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Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Transport and Communications

Issue 9 - Evidence, February 15, 2011


OTTAWA, Tuesday, February 15, 2011

The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications met this day at 9.30 a.m. in the course of its study on emerging issues related to the Canadian airline industry.

Senator Dennis Dawson (Chair) in the chair.

[Translation]

The Chair: Honourable senators, I declare this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications in session, and I thank you for being here today.

[English]

This morning we are continuing our study on the airline industry. Appearing before us, on behalf of Canada Border Services Agency, is Ms. Glenda Lavergne, Director General, Border Operations; and Ms. Maureen Tracy, Director General, Border Programs.

Glenda Lavergne, Director General, Border Operations, Canada Border Services Agency: Mr. Chair, if you please, Ms. Tracy will present the opening remarks.

Maureen Tracy, Director General, Border Programs, Canada Border Services Agency: Honourable senators, Ms. Lavergne and I will act as a tag team in terms of our presentation. Ms. Lavergne represents our operations area and I am here on behalf of the programs branch, which includes the policy and program people.

The CBSA is mandated to provide integrated border services that support national security and safety priorities while facilitating the free flow of legitimate persons and goods. This responsibility is complex and ranges from ensuring compliance with immigration legislation to the inspection of food, plants and animals, to provisions of intelligence and other enforcement activities that uphold our safety and security obligations under the law.

In all, the CBSA is responsible for the administration of some 90 acts and regulations that govern the admissibility of people and goods into and out of Canada. To deliver on such a vast mandate, the CBSA has approximately 14,000 employees, including 5,400 uniformed officers across Canada. On average, our employees process 86 million travellers, 26 million cars and 23 million air passengers each year.

In 2009-10 the agency seized $2.36 billion worth of illegal drugs and removed over 14,000 persons deemed inadmissible to Canada. The CBSA also collected over $3.5 billion in duties and $16 billion in value-added taxes.

In addition to our daily business, the agency is sometimes called upon to undertake large scale operations. Recent examples include the delivery of border services for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, working on the ground in Haiti and at Canadian airports to speed the way of evacuees following the earthquake in January 2010, and processing hundreds of ship-borne migrants arriving on our West Coast from Sri Lanka.

The challenge for the CBSA is to be a dynamic and responsive organization. Ultimately this amounts to sustained 24 hours a day, 7 days a week commitment to vigilance and service excellence.

As it relates to the provision of service excellence, we place a high priority on client and partner engagement. To this end, the CBSA has recently formed an air consultative committee, which provides agency officials and air industry stakeholders with a forum for dialogue regarding the CBSA's operations at Canadian airports.

Internally, the CBSA has established an airport operations service improvement working group tasked with documenting the service continuum at six airports across the country. This working group is drawing on best practices and innovations that could possibly enhance the passenger travel experience from a service delivery perspective.

In addition, regular discussions with stakeholder groups representing the interests of smaller airports and aircraft operators, such as the Canadian Business Aviation Association, provide the agency with an invaluable context for planning and a clearer understanding of the needs of industry.

Industry needs, however, cannot be our only priority. It is a reality that the agency must continue to improve its capacity to intercept inadmissible people and goods at the border through intelligence, information sharing and interdiction activities. We recognize that our commitment to effective enforcement goes hand in hand with our commitment to good client service.

The CBSA's Trusted Traveller Programs meet those dual priorities. Only programs that meet a high level of strict risk assessment and security criteria are considered a Trusted Traveller Program.

CANPASS is our suite of domestic programs and is designed to expedite the border clearance process for low-risk, pre-approved travellers into Canada. They include programs for air, private aircraft, corporate aircraft and private boats.

The NEXUS and FAST Driver Registration Programs are jointly run Canada-U.S. programs designed to enable pre- approved, low-risk travellers and commercial drivers to receive expedited entry into Canada and to the United States.

NEXUS members are able to use self-serve iris recognition kiosks at eight Canadian airports, cards with radio frequency identification technology at 18 dedicated land border crossings, and expedited telephone reporting at approximately 430 marine reporting sites. FAST drivers are able to cross into Canada with their shipments through a series of dedicated commercial clearance lanes.

NEXUS is our most popular program and we are proud to say we have over 500,000 members. We expect the program to reach 830,000 members by 2015. Currently the CBSA is enrolling approximately 2,000 members each week and has dedicated resources in place to service its growing membership.

As recently announced by the Minister of Transportation, program participants will soon benefit from dedicated lanes for CATSA screening at airports. This is a clear example of how the government is leveraging its programs to service the travelling public.

Another example of effective public-private sector collaboration and innovation is the Automated Border Clearance pilot currently under way at Vancouver International Airport. By partially automating the identification verification process of eligible travellers, ABC allows us to alleviate the pressure at CBSA primary booths without compromising our capacity to risk assess travellers. During the month of September, 75,000 travellers used the kiosks, representing approximately 47 per cent of eligible travellers. The evaluation of the ABC pilot is complete and the pilot has been really quite successful.

Last year the CBSA launched a multi-year change management agenda aimed at putting in place the right organizational and governance structure to enable us to effectively deal with the complex and evolving threat and risk environment, increased traffic across the border and the expectations of our clients. We have put into place a new Service Charter; we are working to publish service standards and developing performance indicators to let us know how well our programs are doing.

As you can well imagine, despite our best efforts and high priority we are placing on client service, sometimes we do fall short. We are aware that issues relating to CBSA services at airports are of concern to all of you and of concern to all of us. Delays in processing times, even short ones, can make a big difference. Likewise, we are aware that an inefficient or impolite border services officer can leave a negative and lasting impression.

I would like to assure you that when problem areas are identified they get the full attention of the CBSA's president and his senior management team. This is best exemplified by the establishment of our airport operations service improvement working group and the introduction of an enhanced complaint mechanism in January 2011.

The enhanced complaint mechanism provides a more accessible, transparent and centralized feedback for CBSA clients. Our website has been updated with an online form, which allows clients to provide their comments, complaints and compliments easily and directly to the agency.

A new centralized unit in headquarters will monitor and report on complaints related to services provided by the CBSA. When complaints are received we undertake to investigate them, making personal contact with the clients, and then following up to resolve the issue. We are a service-based organization, and we are committed to continuous improvement.

I want to assure this committee that the CBSA will continue to strive for service excellence in the delivery of the full range of our programs. It is part of our brand, which is protection, service and integrity.

In closing, I would like to thank you for the invitation to appear before you, and my colleague, Ms. Lavergne, and I will happy to respond to any questions you may have.

Senator Plett: Thank you both for being here this morning and making this presentation.

You talked about — I did not quite catch the word — some kind of electronic mechanism on a car. You were talking about NEXUS and different programs. Can you elaborate a bit on what you said about the electronic gizmo that will get you through the border faster?

Ms. Lavergne: The gizmo is not on the car, it is on the NEXUS card. It is a chip reader.

Senator Plett: It is the NEXUS card you were talking about, which I have.

Ms. Lavergne: Yes. In the NEXUS card, and there is a reader at the lane.

Senator Plett: Let me then go into the issue of NEXUS. I have a NEXUS card, and I think it is an absolutely great program. My question centres on the welcome that people receive when they come to Canada, whether returning home or visitors arriving here in Canada. I know you are not in charge of American border security, but kind of the same thing applies when we go there.

It seems to me that wherever we go in the world customs officers are trained to kind of make you want to turn around and go back to where you came from, as opposed to going into the country. I feel as if we have a big sign, "Welcome to Canada," and then I drive up to the agent and he really does not make me feel welcome as I return to my country.

It seems that since I have received the NEXUS card my welcome has changed. Maybe the customs agents think there is some special status attached to the NEXUS card. I agree with the program but I do not think it gives me any special status in that I am more welcome in my country or, in fact, in the United States. I go to the United States a lot because I have a cottage on the border, so I often cross the border. Even when I was crossing virtually three, four, five times a week, I received the same attitude each time. Now that I have the NEXUS card I drive by the camera and it takes a picture of my card, they welcome me and send me on my way and are happy, it seems, that I am there.

Are our border people actually taught to make you feel a little less than welcome? Is that because they want you on edge? Explain that to me. I am sure you have been asked this question before.

Ms. Lavergne: I can say I have heard it too many times, actually. We have now launched a service excellence initiative in the agency.

I was an officer myself, senator, so I know there are days where some officers will probably be far more welcoming than others. We do not want our officers to put people on edge. We train them at our college. We talk to them about service delivery. We talk to them about balancing facilitation and service with the protection mandate. It can be challenging for some officers to achieve that right balance on every interview with every traveller. However, we certainly want our officers to be greeting the traveller and welcoming people to this country. That is part of their job.

We are launching an initiative where we will be going out this year to talk to many of our officers. As Ms. Tracy said, we have put in place an airport service working group and a land service working group. We have people from all over Canada studying some of the issues occurring in our regions and some of the improvements we can make to the traveller experience, both in land and air. We hope to implement many new initiatives in that regard. We plan to bring in the officers to talk to them about service.

Senator Plett: Thank you very much. I appreciate that. I know that my comment is not unique but we want great border security, we want good security when we board an airplane, and yet I always feel offended when they pull me out of the line to perform a scan et cetera. I am of the opinion, well, do it the person behind me. He does not look quite as trustworthy as I do, so you should be scanning him not me. Senator Mercer is the guy who needs to be checked a little more regularly.

Ms. Lavergne: We will take care of that for you.

Senator Plett: If you could do that for me, it would be great. I appreciate the service you provide, and I certainly think it is great, it is improving. However, if you could do something about that I would be very appreciative.

Ms. Tracy: The one element, too, as I mentioned, we have introduced a new complaint monitoring system. I recognize that not everybody who feels they were not welcomed as they should have been files a complaint, but the objective is to make it easier not only to get complaints but also feedback.

The new complaints monitoring exercise will allow us to look more closely at the source of the complaints and the comments. From this information, we can address problem areas. This will give us a much more organized and, I believe, effective way to monitor the performance of our staff, right from something that has triggered a serious complaint through to comments about behaviour, either good or bad.

Senator Plett: It is difficult, however, to complain about someone who has just not been friendly. The question is then; did that person do his or her job? Was he or she performing the CBSA duties in a professional manner? The answer might be yes, but the officer was not friendly in the performance of his or her duties.

Senator Mercer: There are some great lines in there. I will pass on that, Senator Plett.

Thank you for being here. This is an important issue, and Senator Plett's questions are key to some of the points that most committee members want to make.

Monitoring the quality of services is something you have emphasized in your presentation. You talked about this new enhanced complaint mechanism. Does it go to a complaints ombudsman who handles complaints against the Canada Border Services Agency? Is a system whereby if the problem is resolved and there is no appeal to an independent ombudsman?

Ms. Lavergne: The complaint system has been set up to come into our Recourse Directorate, which then sends for reports into the region. From there the complainant is communicated with by the officers in the region, not the officer against whom the complaint is made. There is a separate area in the region outside of the district or the port operation where the complaint occurred. The information is then put into a response to the client.

At that point, if the client is not satisfied with the response our Recourse Directorate, and the president, is advised. There is no ombudsman outside of the CBSA but the Recourse Directorate is removed from our Operations Branch. There is a second and unbiased look at that complaint.

Senator Mercer: As Senator Plett pointed out, this is the first face of Canada that many visitors see as they arrive at our border.

I am from Nova Scotia, and we had an example not long ago where there was a major complaint against one of your employees. The complainants felt that they were treated quite unfairly, so I am glad to see there is a mechanism in place where they are able to pursue that complaint.

Senator Plett has a NEXUS card, as does the chair. I do not for one particular reason that I want to pursue with you. If I were to apply for a NEXUS card, certain personal information would be shared. I do not mind sharing the information with Canada Border Services Agency. I am a Canadian, you are working on my behalf and you have a right to know certain things about me if I am going to cross the border and then come back into the country.

What information do we share with the Americans? Do we share 100 per cent of the information from our NEXUS applications?

Ms. Tracy: Senator Mercer, because it is a binational program, the applicant agrees to provide the information to Canada and to the United States for security checking. We each search our databases for any previous offences, or previous contraventions of customs or immigration law, and if there is a hit in any one of our systems we will not share the specifics of the information, we will just send a notice to the U.S. that there is a hit and that the person would be denied entry. No details of that information are given to the United States. That is the way the information is vetted.

Senator Mercer: Where is the data from NEXUS housed? It has to be stored in a computer.

Ms. Tracy: The information is stored in our CBSA databases.

Senator Mercer: Is the information stored only in your CBSA databases, or is the same information stored in the United States?

Ms. Tracy: The information that is provided to the United States is stored in their database as well, as NEXUS background information.

Senator Mercer: Does it work for everyone who applies for a NEXUS card on the United States that information is stored in our database on our side of the border?

Ms. Tracy: It does.

Senator Mercer: We do get complaints on occasion. I had a specific case this summer of a young women coming from Washington to Canada on vacation. While coming here she decided she would drop off some material from her office at the office here in Canada. The office happened to be in Toronto and she was going to Toronto. While crossing the border the agent asked her why she was coming, she said she was coming on vacation, and because it was his job he properly asked what was in the back seat of the car. There were brochures for a charity. She said she would be dropping them off at the office in Toronto. He then went I thought to the extreme and said you are coming here on business but you said you were coming here on vacation. Now the process is started. You have a process internally and a file is commenced. That means she had to be out of the country within 48 hours or 72 hours or something after entry.

I go to the United States a lot on vacation, as do many others, but when we are there we sometimes do business because we meet people but our main purpose is not business. Is there not a way that we can measure that coming this way? In this particular case this young woman works for an organization that is having a minor convention in Montreal this fall and a major convention in Vancouver the following year, and most of the participants will be Americans. My concern is that they do not have the same experience as this staff person for the organization had.

Ms. Lavergne: I am not sure of the specific case. I will say that when declarations are made to officers, the officers follow up and verify the information. Again, there are requirements for people who come here to work. There is a difference between doing business and working, and again, I am not aware of the exchange that took place between the officer and the traveller, but if there is a belief that the person may well be working in Canada there is a work permit required under the Immigration Act.

Again, how the conversation unfolds results in the approach the officer will take. However, when we get complaints we look at what transpired. I would like to reiterate before the committee that if it is found that the officer erred in judgment based on the information at hand, we will take appropriate action and rectify that situation. We would never want a conversation or a transaction to impact further business in Canada. That would never be our intent, senator.

Senator Frum: In the course of our study, we have heard from airport and airline industries that they feel at a relative competitive disadvantage because of the high cost of doing business in the aviation industry here in Canada. One of the costs they mentioned is the cost of our security service.

You mentioned that over the next four years you will be adding 330,000 additional NEXUS members. I assume that means adding more terminals at airports. Will that new system replace live officers? Can you tell the committee the related costs of such a system?

Ms. Tracy: Definitely one of the objectives is to enhance the service to the client. When there is a great big line-up in the primary area at CBSA, a NEXUS client can walk right past that line to the kiosk and do their business there. That is the primary objective. It is for the client.

With every incremental increase in the number of clients who use these expedited services, there is a certain savings to the CBSA. We would not have to staff as many primary inspection lines and in so doing, we could free up resources to better targeting. That targeting would include roving in the area to determine who we might want to question further, or something behind the scenes in a secondary area to expedite administrative processing, for example, of immigration requirements or duty payments.

The short answer is the objective for programs such as NEXUS and CANPASS are for the client, but there is a high potential for savings to CBSA as well. These programs will help us to economize.

Senator Frum: You now have 500,000 members. Have you been able to cost out the savings for this program?

Ms. Tracy: It is interesting that you ask that question, Senator Frum. We have just undertaken, and we are at an early stage, a much more in-depth capacity to identify performance indicators for the program. This will lead us to being able to do exactly that, which is at what point can we say that the NEXUS program or programs like it are actually saving us or allowing us to increase our efficiency. At this point, we are just exploring how we are going to do that. It is not the most simple of exercises, as you can well imagine, but the objective will be to do that in the near future.

Senator Frum: Have you reduced the number of officers you are required to have at airports? Has that changed?

Ms. Tracy: No, not to my knowledge.

Senator Frum: When we visited the Ottawa airport, we heard that your agency sets the parameters at airports of how much space you need, what equipment you need, the ball is in your hands. We heard that once CBSA has set out the parameters the airport has to comply with your needs.

Again, just following on this theme of a more electronic border, do you foresee any physical changes that you would need? Would there be any potential savings? Would you need more space?

I am also a NEXUS user. I love it because it is fast. However, if the whole system changes into that, then I do not know.

Ms. Lavergne: There are three NEXUS members here. I am so happy.

Ms. Tracy: You are right Senator Frum; section 6 of the Customs Act puts the onus on providing the physical space for clearance areas. The airport operators supply the infrastructure and the CBSA fits it up. It is a shared cost.

One thing that we have explored, and I mentioned it in my opening remarks, is the Automated Border Clearance project, the ABC pilot project in place in Vancouver. With the projected increases in the number of travellers that will be going through Vancouver airport, the airport authority was concerned that we find, in partnership, a good way to avoid having to increase the amount of space that they provide. With every square foot of space, they incur a great deal of expense.

Again, to expedite the process, to save us time and space, we introduced the ABC project. Yes, the NEXUS, the ABC and all the expedited travellers will have a positive impact on future growth of airport infrastructure.

Ms. Lavergne: On their infrastructure investment, in its totality — that is, the space required for kiosks as opposed to all the lanes and all the queuing of the travellers — there will be savings. On infrastructure and the necessity to put kiosks in, versus extra primary booths, there is also a cost benefit.

Senator Frum: When you look to the future, what is the ideal proportion of electronic kiosks to live officers?

Ms. Tracy: The work we are doing on the performance indicators and the overall assessment will allow us to be better prepared to make those sorts of predictions. We have 500,000 NEXUS members at this point; by 2015, we want and expect to grow to 850,000 or 860,000. Will that be the sweet spot? Do we have to get bigger? Are we there now? That will become clearer when we have had an opportunity to assess the impacts more thoroughly.

The Chair: When you talk about 850,000 NEXUS members, you are talking about Canadian members.

Ms. Tracy: These are Canadians and Americans; anyone eligible for the card.

The Chair: It is 850,000 for both sides of the border?

Ms. Tracy: Yes.

The Chair: We are still a pretty exclusive club.

Senator Plett: I certainly share Senator Frum's concern about what will happen when there are that many. However, everyone who has a NEXUS card has done a preapproval security clearance. Even if there are millions, it will still be faster than what it has been in the past because of our previous security clearance.

Ms. Tracy: Yes.

Ms. Lavergne: Absolutely.

Senator Meredith: Thank you very much for being here this morning. Picking up on Senator Plett's question with respect to customer service, I have travelled extensively to the U.S. and overseas. I often return on late flights, and I find that border services agents are the grumpiest at that time. Let us be real. We, as passengers, are also grumpy because it is late. We expect a warm greeting, but we do not get it.

What are you doing about communication with the agents to tell them that a flight has been delayed and to relax or take a break? They are sitting in this booth for several hours. What steps are taken to communicate that flights have been delayed? We cannot do anything. They want to go home to their families; we know that. We also want to get home to our families; we have been delayed. Let us be real about that in terms of what is being done.

You talked about the internal processes that you put in place with respect to best practices. Can you elaborate a bit more on those processes?

Ms. Lavergne: In terms of the work of the airport service working group, as I mentioned earlier, there will be and have been some focus groups with officers in terms of talking about these experiences.

To take you back, the officers do know that the flights are delayed. Whether or not they have the opportunity to take a break, however, is another thing as there are other flights still arriving. However, we are notified of flight delays.

This year, we are putting videos in place for travellers so that they understand what that experience will be like when they come through the airport. We did tours of all the major airports; we did a lot of work regarding signage communications for our travellers. It is not the best experience when you are coming off the aircraft in relation to some of the hallways that you are walking down after disembarking from the aircraft. We are working on playing videos on the aircraft in advance of passengers disembarking, which will speak to what will happen at the border with the border services officers and why it is important to complete the E311 document. That video will explain why passengers have to answer certain questions. We find that some of that mystery is part of that communication gap between the officers and the travellers.

There is also the issue of better lighting. You are coming into the border services area and you are coming down a dark hallway. That causes the traveller to wonder where am I going and where do I turn? We are looking at that kind of experience. We have engaged many officers in this process to get their feedback and comments to make it better from their experience with the traveller.

Senator Meredith: What about focus groups with respect to us, the passengers?

Ms. Lavergne: We have had focus groups with the airport and with travellers. We are also putting out comment cards with travellers at some of the airports to get their feedback. Ms. Tracy talked about the new complaints mechanism, but the site is also about comments on your experience and compliments to officers. We do have travellers who have good experiences with officers. Many officers go above and beyond in their service to travellers. We have many officers who really do help travellers quite a bit as well.

Stay tuned; there is a lot of work going on with the working groups, especially at the airports at our land border.

Senator Meredith: How often do these groups meet?

Ms. Lavergne: The working groups meet once a month. They are putting forth short- medium- and long-term recommendations. The recommendations concern infrastructure changes. We are talking about things with the airport authorities to do some work on the infrastructure to improve that experience as well. There are short-term recommendations like the comment cards, the service excellence strategy and wait time issues. We are looking at our wait-time standards, so we have a lot of work under way in the agency.

Ms. Tracy: I was close to the organization of the CBSA readiness for the Olympic Games last year. As you can well imagine, service was a major priority for us. We undertook a number of things. Many of them were simple; many of them involved small focus working groups with staff to talk about the Olympic Games, how they will be the first face of Canada and the fact that there will be many people from many places. Our experience in that regard was very positive. When you are hosting something like the Olympic Games, you cannot help but get excited, so they were excited and interested in ensuring that we would not mess up the experience for the traveller. It is that kind of focus or that kind of concentrated effort that we want to sustain in this focus on service this year. The priority for this year for our senior management group is to go out to the field and to talk about service.

Everyone understands our mandate; that is, the fact that we are a law enforcement agency and a service organization. However, it does not hurt, from time to time, for our officers in the field to hear that from the most senior ranks. We will be concentrating on that in the next year.

Senator Meredith: With respect to your comments on the Olympic Games in Vancouver, the Pan American Games are coming to the GTA in 2015. What lessons did you learn from the Olympic Games that you will transfer to the GTA in terms of operational support? What will you do to ensure that the 42 countries are well received?

You just mentioned the agents and the arming of those agents. Have you had any negative responses from the focus groups with respect to being able to arm these agents?

Ms. Tracy: About 18 months before opening day, we began an intense effort. We had a small group of four or five people in place in Ottawa, and a similar sized group in the Pacific region, which was exclusively focused on planning for the games. Prior to these efforts, we did not have a blueprint for these huge events, and we suffered for that, because we had to invent everything at that point. We had national, regional and local plans. We had to create all those plans from a blank sheet. I am pleased to say that we do not have to do that for the 2015 games. We now have a blueprint for these sorts of things.

Obviously, GTA is very different from Vancouver International Airport. There will be different configurations, traffic flows, et cetera. The biggest part of this is how to engage with one another on items such as what we need to do to fulfill our official languages responsibilities, for example. We consider ourselves quite ready to do this.

We also have at our headquarters a dedicated group responsible for VIP clearance. For these sorts of major events, when they come along, there is a focused effort. It is not someone doing the planning off the corner of his or her desk; it is actually an organization responsible for ensuring both good connections in the law enforcement community, which is necessary, obviously, but also on the service side.

Airport officers are not armed. If your question extended to the general arming of officers at land border and marine ports, the feedback that we have had is not positive. I would say the feedback has been neutral. We have not had much feedback from members of the public on the arming decision.

We are very proud of our officers and how they have handled this big change. So far, around 1,500 officers have been trained out of the total 4,800. We have had about 70 what we will call incidents, "incidents" being where a firearm has been drawn, not pointed, for precaution.

All those incidents are reviewed by policy, training and labour relations experts and, in some cases, legal experts, just to ensure that policies, procedures and training were followed. In all but three cases, it has been confirmed that the officer acted responsibly and did what he was trained to do, and there were no incidents. In those other three incidents, it was a fairly minor misapplication of training.

Ms. Lavergne: In addition to planning for major events, one of the key areas is that our planning group meets with the organizers of these events, all the stakeholders, and we do a lot of pre-clearing of people coming forward. Many of the security checks are already done, in order to facilitate the people coming to this country. We do a lot of work in advance to make that experience easier when they arrive. When visitors are pre-cleared, they get their security passes, and their movement through the border is without incident. We do a lot of work with the organizers as well.

Senator MacDonald: I want to pick up where Senator Meredith left off concerning armed guards. You said there are about 1,500 that are trained to be armed.

Ms. Tracy: In the neighbourhood of 1,500, yes.

Senator MacDonald: Do we intend to arm them all?

Ms. Tracy: The decision was to arm all the border services officers who work in the land border environment and in marine, and not to arm those who work in the postal centres and at international airports. The only exception on the air side would be any clearance that happens away from a terminal building, in a more remote airport. The policy in that case is that officers would be armed in order to do those clearances.

Senator MacDonald: We are all used to seeing police officers with guns. We are not always used to seeing border guards with guns. Have we looked at the potential impact this would have on the perception to visitors to Canada?

Ms. Tracy: As I mentioned earlier, when the decision was made, there was some comment in the media and elsewhere, some good and some not so good. However, generally speaking, we have not received any significant negative feedback; the feedback has been neutral. We have not received any congratulations for arming or anything like that, but it has just been very neutral. This is something that the public has taken, I believe, in its stride, and I do not think it has had either a positive or negative outcome, certainly not anything we have noticed ourselves.

Senator MacDonald: You mentioned your enhanced complaint mechanism. I will make the assumption that most complaints are about bad interpersonal relationships with whoever is performing the processing. What other complaints show up in the database in terms of repetitive problems that you can apply your people to in order to adjust and fix these problems?

Ms. Lavergne: There are complaints of long lineups. It is not the interaction; it is the issue of waiting in line for three or four hours. There are complaints from our importers who are waiting to have their goods cleared. Their goods have waited too long for an examination, for instance. We have complaints of infrastructure issues, such as that the arrival area at the port was not as clean as it could be, things like that, what we term infrastructure complaints for the ports. Those are generally the main categories of complaints, in addition to, of course, the officer interaction.

Senator MacDonald: Have there been any particularly good suggestions that have come in through this complaints system?

Ms. Lavergne: We have had some good suggestions. We have also received suggestions that will take time to implement. There are suggestions for different use of technology and for better training of officers. We take many of those suggestions, cast them into our discussions, and contemplate them seriously.

Senator MacDonald: I want to finish with a comment. You mentioned the number of incidents when guns were drawn. You said there were three times when this was probably inappropriate. Whenever you have a gun drawn on you, it is a serious thing, and I think the people running the border agency should always keep that in mind.

Ms. Tracy: If I may just reiterate that the incidents were not when a gun was drawn on someone or, in other words, pointed. The officers are trained to assess the situation and if there is a certain level of risk, then they are taught, as a precaution, to take their firearm out of the holster and put it to what they call the "low ready," which is just pointing toward the ground. Those were all the situations we encountered. We have not encountered anyone having to take it to the next step and actually point the firearm at someone.

Senator MacDonald: That is great to hear.

Ms. Tracy: I would say that in these three instances, they were not incidents that required disciplinary action by any measure. There was no intent to abuse the firearm. It was misapplication of training. In those situations the officers were sent, in some cases, for a repeat of that element of the risk-assessment process. It was misapplication of training; it was not an abuse of authority.

The Chair: I have a question about complaints concerning the airports not as partners not clients. When they have a problem with your request for space or utilization of space or space that is not being used, what is the arbitration process by which it can be determined how much space is necessary and what should be done with space that is not being used?

Ms. Tracy: I have never been involved in those discussions, but I do know that they can be rather protracted. There is no outside arbitrator. The Department of transport, the airport authorities and CBSA participate in the discussions.

I am not aware of any situation that has not been resolved to the satisfaction of both parties. Certainly, if you would like, I could take the question back and get you more precise information.

The Chair: I would appreciate it, because when you say "transport," who has that responsibility? Is it the airline? I think there are cases, and we certainly have had comments about the relationship between the airport authorities, CATSA and CBSA, and the fact that we do not seem to have an arbitration process. A lack of arbitration means conflict. They might not always be public, but it is not in the public's interest that these problems simmer.

Ms. Tracy: For many years, we have had a business consultative committee with the business community, industry, the truckers, the freight forwarders, and the brokers. Six months ago, we introduced something on the air side. We have had very good relationships with the airports in the past, but it has been transactional and project oriented.

In July of 2010, we had our first meeting of the airport consultative committee. We have airport authorities on the committee, airlines, industry associations and general aviation representatives. Although infrastructure has not been on the agenda, the intent of that committee is to bring all the interested parties to work together on issues including innovative ways of clearing passengers or other elements of our common interests. Should there be a need, I would see this as a very good forum to discuss in general terms, how we would engage on these sorts of infrastructure requirements. We do have a forum. It has been very well received over the years in the business community because it is a very effective way to get the interests of our clients considered prior to decisions being made, which is always good. Therefore I expect, or I hope, that this air consultative committee will have the same success in that regard.

Senator Mercer: Of course, one of the busiest border crossings is not an airport, not a bridge or land crossing that is owned by a province, municipality or federal government. I refer to the privately owned, Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ontario. I think it is still the busiest crossing in the country.

I come back to your discussion earlier about the requirement by airports to provide you with space for kiosks, et cetera. That is the case, on the Ambassador Bridge. You dictate what you need, and the private company is then required to deliver that need. Also on that bridge, because of the uniqueness of the situation, that company also has to provide security, whereas at airports and other jurisdictions security is provided, it comes from other sources. At the Ottawa airport it is contracted to the City of Ottawa, and at other airports it may be the RCMP. However, on a privately owned bridge, such as the Ambassador Bridge, the company itself has to provide for that security, and then they have to pass those costs onto the people crossing the bridge.

It has always amazed me that they have to provide the security when security is a factor that is of national and international importance. We need ever more on both sides. The border crossing, say, in New Brunswick, which crosses a short little bridge, and is owned, I assume, by the joint commission or by the Province of New Brunswick or the State of Maine, has security provided by people on either side of the bridge. However, on the busiest bridge in the country, we expect the owner of that bridge to provide that security. Could you make a comment?

Ms. Tracy: The policy and legislation regarding security at airports, et cetera, is the responsibility of Transport Canada. I would suggest that the question be directed to them.

Senator Mercer: Maybe we should do that, because it is the single busiest border crossing in the country, although it has nothing to do with airports, our subject today. Sorry to go off topic, but it is about border crossings.

Prime Minister Harper and President Obama, at a recent meeting, talked about the need for greater cooperation and integration. Some of us are happy to talk about cooperation; some of us are less happy to talk about integration. Some of us feel that national sovereignty is an issue.

Have there been post-summit discussions among officials at Canada Border Services Agency to discuss how the fallout, or the results of the meeting between the Prime Minister and the President, might have an effect on the future?

Ms. Tracy: This is very early days. I am not aware of any extensive discussions since the joint statement. There is no doubt that there are many things in that statement that will impact the CBSA substantially. I fully expect there will be lots of work to do in the near future. To this date, I am not aware of any further follow up.

Senator Mercer: You talked about the lessons learned at the Olympic Games in Vancouver and Whistler and how those lessons will be employed at the games in the GTA. Does CBSA have a notification system?

Ms. Lavergne: Yes, we have a major events planning group. Major organizers do contact us. The executives of our Operations Branch have a tracking and forecasting calendar, and our regions submit calendars of major events, for instance, the games going on in Halifax right now. We were tracking that event before it started in terms of how many athletes were coming and how that would impact that region in terms of clearance.

We track these events long in advance on our forecasting calendars. We communicate to our officers where the crossings will be along with the projections of numbers of travellers. As you know, the junior hockey league was in competitions in the Niagara region at Christmas. We prepared the bridge authorities and our senior executives in that region. We had all our overtime cast and all the lanes ready to take care of the participants and their families. We plan for those events well in advance.

Senator Plett: Senator Mercer asked a question about our Prime Minister and the President of the United States reaching this agreement. I was hoping for a more definitive answer on what the impact would be, but we will wait and see. I appreciate that these are very early days. I am hoping it will be positive, as I am sure it will.

I will go further on the arming of guards. I believe it was in the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence that we spoke about this the other day. One witness suggested that when they signed up many of the border security agents never expected that they would ever need to carry a firearm, and that many of them are unhappy doing so.

I have spoken to many border guards as I have travelled back and forth across the border. I asked a witness at the other committee whether age played a factor in the issue of carrying a firearm. I thought that younger guards would be happy to have the firearm. I certainly endorse what Senator MacDonald said about needing to be careful and provide good training, and from what I have been told, I believe we are providing doing that.

Can you tell the committee the officers' response to this new program? Are they happy that they are doing this? Do they care?

Ms. Tracy: They certainly care. The reception is mixed. At the outset there was angst. For many of the officers, whether they were against it or quite amenable to the thought, there was a lot of worry. This was a very big change. At the outset, many officers said that it was not for them, that they did not sign up to carry a gun to work.

We proceeded with training on a voluntary basis. We had many officers to train and somewhat limited capacity to do so, so we had the luxury of time. At the start, we populated our classes with a good cross-section of staff, young ones who were enthusiastic about it and some who were going to give it a shot despite their considerable angst. That boosted the confidence level among the hesitant officers. Over time, those who sat back to see how it would go began stepping forward.

We have a predominantly young workforce, but we do have our share of older individuals who have come forward for training and have been successful. Some are unable to qualify to carry a firearm, and we have a program in place to assess those individuals and, to the extent possible, offer them an alternative job in their area of work. We will administer that under the duty to accommodate legislation. It will be a challenge, but we are working very hard with other federal government partners internally, and with human resources, to ensure that those individuals land on their feet.

As you say, not everyone signed up for this, and we are very conscious of that. Although we think that the rollout has been successful to date, there will still be some bumps in the road.

Senator Plett: My final question is with regard to searching of baggage and cars. Do you have a certain criteria for choosing who to check? For example, does every thirtieth person have his or her luggage checked?

A few years ago, my parents came back from Florida and I picked them up at the Winnipeg airport in the worst snowstorm Winnipeg had that year, and it was late in the year. It was minus 35 degrees in a blinding snowstorm. My parents were aged. I do not know how many people were searched, but my parents were the last couple out of security and into the common area. Of course, the agents had no idea how far my parents still had to travel to get home. We live out in the country, so we had a long drive ahead of us.

Here are two old folks coming off a completely packed wide-body jet from Florida, and for some reason they were asked to go into a secure area where every bit of their luggage was searched. I was appalled and offended. Had my father tried to sneak a bottle of whiskey through the border, there would have been reason for it, but he had not. Nothing was found in their luggage. I asked my father why they were searched, and he did not know; they were told to go to a secure area and they did.

What criteria do you use to determine whose baggage to check? I saw many people coming through whom I would have picked before I would have picked these people.

Ms. Lavergne: The officers use a number of indicators. We use a random verification methodology. Many people think that officer always have an indicator or some rationale, but in our system there is an automatic referral indicator. We use that to study trends, issues and types of travellers, and to verify our methods for referring to secondary.

There is a verification method in our system to verify declaration. It does not necessarily mean that the officer thinks that a person is engaged in nefarious smuggling activity. It is a verification that the goods declared were actually in the baggage and the amounts declared are the actual amounts being brought back. It is not always an officer referral; there is a systems referral.

Senator Plett: Is the automatic referral a light that goes on? In this case, they had nothing to declare.

Ms. Lavergne: It is not a light; it is a gizmo, to use your term. The officer receives a message to refer the traveller to secondary. Our analysts review the results and we look at trends and indicators. As an example, the information notes that these random exams resulted in the detection of smuggling activities, so there is something there to which officers must pay attention. We track and analyze, on a yearly basis, all sorts of collected information. It is another methodology for referring to secondary, which is not to say that the officer thought that your parents were doing anything.

Senator Plett: As I said in my opening comments, I certainly appreciate what you folks are doing. Occasionally I guess it will be inconvenient for us, but thank you for being here.

Ms. Lavergne: I hope it is not as inconvenient as that.

Senator Plett: I appreciate the services you provide.

Ms. Tracy: I do not know how long ago that occurred, but in the past several years we have been focusing a lot of our attention on being able to pre-screen travellers in the air mode. We get advanced passenger information and personal name records from the airlines prior to arrival. By the time the aircraft arrives, all of the passengers have been screened against our databases and there are targets in the system for anyone who concerns us.

That does not mean that there are not referrals, random and otherwise, from the officers themselves. The officers still have a responsibility to assess the travellers, but we have a pretty good knowledge before the plane arrives of which travellers will be referred and for what reason, whether it is an immigration reason or a customs reason.

Over the last several years, we have gotten much better at being able to pre-risk assess, which results in facilitated travel for those who are not flagged or targeted for examination. It also gives us a better capacity to use our secondary law enforcement resources — hopefully to a better end.

We are making improvements and we hope to make further improvements as the years go on with our capacity to do that.

Senator Plett: If I can follow up quickly, the whole airplane is pre-screened, is that correct?

Ms. Tracy: That is correct. The airline is required to provide us with the names and dates of birth of all of the passengers. They are automatically screened through our system. If there is a flag in the system, if there is a past contravention or something like that, then the traveler will be flagged or targeted for an examination.

Senator Plett: Wonderful.

Senator Meredith: To pick up on that, in terms of individuals who have travelled extensively to a certain Caribbean island or to Europe, is it possible then that they are flagged, given the frequency of their travel?

Ms. Tracy: Not necessarily, not because they have been to or come back from any specific place. It is more their record with the CBSA, whether they have had a customs seizure in the past or an immigration violation of any kind, such as failure to get a work permit or visitors' visa or overstay. It is more about their past history rather than point of origin.

There is some targeting that goes on that does factor in the point of origin of the passenger, but it is also weighed against other factors. It is not something that would automatically trigger a target.

Senator Meredith: Drugs and human trafficking are a huge problem in this country, as are guns ending up on our streets and urban centres. I cannot get away from this as someone who has been speaking out against youth violence in the GTA for the last number of years.

What technologies do you employ to stop firearms from coming into our country? What types of detection do you have at the border? Do you have sensors and heat scans? My question is doubled here because I know that we need to have the flow of goods, and these transport trucks are lined up for miles at times wanting to get into Canada and vice versa. It is affecting the economy and businesses; when products are delayed, customer service goes down, orders are cancelled and businesses are affected.

What technologies do you employ to ensure that these trucks do not contribute to human trafficking? What technologies do you employ to stop the drugs and guns from coming into the country?

Ms. Tracy: We have had a contraband detection technology program for a number of years. The program began with the most rudimentary tools, like mirrors, scans, scopes, probes and that sort of thing.

Over the years, we have introduced more sophisticated equipment, including radiation detection portals that are in place in new marine terminals and VACAS, which are capable of large-scale imaging technology. We invested in those in 2002, I believe, and we have deployed them out gradually, starting with marine ports. Now they are at a number of different land border highway crossings.

We employ that technology to scan cargo, either on a random or targeted basis. It allows us to look at more cargo than we would normally if we had to offload fully. If we have a concern about a load, it sometimes dispels that concern and so we do not have to go to a full offload.

We use that technology and the more traditional, tried-and-true technology of ion spectrometry to identify trace amounts of drugs and explosives. I do not recall how many we have, but we have them at all our border crossings and the officers are trained to use them and make sure they are calibrated and maintained to an appropriate level so they are effective.

The other thing I would say to the general theme of your question is that CBSA is not only about border officers. We have a huge network of intelligence officers and criminal investigators that work with the law enforcement community. In Toronto, we have officers working with the Immigration Task Force, which is Toronto Metropolitan Police and others; and we have them working with Peel Regional Police and others on joint force operations that have a focus on drugs, firearms and illegal immigration.

We play a role in bringing information to that table to enhance our capacity to target and identify illegal activities. CBSA is not only about border activities. These intelligence officers and investigators are responsible for working within that group and bringing back valuable intelligence to the border so we can do our part to interdict stuff on the way in.

Ms. Lavergne: I am just nodding because I believe that is the secret of success. It is the working with law enforcement agencies; it is about the exchange of information from those organizations and getting it into the systems, into the border officers, to interdict.

As you said, the number of travellers — the volumes, whether at air or land — is huge. Without slowing down that economy, without slowing down those travellers, it is incumbent on us to get the right technology and the right systems in place so the border officers can refer the right travellers and trucks and facilitate the law-abiding travellers. You hit our challenge.

The Chair: We are focusing on the airline industry. We agreed that our focus would be on the industry and not security because a Senate committee did an exhaustive study on security matters. We are trying to bring it back to the relationship between the airline industry and security related reasons as it pertains to the objectives of the committee.

Senator Meredith: However, I think it is intertwined here with respect to the borders and the importation; whether it is through our airlines, I assume the agents are still interacting with the travellers.

My other question pertains to agents at our airports. What internal check do you have in place? No institution has a perfect system. Within your institution, there are individuals who go to the other side and cause major problems.

What checks do you have in place to curtail that type of behaviour? Several airport managers have been charged with drug trafficking, people that were well versed in the operating systems of the airport. I understand that this type of behaviour is a huge problem.

What internal checks do you have to ensure you are screening agents that are coming online with your service? How do you deal with those individuals once they are discovered?

Ms. Lavergne: We have our own internal agency to screen prospective employees. If an infraction is suspected or is contemplated, CBSA has the Security and Professional Standards Directorate to deal with it. Internal investigators investigate our staff. They work with law enforcement agencies when there is a criminal aspect to the work. We take action where appropriate based on the circumstances. If it is found that one of our officers is engaged in that type of activity, we take action.

Senator Meredith: My final question is on the dreaded body scanner. I was fortunate enough to be chosen for one this week when on my way to Ottawa.

The Chair: I think that question should be reserved for the people at Canadian Air Transport Security Agency, who will appear before the committee tomorrow.

Ms. Lavergne: We do not employ the body scanner.

Senator Meredith: My question was about the security aspects of it.

The Chair: Tomorrow night you will have that question answered.

Senator Frum: I will return to the economics issue that I might better understand your budget and funding for airport services. Are you restricted to work within the revenue you receive from the Air Traveller's Security Charge or do you determine what you require and have it funded through Transport Canada? How are you funded? How do you arrive at your budget line?

Ms. Lavergne: We are not funded from the passenger security fees collected by the airport authority. Our funding comes from the Government of Canada through our budget appropriations. The charge levied by the airport does not come to the CBSA. We determine our requirements based on our volumes. We forecast our budget requirements to those traveller volumes by airport. We track and report our budgeted expenditures accordingly. We do not take any portion of the airport service fee.

Senator Frum: Do you have any international context for where Canada would rate against your equivalent border agencies around the world?

Ms. Lavergne: We think we are number one.

Senator Frum: Of course you are number one. Do you track the cost-per-passenger rate?

Ms. Lavergne: We do not track systematically because we are challenged by so many variables. The CBSA is integrated very much with Citizenship and Immigration Canada. We are a border agency. Some of our colleagues are customs agents while others have a separate immigration function. It is difficult to determine the cost per traveller, cost per commercial release or cost per truck clearance. In our dealings with some of our counterparts at U.S. Customs and Border Protection to talk about clearances of travellers, we are pretty much at the same scale. Fundamentally we ask the same kinds of questions; we search baggage; we use the same systems, such as NEXUS; and we are not far off in business expenditures.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Lavergne and Ms. Tracy.

Before closing, I would like to remind members that we will meet tomorrow at 6:45 p.m. to hear from the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority.

(The committee adjourned.)


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