Evidence of meeting #60 for Public Accounts in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was employees.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC
Roxham Road is not an official border crossing, as we all know.
Liberal
Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC
But's it's one that I hear a lot about it. What are the surveillance techniques that are used there to ensure that people are not crossing improperly?
President, Canada Border Services Agency
In between ports of entry, it's the RCMP's responsibility. Once the RCMP finds somebody who has crossed illegally into Canada, they are brought to the port of entry for processing, if they're going to make a refugee claim.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you, Mrs. Shanahan.
We'll now move to Mr. McColeman, please. You have seven minutes.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Thank you for being here today.
Mr. Ferguson, you just heard Mr. Ossowski's explanation. It was one of the very questions I was going to lead with. He challenged the methodology in noting that because the numbers were extrapolated, perhaps they didn't indicate the actual circumstances. What's your reaction to that?
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'll ask Mr. Swales to give the details. In paragraph 3.50, we explain what we did. At the end, yes, we took a sample of vehicles to identify whether the information had been collected or not, but as we say in paragraph 3.50, we started with 19 million records, and based on those we identified 511,000 that looked like anomalies. Then, we took the sample from those 511,000 to determine whether they really were anomalies or not. The first pass of the complete population indicated to us that there could be as many as 511,000. From the sample, we were able to reduce that down to about 300,000. It wasn't simply a matter of taking a certain number or a small sample out of the 19 million. We did start by looking at the whole population.
I'll ask Mr. Swales if he needs to correct anything I just said, or if he has any more details to add to that.
Nicholas Swales Principal, Office of the Auditor General
I'm not sure I have anything to add. That was an accurate statement, but it is clearly an estimate based on a sample.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Okay.
Regarding what is a full inspection, I'd like you to define that for us, Mr. Ossowski, if you would be so kind.
President, Canada Border Services Agency
On this one, I'll turn to my VP of operations, who can describe it more thoroughly than I can.
Caroline Xavier Vice-President, Operations Branch, Canada Border Services Agency
Mr. Chair, I could answer that question.
Basically, for us, a full inspection, a full examination, or a complete screening would include, as the president said earlier, the swiping of a passport, which would ensure that the information is placed as a record in what we call our “integrated primary inspection line”.
What the OAG found was that sometimes the record of a licence plate that was read—because we also have licence plate readers at all our land ports of entry—didn't match up with the swiping of the passport, for example.
A full screening would include perhaps a licence plate reader, the swiping of a passport, and potentially a referral to secondary, if there was a target, a lookout, or something of an anomaly that referred you to secondary. That whole thing would then be closed up with some remarks by the border services officer, depending on whether or not you were referred to secondary.
In the cases where they stated that about 2% of that population was not seen by a service officer, what we are stating is that they may have potentially been seen, but what may have happened is that the full record was not completed. The licence plate reader did indeed find a vehicle and did make a record of the vehicle, but the officer did not follow full policy, as the OAG found, not completing the record by making a full reconciliation. There are various reasons why that could happen. It does happen, unfortunately.
As the president said, our intent is to ensure that the policy that is in place continues to be properly adhered to. Although they did not complete the full swiping of a passport, that doesn't mean they didn't at least have a conversation or the person was not seen by a border services officer.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
I just want to make sure I understand, and the public understands. When you come to a border crossing, the expectation is a minimum of an automated reading of the licence plate off the vehicle, obviously, and a presentation of your passport—
Vice-President, Operations Branch, Canada Border Services Agency
Documentation....
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Is it allowable at border crossings to use the new driver's licences that people carry with them that have encoded details? Is that possible as well?
Vice-President, Operations Branch, Canada Border Services Agency
There is a variety of documentation that could be used at a land border crossing, including an enhanced driver's licence. The majority do use a passport; that's usually what's used. Or, you could also use a NEXUS card if you're in a NEXUS lane. There is a series of acceptable documentation at the land port of entry, but at the very least, what is expected is that documentation is presented, and that is recorded into the system.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Okay, thanks for that.
Section 3.25 of the report notes that CBSA “has been developing an Information Security Integrity Monitoring Strategy since 2013.... At the time of this audit, the strategy was still at an early stage of development.” Its scheduled completion date was set for 2016.
What is the current status of that strategy?
President, Canada Border Services Agency
I'm happy to report that the information security integrity monitoring strategy was completed in November 2016, and we are using it right now.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Okay, has the department seen any tangible results from the implementation?
President, Canada Border Services Agency
I don't have the details in terms of specific actions that have come about since it was implemented, but I can happily undertake to find out and get back to you on that.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Okay, I'd appreciate that.
Can you give us a quick outline of what the program put in place?
Vice-President, Operations Branch, Canada Border Services Agency
I could take that question on behalf of CBSA.
The intention here, in keeping with the recommendation by the Office of the Auditor General, is that we ensure that we do more active monitoring of our IT systems, do regular reports on it, and identify some anomalies that may come to our attention.
With the implementation of that strategy, as the president outlined, we are now having a better opportunity to monitor our systems, conduct and review the reports, and determine whether individuals are accessing the systems as they should. That is one of the things.
The other part of that strategy is the overall improvement around our training as well.
One of the things we have spoken about here at the committee is the training and our desire to ensure that as many people as possible are taking the mandatory training. That mandatory aspect is a part of the strategy as well, ensuring that all the personnel have appropriate training related to their jobs, and that this corruption aspect is also undertaken.
That forms part of the overall strategy as well. So it's the policy improvements, the monitoring improvements, the reporting aspects, and being able to do a better job in that space.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. McColeman. Your time is up.
We'll now move to Mr. Christopherson, please, for seven minutes.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you to all our witnesses today.
Mr. Ferguson, as always, it's good to have you here. If I can, Mr. Ferguson, I'd like you to clear something up, or at least make it crystal clear for me.
On page 13 of the report—sorry, I think that's page 13 of the report; I have a printed copy—you state, “Although the data did not allow us to draw a conclusion of corruption”, then it goes on to say, “a greater superintendent presence would allow the Agency to understand why this happened.”
My questions is about the choice of the words, sir: “Although the data did not allow us to draw a conclusion of corruption...”. It doesn't flat out say that there was no corruption. It also doesn't leave the suggestion that there was, except that the data didn't allow you to draw that conclusion. It's a bit like, “Well, are they guilty? Well, we don't have enough evidence to prove they are guilty. I don't know whether they are innocent or not.”
Could you clarify it for me? Does that mean that you had no reason to suspect any element of corruption in anything you looked at? Is that correct?
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
It would be correct, Mr. Chair, to say that we didn't find anything that would lead us to suspect corruption.
What we found in the course of all the types of issues that we identified were signs that the controls were not followed. Whether it was the 300,000 vehicles that entered without the information being collected, or the sharing of user ID information, or not following up on lookouts, we found the controls were not followed in a number of instances. Any time that a control is not followed, there is, on the one hand, the possibility that it could just have been an oversight, or, on the other hand, that it could have been deliberate. We had no way of following up further to identify whether in any of those cases they were deliberate.
I can't say that there was anything that indicated to us that there was corruption, but I think that any time these types of controls are not followed, that's a serious issue. In the case of those controls, CBSA needs to be able to use their information better to follow up quickly.
The anomalies that we identified, the situations where the controls were not followed, were all fairly easy for the department to identify. They should be identifying them and following up on them, because they could be indications that people were doing things that they shouldn't have been doing.