Public Accounts Committee on March 5th, 2024

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

That's certainly duly noted. It's always a best practice, isn't it, to consult the users. I think that should be taken forward regardless of the circumstances.

Was it useful to have a printout, something tangible that an officer could keep afterwards? I'm thinking of what must have been horrendous wait times as the borders were closed. No doubt there were officers who had been exposed to COVID and could not show up for work.

As we learned from the Auditor General, the ArriveCAN app did provide better-quality information more rapidly for quarantine purposes, of course, and for data that needed to be transferred to other bodies such as the provinces and health agencies. I heard you say earlier that the ArriveCAN app does have its uses—does it not?

[Mark Weber]

In collecting information that other agencies wanted, yes, there was usefulness to that. What we questioned at the border was that we didn't know anything about what was being done with that information. Finding out what address someone is staying at seems somewhat pointless if no one is going to go to where the person is saying they're staying. In terms of follow-up, we didn't know if that was happening.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

I agree. There were definitely issues with the app, and as we heard, it needed a lot of updates and so on. We'll be discussing that further.

You are representing the frontline workers. Would you go back to a paper-based system today?

[Mark Weber]

No. I think what we really needed at the border at the time was for people to show they were vaccinated, which most people had on their phone. They were able to show it to us. You had the option of printing it out if you didn't have a phone through which you could do that, and that took mere seconds. For our purposes, that's really all we needed.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Very good.

On my part, I am always speaking to young people and advocating that, because of our close proximity to the Lacolle border crossing, this is an excellent career.

I hear my Conservative colleagues talking about how we need more frontline resources, but Mr. Poilievre and his Conservative caucus voted against funding for CBSA and the RCMP in December. Were you aware of that?

[Mark Weber]

Was I aware of the vote? I was.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

I meant that they voted against applying resources.

If I have any remaining time, Mr. Chair, I would like to give it to Mr. Julian.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'm afraid your question went over, but you got the answer you were looking for, I believe.

We now go to Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné for two and a half minutes.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to know whether you received any complaints about ArriveCAN from employees. Did any of them raise questions or concerns about the application with the union?

[Mark Weber]

We did. Our members contacted us daily throughout the pandemic about their concerns around ArriveCAN. Extreme frustration, I think, would best describe the experience of our officers trying to get it to work while not really having the authority as peace officers under the Quarantine Act to stop anyone and not having the ability to issue fines. As I said at an earlier committee appearance about IT consultants, that's really what their jobs became, in large part, during the pandemic.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

That's quite interesting.

Did anyone report any complaints or misgivings about the application itself, not necessarily its deployment?

I realize that it was mainly management, not CBSA officers, making the decisions about the consultants, but did you receive any complaints regarding the people involved in deploying the app?

[Mark Weber]

At the time that we were using it early on in the pandemic, no. Given what has come out, obviously I hear from members about the whole procurement process and the decision-making around that, but at the time, no.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Can you tell us more about what you've heard recently from members regarding the whole procurement process?

[Mark Weber]

Our members have watched a lot of the testimony. They watched me give testimony here. We all really want to know what happened. It is concerning.

One of the big things the union would like to see.... I appeared at another committee for Bill C-20, which is about the public complaints and review commission. One of the things we pushed for there was an ability for members to use it so that when we see wrongdoing, we're able to bring that forward as well. Currently, we're really lacking the protections of the mechanism to do that. That's something we think is important to have in place if we want to see organizational change.

Surely everyone would want to know when things are going wrong at the agency. Right now, the mechanism we have for that is for me to bring it forward to managerial counterparts at CBSA, and as I said earlier, largely speaking, that just seems to disappear after I say it.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

You're next, Mr. Julian. You may go ahead for two and a half minutes.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Weber, my front door looks across to Washington state, so I'm very close to the border and go across the line very frequently. I'm always impressed by the incredible professionalism of the CBSA officers. They're highly specialized and well trained. They do an incredibly effective job.

I think this committee would be unanimous in saying thank you for all the work you do on behalf of members and that members do to ensure that our borders are operating effectively and appropriately.

You mentioned this in your presentation:

This is to say little of the agency’s decision to spend dozens of millions of dollars on the private sector, instead of choosing to invest in its workers and reinforce their capacity to act on behalf of Canadians. At a time when our members are being nickel-and-dimed at the bargaining table, this is nothing less than a slap in the face.

This is something that started under Mr. Harper and the Conservative government. It's this obsession with privatizing and outsourcing what are important public services to maintain and enhance.

As you've mentioned, we would be hiring hundreds more border officers if that money hadn't been spent on ArriveCAN. If we couple this with Phoenix, which started under the Harper government—it cost $2.5 billion and still doesn't work—it's another example of outsourcing that hurts people, hurts our public service and hurts people who are devoted in service to the country.

What things should we be investing in? You've mentioned frontline border officers. What can we invest in regarding training facilities for the next generation of border officers? What things should we be doing, instead of the outsourcing we've seen over the last decade and a half?

[Mark Weber]

Obviously, as you said, it's officers, technology that assists and doesn't replace officers, and training facilities. Currently, as I said earlier, we have one in Rigaud, Quebec, that can graduate a maximum of about 592 officers a year, which doesn't even cover attrition. With only that facility, we're never going to catch up.

We either need an expansion of that facility or need a second facility so we can graduate enough officers to get our numbers back up to where they should be.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you—

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

How much would it cost to set up a second training centre?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Go ahead, please.

[Mark Weber]

I'm not aware of what the costs are. We have, essentially, a second satellite training facility in Chilliwack, which I think is usable. We've heard of places that are available in the Windsor area that could work.

Different plans are floated, but they never seem to come to fruition. The money really needs to be invested in an ability to get enough people on the front line and working.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

We'll turn now to Mr. Barrett.

You have the floor for five minutes, please.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

In facilitating the flow of legitimate travellers and trade, the border service officers I've had the opportunity to interact with as a member of the travelling public.... It's always stressful at airports, but I frequently have the opportunity to interact with them in their professional capacity when I'm crossing at land borders at Prescott and in Thousand Islands at the Lansdowne port of entry in my community. There's outstanding professionalism.

Because I speak with them—they're members of my community and they're my neighbours—I know that it's a stressful job, and the job has not been made easier by this $60-million arrive scam app.

When I crossed into the United States, the questions on COVID-19 weren't “Have you completed the ArriveCAN app or its equivalent?” and “Are you vaccinated for COVID-19?” However, the process whereby they would detect deception or interdict firearms if they believed they were there was to ask, “Are there any firearms in the vehicle?” That would occur.

Why is it that the government believed your officers couldn't be trusted to use their training and techniques to determine whether someone was being deceptive about having been vaccinated, and instead spent $60 million on an app into which they could scan the documents?

[Mark Weber]

I wish I had the answer to that question.

I think over the years, an overreliance on technology has been built up. It started with the automated machines at the airport, as I said. The initial plan around that was for people to self-declare and for us to not interact with them at all, which is largely what we see at airports now. It's frightening to think about, but that has grown and grown so that we now see constantly what they call “border modernization plans” from the CBSA, which all mean more technology and fewer officers.