Public Safety Committee on March 12th, 2009

[Stephen Rigby]

Thank you, Mr. Ménard.

You're right in saying that there are some differences in the treatment of certain airports in Canada.

The situation is that you have airports in Canada that receive certain levels of core service at the government's expense and other airports that pay for these services on a user fee basis. There has been substantial discussion within the community in recent years about certain inequities that have grown out of that situation, particularly as the airline industry has begun to change and evolve.

What we have been doing, over the last year or so, is look at a possible policy framework that would provide a better basis for determining what services would be provided, to whom, and when. While I can't comment on the specifics of any particular airport today, I can say that we hope to be in a position within the next few months to make some announcements regarding how we plan to deal with airport service and new requests for service to airports.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Let's hope that the Mont-Tremblant people will have some good news. This is an extraordinary success for tourism in Canada, and it's achieving real returns. It's even helped relaunch a region, but it's beneficial for Canada as a whole.

For some time now, some customs officers can be armed. I suppose you want to know exactly when they'll be called upon to use their weapons. In how many incidents have those officers found it useful to be armed?

[Stephen Rigby]

First, just to provide a little information, we're rolling out the arming of our officers over a ten-year period, as you're probably aware. Currently we have approximately 750 officers who have been armed.

Since the commencement of the deployment of weapons, there have been approximately 39 incidents in which weapons have been drawn. In each of those cases, it is our policy and our process for a panel to review the incident to ensure that the drawing of the weapon was appropriate and was consistent with our policies, and in each case, the actions in every one of these 39 incidents were deemed to be appropriate and consistent with our policies.

Generally speaking, and speaking broadly, the weapon is only to be drawn when the officer feels that there is a clear and present threat to his or her safety. There are various steps and an escalation process that they are required to go through. If the weapon is drawn, as an example, the first position is known as the “low ready position“, which means that the weapon is taken from the holster, but it is not pointed or deployed in any significant way. Generally speaking, virtually all of the incidents we have dealt with to this point have been in that category.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

I'm pleased that you've taken that measure to follow up on this question, and it may perhaps be assessed in your future annual reports.

I'd like to talk to the RCMP and to you about our border towns and what we can anticipate for the future.

I understand all the problems that you can have, but the population has been living in border towns for more than 100 years. In Stanstead, for example, the border runs right through the municipal library. In Beebe—that's the name of the town—where I ride my bike, the main street is located on the border, so that, when you head west, you're in Canada, and when you go east, you're in the United States.

Today, the main border control tool is information accumulation and surveillance. I understand why you focus so much effort on that activity.

However, isn't there some way of reconciling that activity with the day-to-day lives of these inhabitants? What future do you see for them? Currently, a number of incidents have been reported to us. For example, some individuals went to buy gasoline on the U.S. side and had to pay incredible fines. Others took the wrong road and, when they returned, authorities wanted them to pay a certain amount of money.

How do you foresee patrols in these border towns?

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

That will be your final question.

Go ahead, sir.

[A/Commr Raf Souccar]

Thank you for your question, Mr. Ménard.

That's very unfortunate; I agree with you.

It is indeed a shame that our world has changed to the extent that it has. It has caused us to take communities such as Stanstead, which you mentioned, in a different light. They see themselves as one. I know exactly of the library and the theatre that are in the building, one on the U.S. side and one on the Canadian side, and they see themselves as one community. They don't see themselves as Americans and Canadians. They see themselves as one community. They've operated as one for many years and they like the back-and-forth flow that they have.

Unfortunately, with the way our world has changed over the last few years, others who perhaps don't have good intentions could exploit a community such as this, one that otherwise could operate as one. As you see, you can go in from one side of the building and come out at the other. I know that the U.S. has taken measures to put up barriers. They're not unsightly. I haven't seen them myself, but I'm told they're not hard to look at.

We have consulted with the communities on that very issue. We have gone and consulted with the communities--

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

I'm going to see them tomorrow with the minister.

[D/Commr Raf Souccar]

We've consulted with the communities to make sure that as changes are made that disrupt what they saw as their permanent way of living, the reason is understood, the rationale is understood, and to find ways to ensure security while disrupting their lives as little as possible.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you.

Mr. Comartin, are you ready to start?

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Rigby, this is just in follow up to Mr. Ménard's question in terms of the guns being drawn. At any time in any of those 39 instances was a gun discharged?

[Stephen Rigby]

No.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

On those instances when the guns were drawn, would there have been involvement by other police agencies?

[Stephen Rigby]

I do not believe so, Mr. Comartin, but I would have to confirm that.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

At the last meeting of the committee we tried to get a better sense of the trafficking, the smuggling of guns into this country.

I have to say, Deputy Commissioner, we didn't get much information from the RCMP, so maybe we'll get it from CBSA.

We're seeing in the numbers that are being reported a reduction in the number of seizures of weapons coming into Canada over the last three to five years. It hit a peak at this point and it has been going down. I have to say, living on the busiest border crossing in this country, that I do not have much faith in those figures as accurately reflecting what's going on. Everything that we're seeing in Ontario, in particular, in the inflow of guns is that the number of guns illegally coming into this country is in fact going up. I guess I would have expected a corresponding increase in the number of guns seized at the border.

I've made a couple of assumptions there. Would you tell me whether you agree with me on my assumptions, that the number of guns coming into this country illegally is in fact going up and the number that we're seizing is going down?

[Stephen Rigby]

I guess in broad-brush terms I don't disagree with the assumption, but like yourself, for me it's a bit of an assumption. I think one of our problems is we have to build up better databases in terms of what the quantum of the problem is and we have to understand a bit better the extent to which the problem is manifest through ports and between the ports of entry in terms of where the smuggling is occurring.

You're absolute right. Our numbers have been essentially flat over the last few years and the larger proportion of our seizures are basically non-declarations, people who are not necessarily smuggling the weapon, but didn't declare it properly, so we end up seizing it or holding it as a result of that. The number of actual criminal smuggling situations within our seizures is relatively small, and that is an issue that gives me significant concern.

I have a lot of faith in my front-line officers to react to the situations they see at the ports and to conduct secondary inspections. We have consistently had instances when we have found smuggled guns and secreted weapons and we have successes around that. But the fact of the matter is that without significant improvements to our ability to have targeted intelligence on gun-running channels, on gang and organized crime arrangements, we are not going to make the significant advances that I feel we have to make.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

My next question relates to one of the things that was going on. Deputy Commissioner Souccar may want to respond to this as well. My understanding was that we had established connections on the U.S. side to see if we couldn't get greater cooperation from them to identify the sources, the gun shows down my way in Indiana, in particular. Is that going on, and do we have any hope that it's going to be more successful than it has been up to this point?

[D/Commr Raf Souccar]

Thank you, Mr. Comartin.

Yes, the cooperation with the United States, especially with the alcohol, tobacco, and firearms agency, is going very well. In fact, they've recently deployed three agents who work out of the embassy here in order for us to have better contact with them for joint investigations.

As Mr. Rigby indicated, our responsibility for the RCMP is investigation between the ports of entry, and as such, we typically identify criminal organizations that are involved in the smuggling of firearms. As I'm sure you know, criminal organizations are very opportunistic, so they'll gravitate to whatever makes them money. They're not fixated on one commodity. So it could be drugs one day, it could be guns the next day, it could be a shipment of drugs with guns included in it.

The Cross-Border Crime Forum has a firearm subgroup within it that is actually very, very active and probably was--

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Who is on that? Is it both the RCMP and CBSA, or just the RCMP?

[D/Commr Raf Souccar]

I believe we're both on it.

[Stephen Rigby]

Yes.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you. I'm sorry for interrupting.

[D/Commr Raf Souccar]

It is no problem.

As well, the Ontario Provincial Police is on it, because they have a provincial weapons enforcement unit. They highlighted, at the last Cross-border Crime Forum, actually, an outstanding investigation they had completed into a criminal organization that was importing a major quantity of firearms into Canada.

What was especially gratifying about this operation, from what I heard at the Cross-Border Crime Forum, was the ability of these teams, through the national weapons enforcement support team, to not only trace firearms but to.... A lot of these weapons come into the country with their serial numbers filed off. They have a technique now for lifting the serial number to identify the origin of that gun, which in fact they did very successfully in this last operation. Again, we probably don't have as many weapons enforcement teams across the country that focus on these types of investigations, but as I said, whether it's a drug unit or an organized crime unit, weapons always seem to surface in their investigations, and at the end there are seizures related to weapons.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Chair—

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

You have half a minute.

Go ahead, Mr. Rigby.

[Stephen Rigby]

Just the same, Mr. Comartin, I want to see, in the near term, a better correlation between our seizure rates and the general thinking in terms of the level of crime that's being committed domestically with smuggled guns. Our emphasis is going to be on the following: more intelligence work within the CBSA; more work with police forces domestically; more work with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and from time to time, running sting operations or blitz operations at key border points that we think relate to traffic routes coming up from the States.