Thank you, Madam Chair.
Members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to appear as a witness as part of your study on Bill C-12. As national president of the Customs and Immigration Union, I'm happy to be here today to represent Canada's border personnel. I am also appearing today on behalf of our umbrella union, the PSAC, the Public Service Alliance of Canada.
Per its name, Bill C-12 proposes a number of measures intended to strengthen Canada's border and immigration system. On paper, some of these measures are certainly very positive. A prime example of this is language in the Customs Act that would see commercial operators provide border officers with access to facilities for both import and export inspections. The export aspect is currently lacking in the act. This is a commendable addition.
In practice, the reality is that despite already having these powers for import inspections, the CBSA is rarely able to conduct these inspections when it comes to certain modes, such as rail, due to a now well-established lack of staff and lack of facilities at which to do so. While the federal government has made it clear that hiring 1,000 additional officers was a priority—and one we very much welcome—Bill C-12 highlights once again how crucial adequate staffing is to a secure, well-functioning border.
Adequate staffing also needs to be the cornerstone of well-oiled, secure and fair immigration processes, including refugee claims. While Bill C-12 seeks to speed up the refugee claim process to address “lengthy processing times and backlogs”, it is worth pointing out that without the sustained understaffing our border system has experienced for many years, these lengthy processing times and backlogs, and therefore the pressure to seek efficiencies, would likely be far less considerable than they are now.
This is especially important in light of how CBSA has been managing the border for most of its history. Efficiencies, as implemented by CBSA management, almost always result in a degradation of the security and integrity of our border processes. We've seen it with traveller operations, where people seeking entry to Canada do so through automated machines, with no real interaction with officers.
Outside of Bill C-12, we are already seeing it in some circumstances with the refugee claim process itself, where the agency's simplified intake process, known as “one-touch”, means that claimants spend significantly less time meaningfully interacting with officers, with the result of reduced security for the sake of expediency.
Interaction between officers and anyone who seeks to enter the country, be they travellers or refugee claimants, is a key component of border security. These interactions result in better intelligence and allow officers to recognize patterns and flags that would otherwise be missed, ensuring that any potential problem is detected early on and will not put further stress on the system at a later date.
Crucially, experienced officers have the training necessary to navigate complex processes efficiently, without compromising security, yet too often CBSA prefers to push out experienced officers—as it is currently in the process of doing with nearly 200 officers who cannot carry a firearm—eroding both its institutional memory and its ability to maintain a direct contact with people transiting through our borders.
The conclusion here is clear. Ensuring the security and integrity of our border and associated processes starts with an adequate human presence. Without this, without the human element, no bill can hope to truly solve border issues in the long term.
I thank you for having me here today and look forward to your questions.
