-source information on a variety of different systems on the Internet now. We are enhancing our data-mining techniques to try to locate these people through various database systems.
We are also involved in exploring to see if we can get some information-sharing agreements — written collaborative agreements that we would have with other government departments, such as provincial authorities — to see if they have any information on these people in their data banks, for example, in provincial social assistance data banks, et cetera.
That level of information sharing requires a formal memorandum for information sharing, but that is what we are exploring to see if we might be able to go into those databases to find the whereabouts of these people as well.
Senator Lang: Have you approached the provinces or a province, and have you gone into an agreement with any particular province or are you going into an agreement with a province?
Ms. Johnston: We are making an outreach to those provinces, but we have not formalized any agreements.
Senator Lang: Are you getting a positive response?
Ms. Johnston: In some provinces.
Senator Manning: Could you tell us how many of the CBSA officers are women? What is your total number, and how many of them are women?
Ms. Hébert: Senator, are you referring to the total employee base in CBSA?
Senator Manning: Yes; officers at the front line.
Ms. Hébert: Uniformed officers?
Senator Manning: Yes.
Ms. Hébert: There are approximately 5,500 uniformed officers at the front line. I do not have an exact calculation, but I know that as of probably the summer of 2008, we were very close to being 50 per cent female — certainly representative of Canadian society.
Senator Manning: That number has increased significantly over the past couple of years. What efforts have you made to have more women involved? Is there a specific effort being put forward to do that?
Ms. Hébert: In the last, I would suggest, 10 years, we have made efforts to try to ensure that our employee base was representative of Canadian society, to increase the number of females, visible minorities, Aboriginals and people with disabilities. I think there has been progress made over a fairly long period of time.
Senator Manning: That is an impressive number when you look at many areas in our country, to be able to reach 50- 50; it looks very good.
In the work-alone posts, when I look at the 2006 report and from evidence presented to the committee at that time, I hope I am reading it correctly that there were 138 work-alone posts in the country. I know significant financial resources were put forward in Budget 2006 to address that.
In evidence the committee received at that time — I was not here then — it said that it would take about three years before we would have no work-alone posts in Canada. In 2009, have we reached that point yet, or where are we with that?
Ms. Hébert: We have made good progress, and we are on track. If you allow me, I will go back for clarity to say that you are exactly correct when you refer to 138 work-alone posts. That 138 number may be ports where an officer worked alone all of his or her shift. It may also be ports — for instance, very large airports — where in the commercial area on the shift from midnight until 8 a.m., an officer would work alone. For clarity, it was not that there were 138 sites where someone always worked alone.
We have made progress against that. As you cited, the government did make an announcement in August 2006 to address that. Our plan essentially began in 2007. We have a plan to try to eliminate those shifts or sites where officers work alone by March 31, 2011.
As of March 31, 2009, we were exactly halfway there. We have hired 200 people to address that, and 69 of those situations have been resolved. We are on track to meet our deadline of March 31, 2011.
I do think that the tail end of that implementation will have more challenges because of infrastructure requirements — having to build residences and so on — but our goal is to be successful.
Senator Manning: On ports of entry coming from Newfoundland and Labrador, we have several ports of entry in our province. I realize that much improvement has been made over the past number of years to airports, ports of entry and other border crossings, as we have discussed here today.
Could you give us some idea of where you were five years ago in terms of seaports versus where you are today? There seems to be some concern about the vulnerability of seaports as ports of entry versus the hands-on when it comes to an airport as a port of entry; some of the seaports may not be up to par.
Ms. Hébert: I will try to answer your question, senator. Many of the concerns and recommendations made by this committee in relation to seaports may impact other partners within the public service more directly, as opposed to the Canada Border Services Agency.
Senator Manning: Coming from Newfoundland and Labrador, I want to address an issue. I have a quote here that say that resource shortfalls in Newfoundland and Labrador have become a matter of grave concern. It is largely unknown that 93 per cent of Atlantic Canada's total international private aircraft volumes land in Newfoundland and Labrador, including both U.S. and overseas flights. The number of drop-downs, unexpected, unannounced landings, is constantly growing. It also says that CANPASS is being abused, which was not the intent and that frequently the number of passengers and who those passengers are is not known.
Is that an issue that has been addressed by your organization?
Ms. Hébert: I would agree with your comment, senator, that there is a great deal of activity in Newfoundland. I think you are right in saying that perhaps many people do not realize the extent of the activity there.
I would probably not agree with the comment that you read that said that CANPASS was not a successful program. My experience has been that it has been very successful.
Senator Manning: On the numbers of people that use CANPASS, can you give us any indication of tracking that you have been doing as to how successful it is? We get comments from others that it is not successful, and we heard from you that it is. I am not getting much backup for either one of those statements.
Ms. Hébert: I will try to give you some more specific information.
As far as the actual numbers of people who are now subscribed to CANPASS, that number has decreased over the last little while. I believe that is because more people are taking advantage of our NEXUS program, which is the bi- national program with the United States available at eight major airports, 16 land border crossings and 450 marine reporting sites across the country. CANPASS is a Canadian-only program, so many people are gravitating to the bi- national program.
Having said that, while the numbers are lower over the last couple of years, I still believe that CANPASS is a successful program because it allows Canadians an opportunity to have a facilitative program that increases security because we are able to do some risking of them before we give them their CANPASS card.
Senator Manning: I have a follow-up question on training for officers. We received comments that there is a nine- week training program after a two-week initiation online exercise that is then followed by two to three weeks' training on the job. This is fairly new in the past few years. Do you think that is sufficient training for your officers to deal with the situations that they face at border crossings? We have heard from other witnesses that there might not be enough training. What is your opinion from your experience?
Ms. Hébert: You are entirely correct, senator, when you talked about the three phases to our current recruitment training program. The online part is done before they show up at our learning facility. You are correct in saying that the current program is nine weeks, followed by the in-service component. After recruits have been assigned to and arrived at their ports of entry, they are brought together for another few weeks, as you indicated, to reinforce some of the messages and to give them more topics.
The 14-week program, in many respects, was not that different in length from what we have now because we have broken up the training segments. I have received representation from employees that they found the 14 weeks to be a long time and preferred to have their training done in segments. In that way, they felt that they could internalize what they had learned. We find that training in segments is more helpful to the employees, especially the in-service part. People who have not had any experience working as front-line officers go to their respective points of entry and come back later to an academic environment, which they find helpful to be able to ask questions that are pertinent to their situation.
I would emphasize that is not all of the training that we give. Those three segments certainly compose our recruit training, but we have many other things that we do. We have already talked before this committee about the arming training. Certainly, we ensure that we have diversity training available to officers and program training. The officer who would go through that three-phase recruitment training would probably not receive much information about working in a commercial environment, which is extremely technical and complex. For officers who will work in that environment, we provide additional training after they have finished their recruit training. We supplement training for special programs that officers are asked to administer.
I want to be clear that the recruitment training is extremely important, and we constantly review it. We receive input from officers, managers and trainers as to whether we need to adjust. We are undertaking a review this year to determine whether we need to bring new changes to the program in 2010. It is constantly evolving.
Senator Manning: Does any part of the nine-weeks' training focus on public relations and sensitivity issues in dealing with individuals? I have watched some people be treated in a less than sensitive manner due to situations of their own. Is the training just rules and regulations? Is there sensitivity training, for example to deal with persons in wheelchairs?
Ms. Hébert: We include in our recruit training some tricks of the trade to facilitate the conversation and diffuse a situation. The situation you put to me about how to interact sensitively with travellers is included in our recruitment training. I happen to think that the border courtesy initiative, to which I referred earlier, is one more tool that we can use to try to reinforce the message that you have just articulated.
We spoke earlier about complaints or representations from travellers that their experience was not entirely satisfactory. We take the opportunity to speak to every officer about whom we receive some representation to reinforce our expectations around behaviour.
Senator Manning: I appreciate that. You cannot train someone or change someone's personality, but it is important that they at least be sensitive, in particular to elderly people who are travelling. I appreciate your comments.
Senator Carstairs: If the committee would like to rise, I will forgo my questions.
The Chair: We have a few minutes.
Senator Carstairs: I will make them brief. My bias is that I do not like arming border services officers. They are woefully inadequately trained at nine weeks plus two plus whatever to be given a gun of any sort, but that is my particular bias.
We were told earlier that some women are withdrawing because they do not want to be armed. Can you give us any numbers on that?
Ms. Hébert: No, senator, I do not have numbers. I will answer your question in the following way, which may provide some context for you. I think it is well known to many stakeholders how concerned I am about trying to maintain a representative workforce. I pay attention to the number of females who continue to apply for front-line officer positions as well as other employment equity groups. I mentioned earlier that the latest statistic, which was from last summer, showed that we still had a healthy representation of three of those four groups. I continue to be very attentive to ensuring that we maintain that representation.
I am aware that during the selection process of new employees, there was one indication that perhaps fewer females were applying. I followed up on that and found that it did not sustain itself in subsequent data. I accept your comment, and I share the implicit concern that we need to ensure that our workforce continues to be representative.
Senator Carstairs: I do a great deal of international travel, and I find border services officers extremely professional. I have had experiences when going through security in airports that I find less than satisfactory, but I have never seen anything similar with a border services officer.
However, I have to question the amount of training they receive, in particular in light of the addition of food and immigration responsibilities to their other required skill sets. Is there any plan to increase the amount of training that our border services officers receive? You are well aware that for most travellers to Canada, the border services officer is the first Canadian that they meet. It is important that they be skilled and well trained.
Ms. Hébert: I agree with you, senator. The privilege and responsibility we have in the CBSA to create that first impression of Canada is huge. All of us at CBSA take that responsibility and privilege very seriously.
For clarity, the training I referred to earlier is basic recruit training. It can be augmented in the examples that I gave for specific commercial activities or whatever. We also have web-based diversity training that supplements the recruit training program. It also does not include the arming training. That would be an additional three weeks for an officer to be armed further to their recruit training.
We are constantly reviewing our training to ensure it meets the current demands of the position and employees. You mentioned our responsibilities since the creation of CBSA related to food, plant and animal inspection. We augmented our recruit training to address that part of our program responsibilities over the last couple of years.
Do we need to do more? That is the subject of the review ongoing currently. In the new program in 2010, we might see some changes.
The Chair: On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you. Your presentation has been helpful. You covered a broad range of questions. The committee appreciates you coming this evening and providing us with assistance in this study and preparing us for the visits we will make to various posts over the months of July and probably September.
If we may, we would like to send you further questions to clarify points that arise.
For members of the public viewing this program, if you have any questions or comments please visit our website at www.sen-sec.ca. We post witness testimony, committee reports and confirmed hearing schedules. You may also contact the clerk of the committee by calling 1-800-267-7362 for further information or assistance in contacting members of the committee.
(The committee adjourned.)