Public Accounts Committee on March 5th, 2024

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Good afternoon.

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 105 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the Standing Orders. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely by using the Zoom application.

I remind members that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(g), the committee is resuming its study of report 1 of the 2024 reports of the Auditor General, entitled “Report 1: ArriveCAN”, which was referred to the committee on Monday, February 12, 2024.

I welcome back our witness, Mr. Mark Weber, national president of the Customs Immigration Union. I appreciate your being able to accommodate us so quickly, and thank you for joining us once again.

Do you have a point of order, Ms. Yip?

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Yes. We've had six meetings already on the ArriveCAN report from the Auditor General and we will have had nine by the end of the week, but we've yet to see a work plan or a witness list. I would really appreciate it if you could distribute the work plan and witness list.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Sure, Ms. Yip. You have what I have to date, and if you'd like to get in touch with me after, we can certainly talk about that.

I'm already planning for the Tuesday when we return, with the Auditor General's next reports coming as well. It's one reason that we're meeting this week: Because of those upcoming reports there will be more work for us to do.

You have everything that I have at this point, Ms. Yip.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

It's on the same point of order, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

These are not points of order, but go ahead, Ms. Khalid.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Well, perhaps it's a point of clarification. As we are working quite tirelessly under your leadership on this committee, Chair, it's easier for us to know what we're planning for and to know what the ultimate conclusion is as well, for us to decide.

Quite frankly, I haven't seen any opportunity for Liberals to provide witnesses, either. I would like to be given that opportunity, because I think that, just as much as you are concerned, Chair, we are concerned as well and we would like to have witnesses presented on this as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

All right. Well, Ms. Yip is the vice-chair, so [Inaudible—Editor] can get in touch with me right after this meeting, you can lay out your concerns and we can discuss witness lists.

I will turn now to Mr. Weber.

Mr. Weber, you provided us with opening remarks the other day. We don't need you to repeat those. We've heard them and we have copies, so we'll go directly to questions.

Ms. Block, you have the floor for six minutes. It's over to you, please.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for joining us today, Mr. Weber. I'm not usually a member on this committee, but I certainly am very much interested in the issue around the ArriveCAN app.

I believe you appeared at the committee that I am on as a permanent member, the government operations and estimates committee. It was quite a long time ago, almost 18 months, that you appeared at OGGO. I was reflecting on your opening statement at that time and have had a chance to look at the one you made here at PACP. I would say that your sentiments haven't really changed too much, although we've learned an awful lot, given some of the investigations that have taken place—the Auditor General, the procurement ombud and others—so I'll probably reflect a bit more on what we heard in OGGO.

I think it would be fair to say that the development of the ArriveCAN app has been and continues to be riddled with misconduct and mismanagement. During your previous testimony at the government operations committee, you stated that the government did not consult with “frontline officers—not when the idea was first proposed, not when the app was initially developed and definitely not at any point during one of the more than 70 updates that the app had to undergo”.

If the government wasn't developing this app to assist frontline workers and keep our borders safe, can you provide the committee with any sort of comment on what you believe the point of this app was?

[Mark Weber, National President, Customs and Immigration Union]

To answer the question at large, on the app and its development long-term, we believe the goal of the app is to replace officers. Specifically, the result of it is that it makes our borders less secure. It eliminates interactions that our officers have with travellers.

We've seen comments from the CBSA in the media. We've seen promotional videos and such. For example, a traveller is driving up to the border and flashing their phone at a screen. The gate opens and they drive through. The tag line is something to the effect that they can't believe they just cleared customs. Think about what that actually means. I don't know if the agency is waiting for a smuggler or someone who's trying to bring something into Canada that we don't want to come in to self-declare. It's never going to happen.

I hear this from our frontline officers daily. Even though we are in the midst of contract negotiations—we've been working under an expired contract for almost two years—and obviously pay, benefits and all those things are part of their concerns, one of their main concerns remains border security. Every day they see it being eroded. It's concerning for all Canadians. Those are very difficult circumstances for our members to be working in.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much.

During that same testimony, you called ArriveCAN “one example in a long line of far-reaching technological band-aid solutions in search of a problem, solutions that ultimately fail to enhance border security and effectiveness in any real way”. I think that was an apt description for this app, as it is largely no longer in use. Instead, there has been a return to the status quo. That app, which cost at least $60 million and counting, according to the Auditor General, is simply collecting dust, I would say.

How would that $60 million have effectively increased the efficacy of border officers if it had instead been invested in hiring more officers and purchasing X-ray machines, an observation that I think you made last week as well, and boats for border services? Do you think there would have been a better and longer-lasting effect on border security and our officers?

[Mark Weber]

Absolutely. Our estimates are that they could have hired approximately 600 officers with that. Six hundred is above the number that we're able to graduate each year to become officers. Given that we're short between 2,000 and 3,000 nationwide, 600 officers would have been a big help. Of course, an officer, unlike a machine, can do interdiction, can do enforcement and can do the things that we're really there for. An app cannot do any of that.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

You also mentioned that the ArriveCAN app actually created issues for frontline officers and made their job more difficult. You testified that the implementation of the app turned frontline officers into IT consultants rather than border officers, and while we've seen that this career change may have been very lucrative under this government, it certainly didn't help us to maintain safe and secure borders, as we saw over the last couple of years. Can you describe for us how it actually made life more difficult for our frontline officers?

[Mark Weber]

Given that it was made mandatory, our officers spent almost all of their time helping people complete the app. We had ports with no Wi-Fi and had people coming into the office, having to print it out and do it. We had travellers who refused to do it and who didn't know how to do it, and travellers who didn't have smart phones. It was very obvious to the officers working the front line that all of these things would not work, but again, we weren't consulted during the development. No one asked anyone working at the border how this would work at the border.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

We know that the app still exists and people have the option to use it. Given what you've shared with us today, do you think it is prudent for the CBSA to continue to fund this project or app while ignoring the pressing issues facing our frontline officers?

[Mark Weber]

I think funding always has to go, first and foremost, to officers, especially with the deficit that we have in frontline staff. Again, we're not dinosaurs: We know that technology has its uses, but it has to be there to assist officers. If the idea is that technology replaces officers, that's a big concern, security-wise, for all Canadians.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

I turn now to Ms. Yip. You have the floor for up to six minutes, please.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you for returning as a witness. Can you please tell us what you have heard from your union members in terms of how ArriveCAN provided efficiencies to the previous paper-based system?

[Mark Weber]

In terms of the information that we needed for our purposes for our customs officers, really all we needed was to be able to verify that the person was vaccinated, which everyone was able to do by simply showing us their vaccination on their phone or a printed-out copy. All of the other information that ArriveCAN made mandatory for us to acquire wasn't for us: That was for the Public Health Agency of Canada, so for us, it seemed like we were spending our time collecting information for others that, in large part, we don't know or think was used. There were questions such as, “What hotel you will be staying at? What's the address where you're going to be staying?” As far as I know, no one verified where anyone was staying. The hundreds of hours that our officers spent helping people collect this information at the border...we don't believe it was really used at all.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Do you feel that this allowed officers to perhaps focus more on specialized tasks at all?

[Mark Weber]

No. Again, the majority of our officers' time during COVID was helping people complete the app, making sure they completed the app. One bigger issue we had was that we're not considered peace officers under the Quarantine Act, either, which is something I'm hoping is looked into before.... Ideally, we won't have another pandemic, but I think it would be naive to think there isn't going to be one. It's something we absolutely need as frontline officers who are stopping people at the border from coming in when they are sick.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Could you talk a bit more about peace officers?

[Mark Weber]

Do you mean specifically under the Quarantine Act or in general?

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Both.

[Mark Weber]

We are peace officers; we're just not considered peace officers specifically under the Quarantine Act. If someone presents to us and is visibly ill, which is one of the things we're supposed to look at as officers at the border, we don't have any legal authority to detain them. All we can really do is call the police or call the Public Health Agency.

Sometimes we'll get someone on the phone, if there is someone available, and another agency will show up to deal with the traveller. Really, we currently have no ability to stop that person at the border with the powers we have under the Quarantine Act.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Do you believe we should go back to a paper-based system?