Public Accounts Committee on Feb. 5th, 2008

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

But it is not at the border; it is just re-examined in the background through intelligence.

[Stephen Rigby]

That is correct. It is done through information.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

I was going to go on to that next, because it says that the agency now receives considerably more information on travellers and shipments in advance of their arrival. I imagine this is the intelligence you're talking about.

[Stephen Rigby]

I think what we're talking about there is the information that comes to us either through our ACI process or through API/PNR, in the case of passenger travel by air.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Okay. Do you ever revoke NEXUS privileges?

[Stephen Rigby]

Yes, we do.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

How often does that happen?

[Stephen Rigby]

I don't have that information, but I can get it for you.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Okay. I'm going to just step to a different question.

It also says in paragraph 5 of Mr. McRoberts' statement:

However, the overall rate of examinations is based mainly on the capacity of personnel and availability of equipment. We also found that the reason to refer individuals and shipments for further examination is not fully communicated to those officers doing the secondary examination.

I don't really understand that. You've identified an issue there, and then it's referred for secondary examination, and there's no communication as to why that is. Could you maybe explain why that would be the case and why the gap in communication is there? It doesn't seem like this is related to the whole integration question. It seems like this is just pure communication within a specific border crossing. Why would it be the case that there wouldn't be that simple communication?

[Alain Jolicoeur]

If I may, on this one, this is the exact same point we discussed earlier vis-à-vis the necessity of the loop between primary and secondary, those loops of information that are being put in place. What happens is that at the secondary examination they will have access to the same information. So if somebody is being referred because of a random question or referred because of a lookout question, that information will be available at the secondary examination.

The third component was not, and we are basically working on that.

Cathy, do you want to comment?

[Cathy Munroe]

Yes. Depending on the type of referral, because there are many kinds, it could be that the description may not be as elaborate as might be beneficial for the officers. So it is about the level of detail in the information. I think that is part of what that was referring to. As Mr. Jolicoeur said, it is closing the loop in terms of what was found and what happened and feeding that back into the process for the next time.

So while a referral will be made, and will be made for a particular reason--and there are a variety of reasons--the level of detail that may have been given may not have been as fulsome and as useful to the officer as it could have been.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Lake. Thank you, Ms. Munroe.

Mr. Christopherson, you have up to four minutes.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you. Do I have four or five, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Four.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you. That will give me time for one line of questioning.

There was a letter recently published in the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal from the executive director of the Atlantic Provinces Trucking Association. He was speaking to the surcharges that are charged if a vehicle has been pulled over for any kind of inspection.

I have a number of questions. There seems to be an element of unfairness, to the extent that if you randomly choose that vehicle and it goes into the inspection territory, or whatever happens, there are added fees for that, and those fees are passed on to the people who have packages inside that truck. They have no way of knowing ahead of time whether those additional fees will be charged. They have no way of knowing that there may be an additional delay. It's just the luck of the draw, and there seems to be an inherent unfairness to that. Can you speak to that for me, please?

[Alain Jolicoeur]

Most of the complaints we are receiving about fees at the moment come from the new system that was put in place by the U.S. I just wanted to put that in context.

For people and containers coming to Canada, there are, on occasion, fees, such as the one you describe, for instance. If we open a container in Halifax or in the Atlantic, there'll be a cost of about $1,000, I believe, to the carrier. It is linked with bringing the container to where we want to have it and emptying it. I may be wrong on the number, but there is a cost.

Of course, in moving to doing more measurement and doing more random sampling so that our system is stronger, as was suggested, properly, by the Auditor General, we'll have to deal with that question. But there is indeed a cost, a cost to the organization and a cost to the carrier. If we were to change the system to charge nothing to carriers for these operations, then there'd be a need for an additional appropriation.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Here's my difficulty. I appreciate what you're saying, and those are the theories that apply when there's a user fee. The user fee is usually predicated on an individual's wanting a certain service or program, whatever, so the individual chooses to have that and pays the money.

In this case, there are 10 trucks lined up, and I'm one of the unlucky ones who gets chosen. Now I'm out a minimum of $1,000. If I have a small vehicle, that could be my whole day's profit—if I've done absolutely nothing wrong, there's nothing amiss, yet fate grabbed me. What if I get grabbed again next week? I'm out another $1,000.

I don't understand this business. You're being checked for security—you haven't done anything yet, we're just doing our job—and you're going to start ponying up for being unlucky enough to be pulled out of the line.

Do you appreciate that there seems to be a prima facie case of unfairness here?

[Alain Jolicoeur]

I understand the point you're making. The Customs Act is such, though, that it's the responsibility of the carrier of the merchandise, of the goods, to present them to the customs office. The costs that we are talking about here are exactly that, for the presentation, basically bringing in the containers and opening them. It's not money that we take; it's the cost.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I understand, but the guy behind me didn't have to pay it. I've had to do this two weeks in a row, and never has anything been out of line. Yet I keep getting nailed. Where's the fairness? Why isn't there an overall fee given where everybody pays, like we do with most other security services? We all pony up a little bit, and whatever we need, we use, and it's there.

This business of randomly.... Really, it's like all of us sitting here, saying, “Well, Shawn, you're out $1,000 this week, and we'll all meet again next week to see who wins the lottery.” I don't understand the premise of why you lose money for doing absolutely nothing wrong.

[Alain Jolicoeur]

The other way to look at it is that some people gain money by not having to present.

But I agree with your point. This is something we should look at. But it would involve somebody paying for that operation one way or the other. Either it's spread to everybody--

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I appreciate that, but something a little more fair than this seems to be what you should look at, and I hope you will.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Christopherson.

Thank you, Mr. Jolicoeur.

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, four minutes.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Jolicoeur, in your opening statement you said that you fully subscribe to the findings of the Auditor General. In paragraph 5.84 she stated that the National Risk Assessment Centre found 21% of its immigration lookouts from January to March 2007 were not referred for further examination.

In your previous answer you seemed to call into doubt that finding. Is the Auditor General wrong in her finding, or were you just unaware of this particular fact?

[Alain Jolicoeur]

Mr. Chair, my comment was with regard to the comment of the honourable member that one out of five, or 20%, of the lookouts are missed. This is simply wrong.

Now you are focusing on the specifics of what the Auditor General has found with regard to FOSS in that period of time. I don't deny that. I don't deny it's a problem, but it's not that we're missing one-fifth of all lookouts.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

In that specific timeframe she did a random check, it appears, just like you do random checks, and she found that in that three-month timeframe one of every five people who were red-flagged were getting into the country without a secondary check taking place. You've just acknowledged that's disturbing.

Could you provide this committee with hard numbers, whether from your offices or the National Risk Assessment Centre, for 2006 and 2007, on how many of these individuals have gotten in, so we'll actually have a clear understanding of what this comprises?