Public Safety Committee on Feb. 1st, 2007

[Alain Jolicoeur]

Our estimate is that about 600 people ran the official ports of entry, going through without stopping, or stopping mid-process and then—

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

All right, thank you. I probably have time to get one more question in here.

Can you confirm the $781 million that you're talking about will put an end to work-alone situations and also make it less likely that the withdrawal policy would be used?

[Alain Jolicoeur]

The $781 million does not do anything for work-alone situations. That's a separate budget and a separate initiative.

I'm sorry, I forgot the second question.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Would it make it less likely that agents would choose to use the withdrawal policy?

[Alain Jolicoeur]

There is no question in my mind that it should be reduced dramatically when our employees are armed.

[Barbara Hébert]

Perhaps I could add a comment, Mr. Chair.

Just to complement the president's reply to you, the $1 billion amount that was commonly known before was dedicated to two aspects. One was the arming initiative, as the president has already said, at $781 million. The balance of that money actually applies to eliminating the work-alone situation.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

So the $1 billion number that we heard the last time at the committee meeting would include the work-alone situation.

[Barbara Hébert]

That's right. There are two aspects to it: eliminating work-alone and the arming initiative.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you.

We will now move over again to the opposition side.

Ms. Barnes.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you very much, and welcome to you.

We have many questions, maybe not all of which we'll have time for today, but maybe another day.

When, as was just brought up by Mr. Brown, you have a number of people running the border, just running through, what difference will having a gun on a customs officer make to that situation? I'd like to handle that from a safety issue.

[Alain Jolicoeur]

The strategy we're using to deal with people running the port, as we say, is not arming. Arming is done for other reasons. One strategy we are using is to basically plug the biggest part of that. Among those 600 occurrences, 150 are linked to some logistical problems we have in one location. This should be resolved before the summer.

Of the other 450, more than 50% of the occurrences are linked to 18 locations. In those 18 locations, we are now investing in the infrastructure to put road separators and barriers in place. Again, that should be resolved probably before next summer.

So we expect that number to be reduced significantly using those two initiatives that I've just described.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

But my direct question to you is, what difference will having a customs officer carrying a gun make to the situation just described?

[Alain Jolicoeur]

I suppose that psychologically people might be less tempted to take a chance if they are facing armed border guards. If you are asking me, will we ask our people to use their firearms in those situations, the answer is no, we won't.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

That's right, because the customs plaza area is usually a busy area. You go from a primary inspection to a secondary inspection, and there are a lot of people getting in and out of cars to go inside and pay duties on goods. It isn't an area where you would want to....

To the RCMP, if this were a police situation coming in, is this an area in which you'd want any gun activity?

[D/Commr Pierre-Yves Bourduas]

Once again it comes back to the intervention model and the reason for using guns. What you have to bear in mind is that it's the ultimate solution. It's not a solution; it creates more problems than it is a solution.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you.

[D/Commr Pierre-Yves Bourduas]

That's the reason we have to look at other intervention models before we get there.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

In fact, the study that was done internally by the government did say, as one of its points, that putting guns with all of these officers actually could be another problem, another safety hazard in and of itself, just because there are guns in the area.

Is there any report, other than the one just created by the customs union, that you had, Mr. Jolicoeur, to wish for this arming situation that the government has chosen to go forward with? Was that recommendation in any other report, either in your agency or your predecessor agency?

[Alain Jolicoeur]

There is one that I remember for sure, and that's the report from the Senate committee SCONSAD. I may be wrong on the date, but I think about a year and a half or two years ago—

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

It was 2005.

[Alain Jolicoeur]

—they recommended that we have an armed presence, if I remember correctly, at the six busiest border crossings.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

That armed presence, as I recall from reading it—I believe it was a report from the other House at that time—could have been supplied by other police forces or the RCMP, if that had been the decision of the government. It's an option that could have been there. Is that correct?

[Alain Jolicoeur]

Yes, from that report; they were not specific on how, if I remember well.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you.

I understand the MOU with the RCMP at the current time is only two years in length, even though we know the training period envisioned by the current government is 10 years. Is that correct?