Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. It is an honour and a distinct pleasure for me to appear before you here today representing OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino. He sends his regrets, but unfortunately he had other commitments that prevented him from personally attending here today.
My remarks are based on the collective experience of Commissioner Fantino and me and our many years in law enforcement, working collaboratively with many law enforcement partners, including the fine women and men of the Canada Border Services Agency.
By way of background, the OPP is comprised of almost 6,000 uniformed officers and almost 2,000 civilian support staff who are deployed across the province of Ontario. All applicants for the position of OPP constable undergo a rigorous selection process. This includes various security checks, including the Canadian police information system. Applications are screened to ensure they meet legislative requirements and local OPP policy.
OPP applicants must possess a certificate of results issued by the constable selection system, and all constable selection system assessors are trained and certified. They administer a variety of specific physical tests, and I have details on that if you're interested during any questions.
Successful applicants complete a background questionnaire and are screened by OPP recruiters who interview each applicant on a one-on-one basis. Candidates who pass these evaluations then complete psychological testing of a variety of types, and these tests are scored by the OPP psychologist and either approved or not approved. The psychologist has the option of conducting a one-on-one interview with the candidate should the written testing require any additional exploration.
New recruits undergo a full year of training and assessment by the provincial police academy and the Ontario Police College, or the OPC, as well as a field recruit training officer. Recruits receive extensive training relating specifically to firearms proficiency and safe handling.
Prior to being issued a firearm, recruits undergo 33 hours of on-range, firearm-specific training at the OPC and 16 hours at the Ontario Provincial Police Academy. Recruits are issued a sidearm on graduation day when they are immediately assigned to a field posting and placed under direct one-to-one supervision with a recruit field training officer for four months. The training officer monitors the performance of the recruit for the balance of one full year and submits written monthly reports to a supervisor. Safe and proficient use of the firearm is assessed continuously during this time.
In terms of the OPP's interaction with the CBSA, of course, Canada-U.S. border security is primarily a federal matter, but the OPP does participate widely with the intelligence community as members of joint forces operations, such as integrated border enforcement teams and marine safety enforcement teams. The OPP are also engaged in border security issues through teams and projects such as our provincial auto theft team, our provincial weapons enforcement unit, and the firearms interdiction strategically targeting smugglers--FISTS, as it is known.
Should intelligence information indicate a need, the OPP can mobilize resources to deal with border issues in areas where the OPP is the police service of jurisdiction or when we are requested by another police agency.
The OPP has no resources dedicated solely to border patrol. The full array of OPP resources available to meet a provincial policing mandate are available, as they are for any other issue arising within that mandate, including uniform patrol officers; investigators of criminal investigations, narcotics, and firearms; the tactics and rescue unit; the emergency response teams we have across the province; our canine units; underwater search and recovery; explosives disposal; marine units; aviation services, etc.
The OPP does not have any formal memoranda of understanding with CBSA for emergency response purposes. Except in specifically planned interdiction operations, CBSA officers routinely conduct their daily activities without the benefit of having armed police partners like the OPP readily available for support.
As our first line of defence, they encounter weapons, including firearms, or if they are required to arrest potentially dangerous individuals who are trying to enter Canada, they do so with the training and equipment at their disposal at that time.
If they do summon the assistance of a law enforcement agency, such as the OPP, we will attend on a priority basis and from whatever geographic location our officers happen to be in at that moment in time. In many cases, that response may take many minutes, in other cases a half hour, and in some cases much longer than that. Certainly, an urgent request for assistance from CBSA will be of the highest priority. But responding OPP officers could be many miles away or tied up at another high-priority occurrence that prevents them from immediately responding.
It is our belief in the OPP that our Canada Border Service Agency personnel are Canada's first line of defence against organized crime groups, other criminals, drugs, firearms, and many other illegal commodities that may at any given time be crossing our borders into Canada. In that role, it is important that these dedicated men and women be properly trained and equipped to protect the security of our border and thereby contribute, ultimately, to the safety of Canadian communities. It is equally important that they be properly trained and equipped to protect themselves while carrying out this important mandate.
No one law enforcement agency can protect Canadian communities. It's the partnerships and the cooperation that exist between agencies like CBSA and the RCMP, as well as provincial and municipal police services, that can. It is that collective web that surrounds Canada, the provinces, and the communities therein--from our surrounding borders and into the heart of our many communities--that provides that strength.
When we established the Cornwall regional task force on smuggling and related criminal activity in 1993, CBSA, then known, of course, as Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, was part of that task force, and they were the first line of defence against contraband that was entering Canada through the port of Cornwall. Millions of dollars' worth of contraband liquor, tobacco products, narcotics, and other illegal commodities, including firearms, were brought through New York state into Ontario at Cornwall each year.
CBSA personnel interdicted large quantities of that contraband and apprehended the criminals who were moving them into Canada, right at the port of entry, using their skill and their unique legislative powers to search and seize illegal goods. The RCMP, the OPP, and the Cornwall police then patrolled the immediate area of the bridge into the city of Cornwall. Then the RCMP and the OPP established a further web, outwards, along area county roads and highways leading to the larger centres, such as Ottawa and Toronto, and further points east and west across this country.
Many of the criminals who were smuggling these illegal goods into Canada and then distributing them across Canada posed a threat to public safety, not only through the contraband products they were transporting and selling in our communities, but through their fear of apprehension and the subsequent penalties they would receive, as well as of the potential for significant financial loss.
Organized crime group members and their affiliates were quite prevalent in this trade, and in many cases, the men and women of the CBSA were their first law enforcement contacts at that critical point as they crossed that international line into Canada. Every arrest made by CBSA in that specific operation prevented criminals and contraband from further progressing into Canadian communities. It also prevented other law enforcement agencies, such as the OPP, from having to get involved with these criminals. This, of course, then eliminated some potential for police chases and the subsequent high-risk arrests from occurring along the highways or in the hearts of communities.
If these perpetrators were caught at all, the criminals were dealt with either at that very tense and most critical point of entry into Canada by the CBSA officers, or, alternatively, later, on a highway somewhere in Canada by a police service. However, in the case of CBSA intervention and interdiction, the criminals were approached by unarmed law enforcement officers.
It's interesting to note that my experience in managing that task force was that although the RCMP, the OPP, and the municipal police officers who were part of the task force were all committed to seizing contraband and preventing it from further getting into our communities, it was only a temporary assignment for us. For the most part, it wasn't our normal police business, nor was it an activity that we would participate in forever. On the other hand, CBSA officers were tirelessly dedicated to preventing contraband and unwanted persons from entering this country as an all-encompassing commitment, day in and day out, for their entire careers as public servants. They worked hand in hand with us, often in very tense situations where the potential for violence was ever present, but they did so as unarmed partners.
September 11, 2001, changed our world in terms of border security and community safety matters. The new environment tragically opened our eyes, as Canadian law enforcement agencies, to an increased threat to our safety and security.
As stated earlier, OPP officers on patrol, unfortunately, are not always close enough to the various ports of entry to respond and assist in a timely way.
When the Twin Towers were attacked, the OPP immediately dispatched officers to the various Canada-U.S. border points along the St. Lawrence in eastern Ontario to do nothing but provide armed support to unarmed CBSA officers as they dealt with the potential threat of individuals involved in the attack against the U.S. coming north to enter into Canada.
A minimum of four OPP officers, armed, stood watch to support and protect unarmed CBSA officers at Prescott and Lansdowne as they thoroughly questioned and searched people trying to enter into Canada, 24 hours a day, for a number of months. At the exact same time, at the other end of those bridges between New York and Canada, armed U.S. customs and immigration officers manned their posts, certainly with extremely heightened vigilance, but trained and armed as they always were, even prior to these tragic events.
Once again, the same criminals crossed the Canada-U.S. border day after day, but were dealt with at one end of the bridge by armed U.S. authorities and at the other end by CBSA officers who were virtually unequipped.
In summary, it is the opinion of the Ontario Provincial Police that properly trained and properly equipped armed Canada Border Service Agency officers will ultimately increase the safety and security of those officers, allowing them to rely less on the irregular and at times potentially untimely response of armed police partner agencies when faced with criminals armed with weapons.
Any arrests and seizures of contraband they make at the ports of entry will undoubtedly result in lessening Canada's police services'--federal, provincial, or municipal--need to deal with such criminals and contraband at later points, including on major highways in the heart of communities across Canada.
Thank you.
