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CBSA arming

Any word what the chunk of choice would be?  Would it be the same as the RCMP side arm?  I had heard that the Canadian Cowboys were considering changing theirs, wouldn't it be a hoot if you guys got the new kit first? 
I biasedly recommend the Smith and Wesson 4046.
 
No word yet, but I imagine that we will get whatever the pony boys have....there is no way we will get something better; their feelings would be hurt  ;)

The S & W 4046 would not work for us....the women at work believe it to be to feminine to carry....maybe off duty in their purse  ;D
 
WR said:
No word yet, but I imagine that we will get whatever the pony boys have....there is no way we will get something better; their feelings would be hurt   ;)

The S & W 4046 would not work for us....the women at work believe it to be to feminine to carry....maybe off duty in their purse  ;D

As with the long, metalic items that can be found in your purse (batteries not included). 
I've seen some of your "women at work", and I'm betting they don't get accused of being "feminine" too often.  :dontpanic:
 
I have heard the word “Glock” kicked around a bit. Hopefully not in .40cal, from all the reading I have done .40cal and glock don’t get along, plus I know 2 people that had their .40cal Glocks frame split open on them. There is also a problem with lights on Glocks, seems the light limits/alters frame flex. The G17 would do the job and be reasonable cheap, although I am a Sig fan myself. Mind you the XD polymers seems to be getting good reviews (and I don’t just mean in the gun magazines)
 
For those of you interested in the topic of border guards getting armed, here is a small excerpt from an open-source transcript from the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence meeting of June 19th, 2006:

Mr. Jolicoeur: We are responsible at the crossings. We will reduce that number of 300 in six months.

Senator Campbell: This is not good enough.

My second question is — you cannot tell me that you should not have a pursuit vehicle at those big crossings. You simply cannot tell me that. It does not make any sense. What you are telling me is a joke. If someone runs the Vancouver crossing, chances are they will probably get popped because the Surrey-White Rock detachment is there. If someone runs North Portal in Saskatchewan, you do not have a prayer unless you have a helicopter there.

Either Canada is serious about this or we should stop telling the public that we are. I look at all of this and it does not make any sense. Let us go to a single officer at a crossing. How many of them do we have?

Mr. Jolicoeur: In the last budget, we received resources to double up in all of these areas. We will need 400 new employees to ensure that in each single-officer location, there will be two officers on each shift.

Senator Campbell: How many places are there?

Mr. Jolicoeur: I believe there are 138.

Senator Campbell: In 2005 there were 139, so we have taken this seriously. Why do we not forget about the new uniforms and put two people at the border so that they are safer? This is simply not acceptable. What are your priorities in order here — new uniforms? Last year you said you would do something about this. You pledged $101 million to begin arming the border officers and eliminating work-alone posts. How many of those work-alone posts have you eliminated? One, according to these figures. What is the timeline for eliminating them? When are we going to not have single officers sitting in the middle of Saskatchewan, Alberta or Manitoba?

Mr Jolicoeur is the president of the Canada Border Services Agency.

As you can see from the excerpt, and the rest of the transcript (http://www.parl.gc.ca/39/1/parlbus/commbus/senate/Com-e/defe-e/04eva-e.htm?Language=E&Parl=39&Ses=1&comm_id=76) the committee is not very happy with Mr Jolicoeur.

An interesting read, to be sure.
 
zipperhead_cop said:
I would be interested to know what "closing" the border constitutes?  If they are putting out an orange pylon, then that is kind of lame.  If they are putting a couple of cube vans in the out and in lanes and hanging back with local police on site to grab the bad guy, then that sounds like a good plan. 

Forgive me, as I haven't worked at a land border crossing, but from what I am told "closing" a border crossing normally involves a Part II - Canada Labour Code work refusal, which invokes a walk off by employees, and with managers and supervisors filling in.

So, unless the crossing has no on-site management, the port actually doesn't close.  Trade comes first, in the minds of our "leadership" and so the port remains open, but with a reduced capability to handle traffic.

Labour Canada then arrives to save the day by declaring the port safe and doing a quick investigation, sometimes in that order.

Trade comes first!

I'm glad I don't work at a land border!
 
Adam_18 said:
One of the main points that has been raised here has been whether or not Customs officials would be willing/able to carry firearms and what to do with the ones who are not willing to carry, or don't qualify?

why can we not stick those officers in an airport, i believe a customs officer himself said that he worked in an airport and felt safe.

could that not be a feesable solution instead of firing or letting go those who couldn't qualify?

Adam

As a customs officer (Border Services Officer now) who spent six years working at the busiest airport in Canada, I can assure you that they are by no means "safe" although there is a lowered risk to officers.

Without going in to great detail, most of which has been documented already several times in many media sources, and in the Senate Committee report "Borderline Insecure", there are many glaring security and safety risks at PIA and other Canadian airports.

CBSA's officers are the largest representation of peace officers present at any airport in Canada at any given time.  Even on a midnight shift, we outnumber Peel Police.  We also have access to almost all areas of the airport, and certainly everywhere international baggage and passengers go, we have an incredible amount of access to information in our pre-arrival risk assessment units, and enforce upwards of 90 acts of Parliament.

Yet, it is still far from a "safe" work place.

Assaults, attempted assaults, and threats of assault have all occurred involving our officers.  So too has damage to officer's vehicles, which may or may not be a form of "intimidation" against our officers.  Our airside units come into regular contact with airport workers, a good portion of whom it has been demonstrated (see the Senate report) have ties to organized crime, have criminal records, and/or are carrying weapons.

How to airside ramp workers get weapons?  It's easy, but I can't answer that question publicly.

Those are the "hidden" risks.  The obvious one is that firearms come through the airport - legally - every day.  In passenger mode, hunters, target shooters, and sometimes other people import firearms on a regular basis.  This fall, at one terminal, there will be at least one firearm sitting unattended (although in a locked case) at all times throughout the day in the arrivals baggage hall, awaiting its owner to clear customs/immigration and claim it.  And THEN they go through customs again, to exit.  Although airlines require ammunition to be secured in a separate bag, at some point prior to seeing a customs officer and being referred for further examination (mandatory for all firearms imports), the passenger will have BOTH their firearm(s) AND the bags containing their ammunition.

If you assume that all airline passengers have been security cleared before coming to Canada, then you're mistaken.  We've had people just show up at the primary line, with a concealed firearm, declare it (not realizing it was prohibited in Canada) and have it seized.  The particular individual arrived from a South American country, on that country's flag carrier, and they had all the permits necessary .. for THAT country.

Yes, these are all examples of low risk travellers... but the point is, they have the guns, we do not.  And we do not get advance notice of it, either (despite all our high-tech, risk-assessment computers).

As a CBSA firearms instructor, I repeat a mantra to all airport mode officers attending my training:  "STAY ALERT.  STAY ALIVE."  Once you become complacent, you can very easily become dead.


To address where to put officers who won't/don't qualify to carry, there are several options:

- They can work in Ottawa, where I am now, in an office where they do not have direct public contact
- They can work in an admin office locally, handling seizure paperwork, courtroom lists, issuing uniforms/equipment, etc.
- They can work in postal or the commercial longroom or a non-designated office (Front Street, Barrie, etc.)
- They can work in the CANPASS call centre
- They can retire/go somewhere else

Make no mistake, though, the airport is a dangerous place to work, too.

I agree that firearms would be a lower priority there, but I've even seen 30 minute response times from Peel Police, and they are in the same building as our people!


Even police services have to deal with officers who fail to qualify/re-qualify on firearms, every now and then.
 
Flawed Design said:
Walking off the job shouldn't be an option, especially for customs agents.

I've got news for you: Even if they armed all BSO's tomorrow, walking off the job is STILL an option.  Here's why:

- The Canada Labour Code enshrines the right of employees to refuse to work in a dangerous workplace.  Management has a responsibility to mitigate the risk, not eliminate it.  Even when your duties include apprehending criminals, the officer has the right to ensure that their safety is taken seriously.  A lone police officer will never be asked or ordered to charge into a bank, for example, that is in the middle of a hold-up (although they may choose to at their own peril).
- There could always be a situation where an armed BSO is just simply outmatched and needs to disengage, for example an armed offender takes an officer or member of the public hostage. BSO's are unlikely to be required to deal with this type of situation, which calls for specialized tactical response.

Flawed Design said:
If it's a matter of giving them the silly FAC, PAL, POL course then just give it to them. It took me under an hour for the non-restricted and restricted and i aced them both.  (I'm not a smart guy!) :)
Send them to a shooting range for a week-end and get them some hand gun training and presto.

Not that simple.

Here's whats involved:

- Potential armed BSO's need to be adequately screened for behavioural problems that may preclude them from armed duties.  A popular misconception among many BSO's is that this would just involve a simple psych test, because that's what the cops do. The police use psychological screening for much more, as their employees will be in a position of vast public trust (access to criminal information, intelligence, required to take custody and comfort small children, vulnerable victims of crimes, seizre and handle drugs, cash and valuables, etc.).  Firearms are just one part of it.  This type of screening should already be in place anyway. Arming is a good opportunity to introduce it, but we should have had it all along.
- People will opt out.  You can't force people to carry firearms when it wasn't in their employment conditions to begin with.  People that opt out will have to work someplace where they're not required to carry a firearm, or retire/transfer.
- People will want reclassification/promotion. Although there is no sound basis for it, the union will likely push for more pay.  As much as I agree I'm worth more money, I doubt we would win a labour arbitration ruling, if it came to it. We already have the authority to carry firearms, we just don't do so because there is no policy for it yet. We already have use of force tools, and we already got reclassed recently to recognize our "increased responsibilities". In the Federal Public Service, you get paid what the Treasury Board deems appropriate for your responsibilities, not for what tools you carry around.
- We need comprehensive and effective firearms trainers. We can't knit them overnight. The CBSA needs to source train-the-trainer courses for their firearms instructors.  In order to do that, they need to schedule how many people they can realistically train in the coming months, and how often they will need refreshers.  They don't want to send people on instructor courses, and then 6 months later have too many instructors and not enough students.
- We need effective purchasing plans for the equipment.  All of it.  Holsters, mags, and ammo included.  The chosen gun needs to fit everyone from the 5'2" female with small hands, up to the 6'6" gigantic dude.
- The policies and training plans need to be drafted.  BSO's need to know when they can unholster their firearm, under what circumstances it will be self-defence, where to store them, how to care for them, how often they need to be qualifying on them, etc.
- Everything needs to be coordinated with existing use of force instruction.  Police use of force courses don't teach you how to shoot.  They teach you the use of force continuum, situational judgement, when you can escalate/de-escalate your force, and firearms retention.  The firearms instructor has to teach you marksmanship and shooting skills under all circumstances.
- The entire CBSA management needs a massive "paradigm shift" in their thinking because, Baby, if we go armed, we need to start collectively thinking and acting like a professional law enforcement agency, and right now I don't think we are there.
- Courses would have to last at least a week for students, with 1 or 2 day refreshers every year.  That is a vast amount of training time, and a vast cost.
- A range needs to be built at Rigaud, or at the very least, MOU's drafted allowing us to use police/private ranges (as the RCMP do for refreshers, since they can't fly everyone back to Regina for it all the time).
- OS&H committees need resources and time to make decisions on a host of firearms-related issues.  Policies and laws need to be clarified.

That's just for starters...

That said, with the right motivation, and the right amount of money, I firmly believe the majority of our officers could be trained within 6-8 months.

RUMINT within the dept. has projected this much further into the future, but then again, I don't think some of those managers will be around much longer.
 
portcullisguy said:
RUMINT within the dept. has projected this much further into the future, but then again, I don't think some of those managers will be around much longer.

I had the displeasure of watching on CPAC the senate committee interview the CBSA during one of their committee meetings. You might be right about the rumor because if this is the type of bureaucrat running the department, they really, really need to get their heads out of it.
 
[quote author=Alain Jolicoeur, President, Canada Border Services Agency (from Senate hearing above)]
This is an overview of the progress since October 2005 when I last appeared before the committee. As senators are aware, I am committed to the CBSA evolving into an innovative science- and technology-based learning organization. Achieving security and prosperity simultaneously is an enormous responsibility and a constant balancing act between security and facilitation that requires diligence, innovation and flexibility. Thank you for this opportunity and I look forward to your questions. [/quote]



OMFG... I really feel sorry for anyone working under this numptee...
 
I think this may have been posted, but since the thread is up again I'll repost this:

ALAIN JOLICOEUR
President
Canada Border Services Agency

Mr. Alain Jolicoeur completed his classical education at the Collège de Haute-Rive. He went on to earn a bachelor's degree in physics engineering at Université Laval and pursued studies in meteorology at the Université du Québec à Montréal.

Mr. Jolicoeur began his career in the Public Service of Canada in 1973 and, until 1980, held various positions in the field of meteorology with Environment Canada and the Department of National Defence. From 1980 to 1992, Mr. Jolicoeur held management positions in engineering, technology transfer, technological development, and the state of the environment.

Subsequently, Mr. Jolicoeur joined the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat as head of human resources for the Government of Canada. In July 1999, he became Associate Deputy Minister of National Revenue and Deputy Commissioner of the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (CCRA).

In September 2002, Mr. Jolicoeur was named Deputy Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs. He occupied this position until December 12, 2003, when he became President of the Canada Border Services Agency.


http://www.cbsa.gc.ca/agency/president/menu-e.html

This is why they call him the Weather Man.  He appears to be a useless Liberal appointee with nothing to bring to the table but a bad moustache.
 
But... he called it a 'science and technology based learning organisation'....  :o

I can't begin to think what he means by that... He isn't running a school, he's running a government secuity organisation...



 
Wow, I should be surprised but I'm not.  Imagine that the liberals appointing someone to run a LAW ENFORCEMENT agency, who has absolutely zero knowledge, education, or experience in that field. ::)  How the hell do you run a border agency as "science and technology" based? And people wonder why our southern brothers have such concerns over our borders/points of entry.
 
Hatchet Man said:
::)  How the hell do you run a border agency as "science and technology" based? And people wonder why our southern brothers have such concerns over our borders/points of entry.

Wasn't that the Liberal attitude towards the CF just a few years ago.  Who was it as Minister of Defence who said something along the lines that "We don't need gorillas any more, we need technicians.  We are going to be a more technology driven military."
 
Klc said:
But... he called it a 'science and technology based learning organisation'....  :o

I can't begin to think what he means by that... He isn't running a school, he's running a government secuity organisation...

To be fair, we do have some very nifty science and tech elements in the CBSA which are of great value to the operations.

We have a state of the art laboratory, capable of foresnic analysis on fradulent documents, drug analysis, and contraband detection R&D.  We have the office I work out of, where we are able to receive information from a wide array of sources, including tax records, criminal and intelligence databases, passenger and cargo manifests (API/PNR and ACI programs), cross border movement, and a host of other databases.  We have some of the most sophisticated drug and explosive technologies in place at ports of entry, now in use by corrections and border officials in several countries, but originally developed based on our agency's R&D (the infamous Ion Scan).  We have one of the best detector dog training programs anywhere in the world.  We are implementing the same radiation detection technology used by the US at our seaports and land borders.  The technology is impressive, and can be very useful.

The overall problem, in my opinion, is that from the top down, we over-rely on these technologies, and not on our people or main purpose.

To steal a battel school slogan, we forget that we are all "border officers first" -- this is mainly because the VAST majority of our managers have never been border officers.  They are, like our "President", imports and appointees from other parts of the civil service.

I long for the day when our head of the agency started out as a border officer working a primary inspection line and who worked their way up.



As an aside, compare our "mission statement" to that of our nearest ally and largest trading partner.  You will see a REMARKABLE difference in attitude, foundation and direction.


CBSA Mission Statement & Values:
Mission
To ensure the security and prosperity of Canada by managing the access of people and goods to and from Canada.

Values
Integrity, Respect, Professionalism.
http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/agency/who-qui-e.html

US Customs and Border Protection Mission Statement:
Mission
We are the guardians of our Nation's borders.
We are America's frontline.
We safeguard the American homeland at and beyond our borders.
We protect the American public against terrorists and the instruments of terror.
We steadfastly enforces the laws of the United States while fostering our Nation's economic security through lawful international trade and travel.
We serve the American public with vigilance, integrity and professionalism.

Core values:
Vigilance, Integrity, Professionalism.
http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/toolbox/about/mission/guardians.xml

A quick comparison plainly illustrates some glaring differences.  The tone of the American mission statement puts the bottom line up front: "We are the guardians of our Nation's borders."  They "steadfastly enforce" the laws.  Fostering economic security is a byproduct.  Their core values again put the main issue first: vigilance.

The CBSA's mission statement, although more brief and succinct, sounds less like a mission statement and more like a wish.  "We ensure" by "managing".  The first core value is "integrity", possibly because it was drafted at the tail end of 13 years of the last government's blatant and obvious corruption and pocket-lining.

Of course, they didn't ask me for suggestions on what our mission statement should be.
 
portcullisguy said:
The CBSA's mission statement, although more brief and succinct, sounds less like a mission statement and more like a wish. 

I thought it was "to provide a prompt and friendly face immediately upon arrival to Canadian soil, with the shortest possible delay, regardless of security or safety considerations"  ;D
Or is that just the motto from the management career path book  ;)
 
portcullisguy said:
Those are the "hidden" risks.  The obvious one is that firearms come through the airport - legally - every day.  In passenger mode, hunters, target shooters, and sometimes other people import firearms on a regular basis.  This fall, at one terminal, there will be at least one firearm sitting unattended (although in a locked case) at all times throughout the day in the arrivals baggage hall, awaiting its owner to clear customs/immigration and claim it.  And THEN they go through customs again, to exit.  Although airlines require ammunition to be secured in a separate bag, at some point prior to seeing a customs officer and being referred for further examination (mandatory for all firearms imports), the passenger will have BOTH their firearm(s) AND the bags containing their ammunition.

Yep, and I got snotty comments from the staff there when i pointed this out, plus to add insult to injury, Air Canada charges you $65 each way to mishandle your firearm. They lost mine on the way to Ft Nelson, but manged to find it when I threatened to put in a police report, apparently the $65 charge is to cover the "extra costs of handling a firearm" having watched the whole sequence at Smithers, it involves me filling out a form while they throw it in with the rest of the luggage. I hate air Canada and avoid it like the plague.
 
Just thought I would toss this in, the exchange between Senator Banks and friends vs. the Weather Man:

THE STANDING SENTATE
COMMITTEE
ON NATIONAL SECURITY AND DEFENCE

EVIDENCE

OTTAWA, Monday, June 19, 2006


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence met this day at 10 a.m. to examine and report on the national security policy of Canada.

Senator Colin Kenny (Chairman) is in the chair.

Before us today, colleagues, we have Alain Jolicoeur, President, Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). He has been president of the Canada Border Services Agency since December 2003. He has been with the public service of Canada since 1973 and has served in a number of different positions with Environment Canada, the Department of National Defence and the Treasury Board Secretariat. In July of 1999, he became Associate Deputy Minister of National Revenue and Deputy Commissioner of the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency. In December 2002, he was named Deputy Minister of the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, a post he occupied until assuming his current position.

Mr. Jolicoeur is accompanied by Barbara Hébert, Vice-President, Operations Branch, Canada Border Services Agency. Welcome to both of you. I understand you have a brief statement, Mr. Jolicoeur.

Alain Jolicoeur, President, Canada Border Services Agency: I am pleased to join you today. It has been about eight months since my last appearance at your committee.

I would like to thank you for your support in passing our legislation. As you know, this has given the CBSA the legal authority necessary to continue forward with our modern border management agenda.

I am happy to share with you some of our progress that we have made since last October and some of the key priorities currently facing our agency.

We are moving ahead and further refining our three basic approaches — with their accompanying tools and technology — to manage, control and secure border operations; collect advance information and turn that information into intelligence; and expand our pre-approval programs to expedite legitimate travel and trade at the border.

Examples of progress include the Advance Passenger Information (API) and Personal Name Record (PNR) agreement that we signed with the European Union. As well, the Advance Commercial Information program, which has been operational in the marine mode since 2004, will be fully implemented by this summer for the air mode. We have integrated training programs for new recruits so that new border services officers can operate technology, work with newly implemented systems and better manage risk. Thus, they will be better able to keep pace with the evolution of our business. We ran successful NEXUS air and marine pilot programs. We continue to invest in research, development, and the acquisition and deployment of radiation-detection technology. The first units were installed in Saint John where testing is taking place. Further deployments are planned for 2006 in Montreal, Halifax and Vancouver. Once fully implemented, our radiation-detection program will allow us to screen virtually 100 per cent of incoming marine cargo immediately upon its arrival in Canada.

We continue to deliver on our plans to provide enhanced connectivity for remote ports and we have made significant progress to connect unconnected sites. Most sites are now connected with only three seasonal sites left to fully connect by the end of summer 2006. We are replacing the existing Primary Automated Lookout System files with an updated system to ensure that border services officers have access to the information they need. We will continue to invest in building a smarter, more secure and trade-efficient border that relies on technology, information sharing and biometrics.

The CBSA will receive $239 million over the next two years to help fund some of the highest profile initiatives under the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP). These initiatives include NEXUS air, e-manifests, business resumption planning, partners in protection, and the passenger name record program. We are moving to the next generation of smart-border management. These SPP initiatives will improve border security by complementing our existing risk-management strategies. They demonstrate innovative measures to ensure the free flow of trade and travel across a secure border.

The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) is the most important bilateral border issue currently facing Canada. We share U.S. security objectives and want to work with them to ensure that both countries continue to streamline the movement of low-risk traffic in both directions. Prime Minister Harper and President Bush discussed the issue earlier this year and agreed to appoint Public Safety Minister Day and Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff as the leads to discuss this matter. They created a working group led by me on the Canadian side and by the head of the US-VISIT program and the new Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Ralph Basham. This working group will examine issues and develop proposed solutions for discussion at the ministerial level. We have had a number of meetings and conference calls to date. Minister Day and Secretary Chertoff met in April and plan to meet again this July.

Specifically, as part of the SPP, we are now actively engaged with our U.S. counterparts to identify jointly acceptable document security standards that will help us to identify other alternative secure documents in addition to the passport and the U.S. n PASS card, already announced as acceptable. The CBSA will receive $100 million over the next two years to begin the process of providing frontline border services officers with side arms and of ensuring that they are no longer required to work alone. We plan to arm approximately 5,000 officers, not only at land border crossings but also at marine ports and, in some cases, inland. We plan to have the first group of officers armed by the fall of 2007. We are actively engaging the union in our implementation planning.

I am committed to broadening our intelligence networks and to ensuring that CBSA staff are well trained and well equipped. We must constantly invest in new and modern tools, adopt innovative approaches and capture the benefits of the best science and technology. The CBSA has built strong partnerships within the security community, as was made clear by our participation in the investigations that led to the arrests earlier this month of the 17 terrorist suspects in Toronto.

We continue to protect the health and safety of Canadians and to maintain the security of Canadian society by removing individuals that might pose a danger to the public or to the national security of Canada. We are investing heavily to ensure that our intelligence networks and tools are the best. We recently moved detainees under security certificates from provincial remand centres, where all high-risk immigration detainees are held, to the newly operated Kingston Immigration Holding Centre to improve conditions of detention for our security cases.

This is an overview of the progress since October 2005 when I last appeared before the committee. As senators are aware, I am committed to the CBSA evolving into an innovative science- and technology-based learning organization. Achieving security and prosperity simultaneously is an enormous responsibility and a constant balancing act between security and facilitation that requires diligence, innovation and flexibility. Thank you for this opportunity and I look forward to your questions.

Senator Banks: We are pleased to hear your reference to improvements made since you last joined us at committee, Mr. Jolicoeur. We are in the process of developing a report card of the recommendations we have made to the government in those respects. Your visit here is timely. Almost one year ago, this committee issued a report called Borderline Insecure to which we drew the attention of the government and all Canadians to some of the issues you mentioned.

The first one is the connections that you said have been made with respect to land border crossings and to the central intelligence capacity with the computer system. I understood you to say that they have been connected except for three seasonal posts. Are the connections via high-speed access? Could you tell us why those three seasonal posts are not connected yet?

Mr. Jolicoeur: When CBSA was created, 110 offices were not connected. You have asked me on other occasions to report on the status of those offices. During 2005, we connected an additional 31 offices, which leaves us with work to do on 21 offices. The three remaining seasonal offices that are not connected are small but I agree that it could be a problem. We have asked Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC) to secure a contract for CBSA for satellite connection for these three offices. They are working hard to obtain that contract for us. I am not sure why but there has been an administrative delay. We are confident that these offices will be connected through satellite before the end of the summer. It should have been done by now, but it is not done yet.

Senator Banks: Has anyone explained this to you? If you and I wanted a high-speed connection from the middle of the Gobi Desert, we could get it in very short order. Why is this delay happening?

Mr. Jolicoeur: Procurement in the public service is something that can be problematic on occasion because of the challenges and rules.

On a different note, we have spent a year and a half trying to obtain new uniforms for our employees. We are approaching the end of the process and will finally be getting our new uniforms. It is a complex process. Those questions may be better directed to PWGSC. We are approaching the end of the process and these offices will be connected.

I want to refer to another 18 offices that have been connected for some time. We are not comfortable with the high-speed connection or wave-length aspect, the space sufficient for them to obtain all the services other offices are getting.

We are planning to first analyze how the connection works with these three final examples. If satellite connection provides us with everything we think it will, that will probably be the solution for the other 18 offices that are not sufficiently connected.

Senator Banks: At the moment, let us talk about the three examples that are absent. We will take this to Public Works and Government Services Canada. We see the minister every day in the Senate and we will ask him those questions.

I can understand why you must get competitive bids on which uniform manufacturer to use. However, matters directly related to national security, particularly at these times, seem to be able to leapfrog those considerations in some way.

With respect to those three "offices" as you call them, I am presuming they are small and are probably manned by an officer at a given time. Is that a reasonable presumption?

Mr. Jolicoeur: Yes, they are small. They are probably one-person offices.

Senator Banks: How does that person get information about an emergent event? How is that person told that a truck driving up to their office might have something wrong with it, might contain something that ought not to be there, or has people in it about whom they should be careful? How are they notified?

Mr. Jolicoeur: If there is advance intelligence about something such as a vehicle, a person or an event to be aware of, we can always contact those offices.

Senator Banks: By what means?

Mr. Jolicoeur: We would speak to them directly by phone.

Senator Banks: In the event there is something untoward based on advanced intelligence, would you be able to get additional people to that office in short order?

Mr. Jolicoeur: I could not tell you right now how long it would take to get a person to these three offices but I can look into that. If there was such a need, we would send someone for sure.

Senator Banks: This is one of the questions addressed in our report.

If that vehicle drives through the land border crossing and does not stop, and there are a number of instances of that happening, can you tell us about the recordkeeping in that respect? How many instances were there in Canada last year of vehicles that just drove through a border crossing and did not stop? What is the percentage of those vehicles that were likely to have been found after the fact? Do we have that information?

Mr. Jolicoeur: You recommended to us and we agreed that we needed to start measuring and reporting on that, which we have done. I do not have the exact number but we started reporting last year.

If you recall the first time you raised that issue with us, the number used the year before was 1,600 across the country over a year. So far, for the six months of this year, we have a number in the 300 range. There has been a significant reduction of those occurrences.

They are reported, and that reporting has lead to about 70 people being arrested. I do not have the exact number but I do have that information if you want it.

Senator Banks: Will you please send that information to the clerk of the committee?

Mr. Jolicoeur: Yes.

Senator Banks: I think most Canadians would be surprised, shocked and unhappy to learn that 300 vehicles in half a year drive through the border, are not stopped and get away with it, at least for a while. Whomever or whatever they have in their trunk could be let out in fairly short order.

In a case such as that, the policy of CBSA now is to notify the police. The police may or may not be able to do something about it. We have had other issues about how quickly the police are able to respond to that, and it has not been good news.

Will that policy change when your border officers at those land border crossings are armed? When there is an armed and dangerous person known to be coming to the border, or when a vehicle crosses the border without stopping, will that policy change when your officers arrive?

Mr. Jolicoeur: The policy in terms of what to do when someone crosses the border without stopping will not change when our people are armed. Our policy will be similar to that of the U.S. They will not be allowed to use their guns to shoot at a car that passes through or anything like that. They will advise the police when someone runs the border. That policy will remain the same.

Senator Banks: We will still have to rely upon a police response, and sometimes they are too busy or cannot get around to it. Will CBSA officers have an added capacity to pursue a car or truck that has crossed the border without stopping?

Mr. Jolicoeur: No, we have no means to pursue; we are not foreseeing situations where we will need the means to pursue those cars ourselves. We will continue relying on the police.

Senator Banks: In that case, we are interested in receiving information about the number of vehicles that are somehow intercepted and how long it takes to find them. They could have offloaded whatever it was they had — which is presumably the reason they ran the border — in 20 minutes.

Mr. Jolicoeur: I agree. However, I should point out that we have reduced those numbers significantly using signage and different methods. We need to continue reducing that number.

At the end of the day, yes, we are dependent upon the police to capture the remaining offenders.

Senator Banks: We have already heard from CBSA officers that the police sometimes cannot respond and when they do it takes a long time.

If I drive a car across the border with a 20-minute head start, there are a lot of places in Canada I could go where you would never find me again. Is that right?

Mr. Jolicoeur: That is true at the moment. The solution is to reduce the number of people crossing without stopping and to get quicker service from the police. There may be alternative solutions in areas where it is difficult to obtain that service rapidly.

The Chairman: I have a supplementary question on that, Senator Banks.

Just so we are clear, Mr. Jolicoeur, you said that 300 vehicles ran the border in the first six months of this year?

Mr. Jolicoeur: The number is roughly 300 vehicles over six months.

The Chairman: Only 70 of those vehicles were apprehended?

Mr. Jolicoeur: Yes, I think it is about 70.

The Chairman: Is it correct that there are 230 vehicles in the country about which we have no clue?

Mr. Jolicoeur: That is true. I would like to point out that it is a very significant reduction over the previous number and it is our belief that the vast majority of cases where people run the port is by confusion. People are confused about signing. The vast majority think they have gone through the whole process when they have not.

The Chairman: If that is the case, why do you not have a barrier? It is easy to raise and lower a barrier.

Mr. Jolicoeur: We could put barriers everywhere. This will slow the process considerably, but it is a possibility. There is also a cost to that.

The Chairman: There is a barrier when you go into a parking garage and, when someone wants to leave, it is a matter of someone pushing a button and saying, thank you very much, have a nice day and they drive off.

Mr. Jolicoeur: We could have barriers everywhere. I would point out again that our process is measured by seconds. There are cases where it might be a problem, but that could be a permanent solution.

The Chairman: For people running the border, why not have something farther down the road, not by the post, that incapacitates the vehicle? We see police dragging across spikes and it would be an easy matter to automate that and have the vehicle incapacitated 200 metres farther down the road, not at the post.

Mr. Jolicoeur: There are locations where this could be considered. I am not sure it would be applicable to all locations because of the width.

The Chairman: I agree. It is not applicable to all. I am not hearing you say we are really concerned about the 230 that are getting through.

Mr. Jolicoeur: I am concerned, and this is why we have moved from 1,600 to a much smaller number. We need to keep on reducing that by using different techniques, and one of them might be, at the end of the day to bring it down to zero, to consider what you are suggesting.

The Chairman: I am surprised that I am suggesting them to you. I am surprised that you are not saying, I am sorry to report that 230-plus folks made it into the country, but here is our plan: One, we are going to put up a barrier to stop the ones who are just doing it accidentally and, two, we have figured out a way to stop the other vehicles. You seem passive about these issues and I do not understand why you are not coming before us and saying — here are the problems and, by the way, we have solutions that we are working on. We will test some of these and have some in place by this date. You come and say, well, Public Works is slow putting in equipment and we are also having problems with uniforms and, by the way, 230 vehicles with maybe more people snuck into the country, but I do not have anything to tell you about the solutions to stop that.

Mr. Jolicoeur: Let us take this problem one by one. We are flagging the port running and the difficulty we are having with port running. The last time we discussed that with you, we were collectively unhappy with the number of port runners, which was at 1,600. The plan that we discussed and implemented was to work in the area where that was most prevalent. We flagged two areas where we had some difficulty — one port in B.C. and a secondary commercial one at Windsor. We have worked on both and this is why we have progressed a lot.

I am not saying we are finished, but I am saying we have progressed a lot and we will continue to do so. If we do not find a better or more practical way to bring it close to zero — it is never going to be zero — we will use barriers. However, sometimes this occurs when our ports are closed. We get information about some people crossing the border point when the port is closed.

Senator Banks: That is not okay. How is it possible to say in this day and age, with everything that is happening, that if a criminal finds a border post that is closed, he or she can just drive across it? It is not okay that we have made progress in these things. Following the chairman's point, at each and every land border crossing in Canada, there is a road that vehicles have to drive down before they get to the fork in the road or the maze of streets or the other highways. There is a choke point, to use your language, by the use of which, the numbers of vehicles that drive into Canada without having been stopped and inspected, could be zero. You know better than we do what they are. There is a hydraulic mechanism in the road that stops the car or a set of teeth that come up and ruin tires, which half the parking lots in the country use.

Are you planning those kinds of things? Are you going to install those things so that the next time we talk to you the number of cars coming into Canada without having been stopped will be zero? Making it better is not good enough days, is it? Does it not have to be zero?

Mr. Jolicoeur: I understand your frustration and I would also like this to be zero, but as you know and as I have reported, we have many roads that are unguarded between Canada and the U.S.

If I take all of the former border crossing points and turn them into fortresses, at some point there is a limited return on the investment because —

Senator Banks: Is that the consideration — it costs too much?

Mr. Jolicoeur: The governing consideration is if you have a chain and you try to strengthen three or 15 of the links to make them better, it does not make your security any tighter because of the other ones. So, at some point we have to live with the reality that we have this huge border and there are many places where people can actually go through.

Senator Campbell: With all due respect, you are copping out. I am new here. I cannot believe this. I just cannot believe what I am hearing here. Are we serious about taking care of terrorism and people crossing our borders here? You cannot cop out by saying there are hundreds of places you can cross in this country. I know there are hundreds of places. You are responsible for the crossings. You came here in October. At that time you said there was no log being kept that would tell you how many people were jumping the border. Now we have a number of 1,600. Where did that come from?

Mr. Jolicoeur: The number of 1,600 was not a formal number. It was a number that was captured by, if I remember, employees across the country that reported on these things. Now we are —

Senator Campbell: There was no formal process of keeping it so the number could have been 3,200 for all you know — correct?

Mr. Jolicoeur: That is correct.

Senator Campbell: And so now we know that there are 300 in half a year.

Mr. Jolicoeur: That is correct.

Senator Campbell: You say there are lots of places to cross. You are responsible for making sure that people do not cross that border. Is that correct, at the crossings?

Mr. Jolicoeur: We are responsible at the crossings. We will reduce that number of 300 in six months.

Senator Campbell: This is not good enough.

My second question is — you cannot tell me that you should not have a pursuit vehicle at those big crossings. You simply cannot tell me that. It does not make any sense. What you are telling me is a joke. If someone runs the Vancouver crossing, chances are they will probably get popped because the Surrey-White Rock detachment is there. If someone runs North Portal in Saskatchewan, you do not have a prayer unless you have a helicopter there.

Either Canada is serious about this or we should stop telling the public that we are. I look at all of this and it does not make any sense. Let us go to a single officer at a crossing. How many of them do we have?

Mr. Jolicoeur: In the last budget, we received resources to double up in all of these areas. We will need 400 new employees to ensure that in each single-officer location, there will be two officers on each shift.

Senator Campbell: How many places are there?

Mr. Jolicoeur: I believe there are 138.

Senator Campbell: In 2005 there were 139, so we have taken this seriously. Why do we not forget about the new uniforms and put two people at the border so that they are safer? This is simply not acceptable. What are your priorities in order here — new uniforms? Last year you said you would do something about this. You pledged $101 million to begin arming the border officers and eliminating work-alone posts. How many of those work-alone posts have you eliminated? One, according to these figures. What is the timeline for eliminating them? When are we going to not have single officers sitting in the middle of Saskatchewan, Alberta or Manitoba?

Mr. Jolicoeur: Do you want me to speak to the question of single officers?

Senator Campbell: I do.

Mr. Jolicoeur: In Budget 2006, we have, for the first time, money to deal with work-alone posts. Now, we have to hire people and train them for which we have a plan. I admit that it will take about three years before we have no work-alone posts in Canada. That is the time it will take to complete the recruitment and training, given the space we have at our training centre. However, this problem is being resolved.

Senator Campbell: If this is so important, why are you not sending trained and knowledgeable people from the big border crossings to be the second officer and then putting a rookie into the big offices where they could be trained? There had better not be someone killed at one of these work-alone border crossings during the next few years. There is a way around this. I understand about bringing in more officers and the training. However, simply take 139 trained officers from the big offices across Canada and put them into these smaller, work-alone posts. My biggest fear is that someone working alone will be hurt at one of these crossings. Worse, the fact that there are 230 vehicles wandering around likely has nothing to with their missing the signage, as you suggested. If you cannot read the signage at Windsor, then you are coming across with something to do something. This is not acceptable.

Senator Banks: Is the principal constraint money?

Mr. Jolicoeur: For what?

Senator Banks: Doing all of these things, such as ensuring that no sign at a border crossing indicates "Closed for the night. Come back later," which is kind of silly.

Mr. Jolicoeur: If we want barriers, rules and a system that prevents people from crossing illegally then, yes there is a money consideration.

Senator Banks: Has that money been requested? Does CBSA have a plan for which it has requested the funds to reduce these numbers to zero? This committee argued with the previous government about it not providing sufficient resources. We will not change our minds on that simply because the government has changed. The previous government was deficient in providing the necessary resources for these jobs. However, you need a plan to take to the government in order to secure the appropriate funds to fix the problem. You need to tell the government how much it will cost. Have you made such a plan?

Mr. Jolicoeur: We make requests to every federal budget for additional resources for CBSA. This year, we received over two years $365 million for two improvements to security across Canada.

In the last budget, our request included a piece specifically dealing with running the port. No, I did not have a piece there. We of course were asked to prioritize all of our requests. No, there was not a specific request for that in the last budget. If we were to consider all of the areas where we could strengthen the border then, you are right, the amount requested to fund all of them would be very high. It would take a significant amount of money to add the number of people we would like to have at the borders and consider the areas between border points and post-border points — much more than we are talking about now.

Senator Banks: Most members of this committee believe that most Canadians would think that that would be money well spent. Aside from the specifics of border crossings, it would have a great impact on relations with our neighbour and the things that they suspect are happening in Canada. We argue against some of those suspicions when we send people to Washington to argue the incalculability of the costs. It is not only the fact of those 230 vehicles whose locations we do not know, but also the impact of that on our overall situation. Most Canadians would be extremely supportive of the necessary funding to ensure that we do not have "closed for the night" signs on our border crossings.

The Chairman: Mr. Jolicoeur, you just described a plan that you have laid out in order of priority. Could you make a copy of that available to the committee, please?

Mr. Jolicoeur: Do you mean in terms of the funding in Budget 2006?

The Chairman: No. We know those figures. We would like to know what you did not receive in that budget and we would like to see your list, in priority, of issues that you want to address across the spectrum. For example, are barriers on your list? Do you have a list of other deficiencies? We are anxious to know that you are on top of the job, and we do not want to be unreasonable in terms of our criticisms of what you are doing. If you have a plan in place that is not being funded, we would like to see what that plan is. We would like to have a look at what you have been arguing for so that we can see that you have a system that will resolve some of these problems. Failing that, we have to assume that you are not focusing on some of these issues.

It would be much fairer to you and to the agency if you were to provide us with what you think you need and what you have on your lists for material, equipment and devices, et cetera, to ensure that the border crossings work in the way that we expect them to work. Can you provide us with that?

Mr. Jolicoeur: That is fine. Yes.

The Chairman: Thank you.

[Translation]

Senator Poulin: Safety has become a major concern for Canadians because of a bad experience in the United States and also during the past few weeks. The quality of our relations with the United States is important to us. Since you are responsible for managing our border posts along the longest border in the world, could you tell us how many border posts there are and over how many kilometers?

Mr. Jolicoeur: The border is about 8,000 kilometers long. Along the land border, we have 119 border posts. When one talks about the border, one should not forget that it refers to all the points of entry into Canada. In addition to the land border, we have a number of marine ports. The three major border posts in importance for the number of containers are Halifax, Montréal and Vancouver.


Gotta love Ottawa for being succinct  ::)  Post broken into two halves for size



 
Senator Poulin: We only have three?

Mr. Jolicoeur: Those on the largest ones. We also have marine points of service which are not always open.

We also have small marinas which open occasionally. There are also 200 airports that are used as points of entry into Canada.

Senator Poulin: What is the annual budget of the Canada Border Services Agency?

Mr. Jolicoeur: It will be between 1.2 and 1.3 billion dollars next year.

Senator Poulin: Considering the environment we’ve been living in since 2001 from the point of view of security, have you developed a plan identifying clearly the black holes? You’ve referred to long sections of the border without any post. What would be the solution to this problem and how much would it cost?

Mr. Jolicoeur: Yes, but I was referring to the management of the border as a whole. Our responsibility is limited to entry points. Despite that, we have discussed the possibility to create something equivalent to what the Americans have, which they call the Border Patrol and has a responsibility between the official points of entry. In our case, this responsibility belongs to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Senator Poulin: Are you saying that the responsibility for the border is shared between two agencies?

Mr. Jolicoeur: Indeed I am.

Senator Poulin: Does that not create problems for needs identification?

Mr. Jolicoeur: Obviously, especially since 9/11 but it had started earlier. The agencies work in close cooperation. We have common groups with staff from both organizations who cooperate, among other things, on the «high belt» concept, in an integrated manner, with all the safety agencies and US agencies. We are wondering now if it would not be better to have one single agency at the border instead of two. It's an open question.

Senator Poulin: I was a bit surprised to learn that the new government has given only 101 million dollars in the last budget for an issue as important as border post security. We are informed that this budget should allow us to eliminate single agent posts. The other objective was to provide weapons to officers at the border. You stated of while ago that even if the officers were armed, the present policy would not change. Why give them weapons, then?

Mr. Jolicoeur: In the 2006 budget, the first objective of the 101 million dollars was to give weapons to our staff. That was not the only amount for our organization. In total, for the first two years, we got 365 million $. So there are many other important projects that have been financed in the last budget. The plan to give weapons to our officers was not specifically aimed at resolving the problem of people running the border but rather to give some tools to our employees when they are faced with dangerous situations at the border. In those cases, our operational policy will change because, if our officers are armed, they will be called upon to intervene more directly in those situations whereas they could not do so in the past when they had no weapons.

To put that in context, we talk to our American colleagues about their level of comfort with our strategies and with what we’re doing. It is important to underline that we continuously compare our operational methods and our effectiveness to those of our American friends and that they are comfortable with them. Improvement is continuously made on both sides on the border as we go along.

Senator Poulin: Do American officers have weapons?

Mr. Jolicoeur: Yes, since the seventies.

Senator Poulin: Will our officers receive training on carrying and using weapons?

Mr. Jolicoeur: Yes, we're working with the Police Institute in Nicolet and with the agency training American officers to develop a course that will last about three weeks. That course will ensure that our people have the proper knowledge and training to use their weapons.

Senator Poulin: This is roughly what this committee had recommended a few weeks ago.

[English]

Senator Atkins: While at airports, one gets the impression that the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA) has all the personnel it needs and then some. Can you tell us how many personnel you have increased by since the last time we met?

Mr. Jolicoeur: I do not know the exact number of increase but we will have about 13,000 employees within a year. It has been a gradual increase since we started.

The difficulty in reporting an exact number is that CBSA was not created in one shot. It was created gradually by adding pieces. Our numbers have been increasing steadily since our creation.

Senator Atkins: Getting back to the barrier question that the chairman addressed, if someone arrives by plane and goes through immigration, they see an officer who interrogates them and are then given a card in order to be put through another process where that card is examined.

Is there not a simple way of implementing a system where you could avoid having vehicles go through the border without examination, such as by having some form of barrier that could not be broken unless they provide evidence they have been examined?

Mr. Jolicoeur: If you are relating to the point raised by Senator Banks and Senator Campbell, to develop a physical means of completely preventing people from racing through the border, the answer is yes, it is certainly doable. There is significant cost related to it, but it is doable.

Senator Atkins: Would that process require more personnel?

Mr. Jolicoeur: Yes, more personnel and more capital to build infrastructure.

Senator Atkins: Have you any idea of the number of people or the amount of capital needed?

Mr. Jolicoeur: No, I do not have an estimate on that.

Senator Atkins: That would be helpful.

Do you have a waiting list of people applying to be members of your service?

Mr. Jolicoeur: Yes. Every time we open a competition, there are many applicants. However, our budget allows us to hire only a certain number. At the moment, the real challenge is to schedule training for these people through our institute at Rigaud. It is fully booked for at least a year.

Senator Atkins: With regard to the infrastructure for training, can you handle the increase of personnel or will it require serious adjustments to your training process?

Mr. Jolicoeur: There is no question that we need additional financial and human resources on the training side because of what I just described. We obtained additional resources in the last budget specifically for the new training aspects that are coming with the arming of employees. There will be a requirement for additional space and expertise due to that. We received the resources and have a plan to deploy that over the coming years.

Senator Atkins: I understand that you are extending the training period.

Mr. Jolicoeur: Yes. It is a bit more complicated because now we are one organization. Our employees are coming from three different organizations. We have created a new integrated course that includes all the expertise that was covered by three organizations in the past.

Senator Atkins: What are the three?

Mr. Jolicoeur: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Citizenship and Immigration Canada and customs. We have created a new program that is currently being tested that is more integrated.

Senator Atkins: Is three weeks long enough to train a student?

Barbara Hébert, Vice-President, Operations Branch, Canada Border Services Agency: The training we give our students covers the requirements they have to carry out their assigned responsibilities. Our students do not fulfil the full range of responsibilities that a regular border services officer would have.

Earlier you expressed interest in the air mode. Using that as an example, even full-time indeterminate officers would receive three weeks of training if they were to work in the air mode. A student who is to work in the air mode would also receive three weeks of training to do primary processing. From that perspective, they are quite compatible. If a student were asked to do more than that in the example I just gave, additional training would be provided.

Senator Atkins: Do you have the facilities to provide that training?

Ms. Hébert: The students are trained locally and regionally. They do not go to our training facility in Rigaud. That facility is for our indeterminate officers.

The Chairman: Are the students on land crossings fully trained?

Ms. Hébert: The students who work at the land borders also receive three weeks training. They receive the training required to carry out the responsibilities they are assigned.

The Chairman: That is a vague answer. Are there times when students are working alone and unsupervised?

Ms. Hébert: No, Senator Kenny, they are not.

The Chairman: What would you say if we produced examples of that happening?

Ms. Hébert: I would like to have that information because it is the policy that they should not be.

The Chairman: This is a policy that you monitor and that you are certain is in place?

Ms. Hébert: I can assure you that I regularly raise it with my management team.

The Chairman: Do they monitor it?

Ms. Hébert: I believe they do.

The Chairman: How often do they tell you that it is not observed?

Ms. Hébert: I have had this conversation with them no less than once every quarter in the last year, and I believe that any discrepancies have been corrected.

The Chairman: You are telling me that on a number of occasions in the past year you have found that students were in charge of a border post?

Ms. Hébert: No, that would not be an accurate statement.

The Chairman: Clarify for us, if you would, what you meant when you said that any discrepancies were corrected. You need not correct something if there is no problem.

Ms. Hébert: Students are never left alone at a port. I was referring to the latter clause of your sentence. Students would not necessarily be only at the port of entry.

The Chairman: My question stands. Have instances been reported to you of students being alone?

Ms. Hébert: Instances have been reported, as a result of appearances before this committee, and I have taken action to deal with my management team as a result of those representations.

The Chairman: In the past year, how often have you found that there were students working there alone?

Ms. Hébert: I am not aware of any student in the last six months who has been working alone. You asked about a year. Off the top of my head I am not aware of any, but I do not want to mislead the committee. However, I am sure about the last six months.

The Chairman: You can be assured that every time you appear before us that question will come up. If you could, double-check before your next appearance.

Ms. Hébert: To be clear, I believe that we have no students working alone now and have not for some period of time.

Senator Banks: Some students have done wonderful work.

Ms. Hébert: I agree.

Senator Banks: A student is not a bad thing. However, the policy is that students are always working under the supervision of an experienced officer, most of whom I assume would be indeterminate officers.

Exactly what does "under the supervision of" mean? I know that if a student is in a booth at a border crossing, there will not be an experienced officer sitting beside him in the booth. How far away is the supervision under which that student is working, and what exactly does "under the supervision of" mean? Is the experienced officer at a different place or at home where he could be reached by telephone, or does it mean that there is sight contact with the supervisor?

Ms. Hébert: You are absolutely correct about a student working at a primary inspection line (PIL) booth. There will undoubtedly be people working in the office or at the commercial primary inspection line. The supervisory presence to which I referred could be in another booth or inside the actual facility at the port, but would absolutely be on site.

Senator Atkins: With regard to PIL booths, it has been suggested to us on other occasions that there is an unofficial time allotted for the processing of a car. Is that a practice that is implemented by your senior people?

Ms. Hébert: We have statistics that indicate the average processing time for the average traveller over the course of history.

Senator Atkins: What is that?

Ms. Hébert: I believe it is 30 seconds.

Senator Atkins: I believe we heard that it is 20 seconds.

Ms. Hébert: I would generally use 30 seconds. That is certainly the average time history has shown us. Having said that, I am not aware of any instance where we direct officers that they shall take no more than 30 seconds or, in your example, 20 seconds.

Officers are expected to exercise discretion and process the traveller until he or she, being the officer, is satisfied that that traveller can be admissible to Canada. Some processing might take 17 seconds; some might take much longer than that.

Senator Atkins: Therefore, they would not be penalized if they are slow in their operation?

Ms. Hébert: That is correct.

Senator Atkins: How is CBSA working with the RCMP to combat organized crime in the ports?

Mr. Jolicoeur: We are working at different levels, but the main instrument we are using is the IBET, the integrated border enforcement teams we have across the country. They are led by the RCMP but with participation of our agency as well as others. We also share intelligence regularly at different levels and feed that intelligence through our national risk assessment centre to the local level when it is important that the information be available. We are working as teams.

Senator Atkins: Could you describe the experiment in Saint John?

Mr. Jolicoeur: Are you talking about RADNET?

Senator Atkins: Yes.

Mr. Jolicoeur: RADNET is a system that we have developed in house to measure radioactivity that might be present in containers. We first deployed RADNET to Windsor. It is a sophisticated way to discriminate between radiation readings that would be problematic and related to something illegitimate and the radiation readings that you get regularly from products that properly contain radiation. We have that system in place. Every container is basically screened or read by the readers and the information fed into our risk-assessment system TITAN and compared with the information we have on the importers and carriers, et cetera. A decision is made on the system as to whether or not there is a need to flag a concern and trigger an action by our officers locally. It is a more-advanced system than what they have in the United States for making that decision and will be deployed to other ports this year.

Senator Atkins: I am surprised you would pick Saint John because there is not that much container traffic there.

Mr. Jolicoeur: Yes, but when you test a system and deploy a big machine, a big system, you want to do it in a secure way. You do not want to create havoc so the decision was made to start there for that reason. It could have been somewhere else.

Senator Moore: I want to follow up on what Senator Atkins was asking. In your opening statement, Mr. Jolicoeur, you have mentioned at the bottom of page one that once fully implemented our radiation detection program will allow us to screen virtually 100 per cent of incoming marine cargo.

When do you anticipate the implementation to be complete?

Mr. Jolicoeur: This calendar year, I believe.

Senator Moore: By the end of December 2006?

Mr. Jolicoeur: Yes.

Senator Moore: Senator Banks was asking at the beginning about the type of technology used in the connections of the various posts. You mentioned there were three unconnected posts but you were waiting for a contract to be procured and there are 18 others that you may upgrade to that type of new technology. Will all 21 be via high-speed Internet?

Mr. Jolicoeur: That is what we are aiming for. That is why we want to continue with those 18 to bring them to the level of high-speed Internet but it is a separate line. I could not describe more precisely than that but it is at that level, yes. It is the same level that the others have.

Senator Moore: When you started out there were 110 not connected and now you have it down to three, but 18 you want to upgrade. Are all the others connected via high-speed Internet?

Mr. Jolicoeur: I would not call it high-speed Internet but it is that standard or better. We have our own network.

Senator Moore: It is not dial up then?

Mr. Jolicoeur: The others, no; they are not dial up.

Senator Moore: I am interested in the Canada-U.S. border Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. We had your colleague, Andrea Spry, before our Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce on June 8. On that day we also heard from U.S. Congresswoman Louise Slaughter from the state of New York. We were talking about access, moving people, equipment and goods across the border but primarily part of that discussion focused on tourism. When Congresswoman Slaughter crossed the border she was told she had to have a passport. When Ms. Spry gave her presentation she said that was not required. I am wondering where the idea came from whereby the border officers required that visitor and her staff to provide a passport. Are we now moving towards implementation of passports only, or are we using photo ID and citizenship or birth certificates?

Mr. Jolicoeur: At the moment the passport is not required. It may be that some officers have asked for that but our direction at the moment is that a passport is not required. It is not required in the air mode when you go to the U.S. either and they are asked all the time. However, it is not required.

Senator Moore: How often does the working group that you chair meet?

Mr. Jolicoeur: In the last two months we have probably had three meetings. The U.S. is presently into a rule-making process where they have limited ability to communicate on WHTI while decisions are being made about the specifics of the requirement for the air and marine modes at the moment.

The Chairman: What is the WHTI?

Senator Moore: That is the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. It is referred to as WHTI.

The air and marine crossings have one date. What is their date when a card or some other type of identification will be required?

Mr. Jolicoeur: January 1, 2007.

Senator Moore: Is land the following year?

Mr. Jolicoeur: That is correct.

Senator Moore: We heard evidence that there are 123 million crossings each year of people going back and forth between Canada and the United States. We are aware that the United States Senate has passed an amendment to the immigration bill extending the implementation dates by one year, and that the House of Representatives has not.

Do you have any information, in terms of your meetings with colleagues in the U.S., on the likelihood of that one-year extension being put in place?

Mr. Jolicoeur: Everyone is planning on the basis that those target dates will remain the same. There may be some changes at the end; first, the immigration bill would have to pass in the House of Representatives. People do not think that the date will be changed and there will be an amendment in place that will effectively change those dates. If there is a change, it would come close to the end. There is no question that both sides feel we have to plan for those dates to remain in place at the moment.

Senator Moore: Is there any possibility that the provisions with respect to the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative would be carved out of that immigration bill and, perhaps, dealt with separately or do you think we are locked into that bill?

Mr. Jolicoeur: At the moment, I believe they are part of that bill and their survival is linked to the survival of the other bill.

Again, there could be other amendments introduced in the future. There could be some changes. We do not believe we will see, certainly before the end of the calendar year, a change in the official implementation date.

Senator Moore: You do not think there will be a change?

Mr. Jolicoeur: No.

Senator Moore: That is certainly the position of Secretary Chertoff a little over a week ago. He said they are sticking by those dates and they think they can do it. What do you think will be the card or document of preference here, given that only 20 to 24 per cent of U.S. citizens have a passport, and they do not think they would support a NEXUS card, for which I understand the application fee is $100?

Mr. Jolicoeur: I think it is $80.

Senator Moore: Okay, $80 for a NEXUS card and I think there are less than 100,000 of those in existence — 75,000 to 100,000 have been issued. We are talking about millions of travellers. Practically speaking, given these dates of implementation, how will that be achieved?

Mr. Jolicoeur: First, I have said many times I do not think they will be ready, if we define ready as meaning that people will have cards to cross the border. I know the official administration position is that they will be ready.

Senator Moore: Practically speaking, I do not see how they can be but you are closer to it than we are.

Mr. Jolicoeur: I do not think they will be ready. In terms of what we are doing about it, we are trying to get an agreement with the U.S. administration on a standard under SPP — the Security and Prosperity Partnership — that could be met by different documents. If they meet that standard, then they would become acceptable under WHTI.

Senator Moore: Is this is part of your committee's working group tasks — to come up with some combination such as we have now, the photo ID plus your birth certificate to show citizenship? Is that one of your objectives?

Mr. Jolicoeur: Our objective is to have as many acceptable cards that are properly secured as possible.

The Chairman: May I have a supplementary on this? In June 2005, this committee recommended that cards be developed — that the standard should be tamper-proof, machine readable, biometrically enhanced and based on secure and reliable documentation. Are those the standards that you are pursuing?

Mr. Jolicoeur: There are three categories of standards that need to be addressed and which are being addressed. One is the robustness of whatever cards or documents are used to ensure that they cannot be modified or tampered with and so on.

Senator Moore: You mean secure?

Mr. Jolicoeur: Yes. Some have to do with the card itself. Others have to do with the information that you put on the card — that is, biometric, which one, et cetera.

The third category concerns how they are delivered. For example, is the infrastructure secure, can the blank be stolen or not? All of the delivery systems need to be secure as well. Those are the three things.

The U.S. is working on a fourth category, on which we will have to agree — namely, the exact formatting and technology that will be used to read those documents. We are working on the four areas and discussing them.

The Chairman: We are talking about a card that can be read by just swiping it like a credit card — is that correct?

Mr. Jolicoeur: Beyond that — it can be read at a distance.

The Chairman: What about the documentation that is considered to be secure and reliable — in other words, the very premise of the card itself? What will constitute satisfactory identification to get the card? How will you be certain that the identification that you are provided with is reliable?

Mr. Jolicoeur: We have a document integrity exercise that actually started in Canada. At the provincial and federal levels, we have an initiative to strengthen the base documents. We have offered the work we have done to the United States as being the first element of those standards that both sides would accept. What documents will be accepted finally and deemed to be secure, either as final documents to cross or as documents to be used to justify obtaining those documents, are decisions that have not yet been made.

Senator Moore: I have a further question. Do you want to ask a supplementary question, Senator Atkins?

Senator Atkins: Where do you draw the line on privacy?

Senator Moore: I was going to lead to that area next.

Senator Campbell: You are both reading each other’s minds — so much for privacy.

Senator Moore: There has been some discussion that the cards may have certain personal information imbedded in them, and that not only could they be waved and read at a border crossing, but they could be tracked in terms of your movement within, in this case, the United States. To me, that would be quite a substantial invasion of privacy. Is that one of the issues you are considering in your working group to ensure that does not happen?

Mr. Jolicoeur: A big debate that we have internally and with the U.S. — and it is one of the reasons why we do not have formally approved standards for the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative yet — is the question, which is linked to privacy, of whether we will go with vicinity cards or proximity cards.

Senator Moore: Could you explain the difference between these, Mr. Jolicoeur?

Mr. Jolicoeur: Yes. They define proximity cards as cards that would be read only within 10 centimetres.

Vicinity cards are the cards that we are using currently with the NEXUS program where you can flag them a few metres from the reader and they would be seen from a greater distance.

The debate is the following. From the perspective of the logistics of managing the border, we almost need to go to vicinity cards. One of the reasons NEXUS works well is that you do not have to stop every time and touch something or speak to something; you have been pre-approved, accepted as someone who is okay. The challenge with the vicinity card at first is whether it can be read at a greater distance. Other people can read it, too, if they have a mechanism to read the card.

The second question is — what do you put on the card? Do you put personal information? It is not required because we will have databases. Thinking of NEXUS, we have a database of people so it can only be a reference to the database, a number. A number does not tell much about an individual, so it is less of a concern.

However, the debate is not finished. The concern is that, even without knowing anything about you, if I can read your card illegitimately with a machine, just knowing your number gives me an advantage because I can more easily follow you in the future since I know that number is associated to you. We are looking at ways to protect that number so it can only be read when the person wants it to be read when crossing the border. The technological challenge here that is not resolved has to do with the privacy question.

Senator Moore: We are told that no more than 100,000 NEXUS cards have been issued. Do you know how many of those have been issued to Canadians?

Mr. Jolicoeur: It is probably close to half and half. I do not know the number. It is 95,000 for land and about 6,000 for air. However, we believe that, because of WHTI, many more people will want NEXUS cards.

Senator Moore: Is there a different card and a different application depending on whether you are a regular air or a land traveller?

Mr. Jolicoeur: At the moment, yes, but we are moving towards a one-card, one-enrolment process, and a card that would give you access to all services.

Senator Moore: To get one of those cards, do you have to go through an interview?

Mr. Jolicoeur: Yes.

Senator Moore: Where is the application made?

Mr. Jolicoeur: We have points where it can be done.

Senator Moore: I understand Toronto and Vancouver but are there more ports?

Mr. Jolicoeur: Yes.

Senator Moore: Is there an office in the country where you can do that as well?

Ms. Hébert: You are correct that Toronto and Vancouver are the big sites. There are a couple more. They can be located either on the U.S. or the Canadian side. As you are aware, this is a joint bi-national process so it requires a comfort level by both Canadian and American inspection agencies that a candidate is acceptable to the program.

Senator Moore: Is your application reviewed by each side when you apply?

Ms. Hébert: You are correct. An interview is done with the candidate at those limited number of sites where the application is processed. We are pursuing having what we call "urban enrolment centres," so that people in key urban areas would have greater accessibility to the program. It is an evolving situation.

The Chairman: Regrettably, we have run out of time. We have about a dozen other questions we would like to put to you, Mr. Jolicoeur. I wonder if we could do it by letter and if you could respond to us in writing.

Mr. Jolicoeur: Yes.

The Chairman: I would be very grateful for that. We will put them to you and append them to the record of the meeting today.

On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you both very much for appearing. These subjects are a matter of continuing interest to the committee, and we appreciate your providing us with the information you have this morning.
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