Public Accounts Committee on Feb. 5th, 2008

[Alain Jolicoeur]

Absolutely. If somebody wants to know why they have been referred to secondary, for example, the answer is exactly the one that you have given.

The system may force somebody to go to secondary because of one zillion combinations of reasons, but all having to do with what we have in our system. It could be random. The report from the AG made the point that in airports, on occasion, we have turned the valve of random too low, occasionally to zero. We have corrected that, because it is a concern.

The third one you flag is quite important. There are today more, slightly more, referrals made in that third category, where an experienced officer judges, from the kind of reaction they are getting from a passenger, “Hmm, there's something....”

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Thank you very much.

Another area I want to pursue is relevant to my constituency. I have a lot of people who are in businesses that rely upon American citizens who travel to Canada to fish and hunt, who are tourists in the area and so on. I've encountered a problem in my riding with border issues pertaining to Americans.

The profile that typically shows up is some American 63 years of age who, back when he was 19 years of age, was charged with impaired driving. There doesn't seem to be any consistent pattern for treatment of these individuals at the border. Some are turned back. Some believe they are pardoned under the state system, but our border people don't seem to accept that concept. In some cases, they allow them in on paying a cash payment at the border. It's not a bond. I mean, they don't get the money back, they just make a cash payment. And this has caused a lot of difficulty. I've had lots of complaints in my riding from people who are affected one way or another on this issue.

Is this an issue that is relevant to your department? Are you trying to deal with it? Because on a risk assessment system, I really don't see where this should be a priority at the border, this sort of concern.

[Alain Jolicoeur]

Yes, I recently looked at this question again, because I was getting a few more complaints than in the past.

Let's look at the numbers first. The first point that's made—not here, but it's one I get all the time—is that we are turning more people away for that reason, for driving under the influence. But no, we are not. In terms of the people who are turned away, the numbers on that kind of thing are reducing as opposed to increasing.

Now, we're working with the law, with IRPA, and the law is fairly specific about admissibility into the country. Anything that is criminal makes one inadmissible to the country, if you are not Canadian. There are a few things an officer can do to deal with that...of course, the difference being is that it's illegal in Canada and not in the United States.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Well, I would say that we should apply some common sense in this area. I don't view these people as being high-risk people or criminal in nature. Every one of us probably has something in our closet, if you really want to get that nitpicky on things, that could really cause a lot of problems both ways on the border. So I don't see these people as being a threat to national security or anything. And I don't understand why a payment would resolve the problem either. I mean, a non-refundable payment.... It's a head-scratcher.

I want to deal with one other issue. Just for my own information, at the border with the U.S., when a person enters the Canadian border customs office, are they on Canadian soil or U.S. soil at that point?

[Alain Jolicoeur]

Coming to Canada?

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Somebody entering from the United States; are they on Canadian soil or U.S. soil?

[Alain Jolicoeur]

They are on Canadian soil when they come into Canada. All of our offices are on Canadian soil.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

The reason I'm raising the issue—and I know there are legal technicalities involved—is that, to my understanding, the United States honours the well-recognized international protocols dealing with refugee claimants. I guess a lot of people in Canada are a little bit taken aback that people would come from other countries, land in the United States, come to our border, and then claim refugee status at our border when the United States has fully honoured the international protocols on dealing with refugee claims.

How does our border agency deal with those issues today?

[Alain Jolicoeur]

Up until very recently, Mr. Chair, we had in place the safe third country agreement with the United States that, for very many categories of refugee seekers, allowed us to do exactly what you suggest we should be doing--that is, if they come first to the United States, they can make their claim there.

There was an important court decision that reversed that and basically removed the safe third country agreement. The government is appealing that decision at the moment. We were able to obtain a stay of procedure. Therefore we can maintain our operation until we get a decision at the appeal level. Then we'll see what happens.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Fitzpatrick.

Before moving to the second round, I have a question for you, Mr. Jolicoeur. It's a general question on reporting to Parliament and the whole concept of accountability.

First of all, I preface my remarks by saying that I appreciate that you deal with an extremely complex and challenging agency with 97 million visitors and $404 billion in goods coming across the border every year. No one expects you to search every person or examine all goods. It has to be based upon a risk management model, and you have to balance the competing objectives of security on the one hand and continued prosperity on the other hand.

The Auditor General has identified what I think most members on this committee consider to be significant shortcomings in your whole risk management model. However, I read your performance report for the 2006-07 year. It's 94 pages in length. It's very long and elaborate. But the bottom line is that everything in that department is simply tremendous. It's great.

I'll just quote if I may, talking about commercial risk assessments:

The ACI program is based on the concept that the transmission of electronic commercial data allows the CBSA to better assess the risk of conveyances and goods before their arrival in Canada. To enhance its risk-management capability, the CBSA developed and implemented an automated Commercial Risk Assessment System to screen ACI in order to identify high-risk shipments before they arrive at our border.

Building on the success of Phase I of the ACI program, which was implemented in the marine mode in 2004, the CBSA expanded the ACI model to the transborder marine and air modes as part of Phase II. Phase II was fully implemented in June 2006.

Since the implementation of Phase II, there have been ongoing enhancements and refinements to the Commercial Risk Assessment System to support the Agency's ability to respond to emerging threats to health, safety and security of Canadians.

Then we go about the awards that you've won. There's no mention at all, Mr. Jolicoeur, of the challenges the agency faces, the risks you have every day, the resources that you don't have to complete your mandate, and the shortcomings that were identified on the part of the Auditor General, which, of course, you've agreed to.

I ask my question as a parliamentarian, and I address my question to you as an accounting officer. With all due respect, and I say this with the greatest respect, because your department has an extremely difficult task ahead.... You merged the three components, the three departments, and you're in transition. People expect that trade is increasing and that the volume of people is increasing, and we're dealing with the “gotcha” mentality if there is a problem and you hear about it. But if there are one million or three million people crossing a day, you don't hear about it.

But going back to the performance report, my question is, do you think it's based in reality? Why is it prepared--and I'm not signalling at you. The 78 agencies, the 22 departments in Ottawa do this, and they've done it for years. Does it serve any purpose at all for me as a parliamentarian? Would you be happy sitting down yourself as the accounting officer doing a 15- to 20-page report and giving us the straight goods as to the agency you are charged with?

[Alain Jolicoeur]

Mr. Chair, I'll give you my personal opinion on that. I stand by everything that was written in that report. Everything you've read and said is true.

Now your question is fundamentally, as a parliamentarian, what should you get and what would you like to get? I sit on a few boards. Everything is a-okay. The report I get on the other side now tends to have a significant portion about risks in Sarbanes-Oxley and everything.

I've been at Treasury Board for many years feeding Parliament, and I can say honestly that I really believe there has been a significant improvement in reporting to Parliament, reporting on results, etc. It's a tough thing to do, but there has been some progress. I understand the frustration.

I think the piece that I normally see and otherwise that you should be expecting to see—again, my personal view—is a more elaborate section about risk. I do not mean risk as we've discussed it here--not programs--but overall corporation risk. I believe we could do better. I can certainly do what I can here to try to improve what we submit to Parliament. But I would say that's a piece that tends to be missing. I'm not talking about CBSA in particular. I'm talking about the job you have to do.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

The next round is four minutes, colleagues.

Mr. Holland, you'll have four minutes.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

I share many of the concerns that have been brought up. One of the concerns I have is that there's a lot of money and attention being put into the area of border security; in fact, there will be $1 billion spent on arming border officers in the next 10 years. But we know there are a lot of competing priorities for those dollars.

The Auditor General's report raised a number of concerns. Mr. McRoberts, I haven't heard you to this point, but the Canada Border Services Agency agreed with the recommendations that were found in the audit. You've heard what they've had to say today, and I'm wondering whether your office has been satisfied with the implementation of the recommendations to this point and the action taken by CBSA.

[Hugh McRoberts]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

At this point, we have not had a chance to systematically examine the implementation, but we have been encouraged by the very positive reception the agency has given to our recommendations and to the commitments, as indicated by the president in his remarks today, to implementing them. But it will be some time before we turn back to look at what has actually happened and do a status report—

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

To match words with action and to see how those have actually translated. Okay.

This question goes back to the CBSA representatives. As the results for secondary examinations are not recorded, I'm wondering how you accurately determine whether or not CBSA is referring the right people for further examination.

Could you just talk a bit about that?

[Alain Jolicoeur]

At the time the audit was done, we had already dealt with part of the solution to that problem. That is to create a feedback loop just in airports—that's the only place where we were ahead of the game—that would allow the people at the primary inspection line, the people at secondary, and management to measure performance from that perspective: the quality of the referral to secondary.

We discovered that the system was not used properly. That's a question of training and guidelines that had to be put in place. But we're okay at the moment there.

There are other places where we need that feedback loop to be established, and we will need a bit of time to get all of the benefit that could be gotten out of that feedback. But we are doing it.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Just on the issue of training, you've mentioned that in order to deal with the number of flagged individuals who are allowed into the country, there's going to need to be additional training provided. Obviously that's an area of real concern, because there's some expediency needed in the resolution of that concern.

Could you go over for us your training plan and how long you think it will be before we can be in a position to address that problem?

[Alain Jolicoeur]

With respect to the most critical area—the one that I believe you are flagging, the work of targeters—all of the analysis has been done. We have recently had a workshop of the key people to put in place and start the development. I believe the training itself is in a few months, but I'll ask Madam Munroe.

[Cathy Munroe]

We have several pieces of the training in place right now. What we don't have is a fully integrated national model that makes sure they're all complementary and that any gaps are filled in. They're in the design phase right at the moment. The plan is that this would roll out over the course of this next near. It would probably roll out in phases, I think--phases of testing and that sort of thing.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Thank you.

I know Mr. Wrzesnewskyj had some questions too.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

You're over your time. We'll get to Mr. Wrzesnewskyj later on.

Mr. Lake, you have four minutes.

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

I'm going to step slightly outside the scope of the study here, if I may, and take advantage of the fact that you're here to ask a question on behalf of many of my constituents who sometimes have concerns with the level of customer service—the way they're treated—when they come across the border into Canada. At times, they would say that it borders a little on harassment.

I understand that the role is such that obviously there's a level of authority and a seriousness to the role. But in terms of balance and training for the folks who are working at the borders in these very difficult positions, do they get some form of customer service training? Maybe you could just speak to that for a second.

[Alain Jolicoeur]

They definitely do as part of our original training package for all officers. They spend weeks in our training centre in Rigaud. We also have additional training with officers where there would have been some specific problems. We get complaints regularly, as you do. The role of our officers is a very, very difficult one. Nobody is happy to be sent to secondary inspection and to be searched. So that is difficult. But every time we have a complaint, it is reviewed, we have notes, and we respond to these cases. On occasion, we do the wrong thing; often we do the right thing. But every one of these complaints is reviewed.

Cathy, did you want to add anything?

[Cathy Munroe]

Sure. I can just tell you a few of the components that are in the training today in response to things. We train on interviewing techniques, and we include with that things such as, if you're dealing with refugees, what that may mean in the type of treatment. We give training, for example, on victims of violence who may come to the border, children travelling alone, those sorts of things.

We build those components into the training that's given at our training centre, and there's also an in-service component that takes place when they get back to the port.

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

Okay.

In Mr. McRoberts' opening statement, where he's talking about pre-approval programs, he says:

The Agency cannot currently prevent someone from enrolling in these programs when intelligence information suggests that they present a higher risk, but it may carry out additional monitoring.

I don't totally understand that statement. It seems to me that the whole point of the program is to be able to weed out the higher-risk people and have lower-risk people who can go through on a pre-approved basis. Can you elaborate on that for me?