Public Safety Committee on March 12th, 2009

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

So they're distinctly not working at any inland border crossings; they're doing investigations?

[Stephen Rigby]

No, they're generally deployed in our urban sites, where most of the business is.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Okay.

Then that leads to the third area I wanted to ask about; that's the intelligence-sharing area. Would you say that we are, as a country, a net importer or exporter of intelligence information?

[Stephen Rigby]

I am far from an expert on this, but I would say in general we are probably a net importer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

You have 30 seconds left because that was such a short answer.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

There's a lot of trafficking in illicit materials, including human trafficking and cigarettes, guns, drugs—all of that. On the human trafficking front, are you seeing any trends or things happening—more activity, less activity...?

[Stephen Rigby]

Maybe I can get Kimber to comment.

[Kimber Johnston]

Thank you very much.

At this time we are investigating some cases around human smuggling and human trafficking. The challenge in this type of criminal activity is actual intelligence on the extent to which it exists. I think my colleagues from the RCMP would agree it's a crime that is very difficult to detect. It's conducted in a clandestine way, and the intelligence we have around organizations involved in human smuggling and human trafficking has been fairly limited to date.

The Canada Border Services Agency provides a lot of training to our officers to try to detect signs of smuggling of humans or trafficking of humans at the border. Even our migration integrity officers abroad have been trained to detect that kind of criminal activity. We've recently issued our own internal guidelines to all our border services officers on how to respoind when they suspect that criminal activity is taking place. As you know, it is often the case that those who are being trafficked or smuggled are dealt with primarily as the victims of crime, as opposed to the perpetrators of the crime.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Holland now, please.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

I feel compelled to go back to the story Mr. Oliphant was talking about, because there was a comment about how this might be an inconvenience, but after a day or two you forget it. When these individuals were calling me on the phone as I was approaching that border, they didn't feel Canadian. They were there for nine hours. They had gone effortlessly into the United States and couldn't get back into their own country. That's something that lasts with them for a long time.

When you're talking about complaints, I talk to so many constituents, and I have scores of complaints about incidents that happened at the border. These people don't feel comfortable reporting them because they travel back and forth to the United States. If they have to complain directly to CBSA instead of an independent oversight body, their concern is retribution; that they're going to be marked as troublemakers, and when they go back through they're going to have trouble.

Whether that perception is right or wrong, they have it. It's one of the reasons why I think Justice O'Connor's recommendations about the necessity of having independent oversight is so critical. I think it's equally important for your agency, because it's very difficult for somebody to trust that if they write you and CBSA directly they're going to get resolution to this, or they won't become a target.

I just want to make the point that this stuff lasts with people. If there isn't an independent body to which they can appeal and feel, rightly or wrongly, they're not going to be subject to retribution, we won't have a way of really remedying this. The thousand people who were on those buses never complained, mostly for the reason I just stated, but also because they expected that when we had the opportunity at committee we would raise it.

I don't want this to be seen as some kind of minor inconvenience or something they forgot about. This is something they'll never forget. We need to have a way for them to be able to get answers on this without having to fear retribution.

[Stephen Rigby]

I did not make that comment, and I would never make that comment.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

I know you did not make that comment.

[Stephen Rigby]

I take your point completely. I am in total agreement with you that if residents of Canada, Canadian citizens, have been subjected to that, it does stay with them. That is an unacceptable situation for me.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

It was a comment made by a member of the committee, and not by you, sir. I just wanted to underscore that point, because I don't want anybody to walk away feeling differently.

I want to come to a comment that Assistant Commissioner Cabana made yesterday. He said that the missing piece at the border was additional personnel in border communities. We know that while many American officials agree with that, they want to go much further. They feel we have the largest undefended border in the world and we have to use new technologies. One is drones.

What consultations have you had about these drones? What agreements are in place about flying into Canadian airspace? What is our position, and what discussions have taken place with respect to these drones?

[D/Commr Raf Souccar]

Would you like me to comment as well on the statements about the missing pieces of the puzzle that Mike spoke about?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

No, not on that; we had an opportunity to talk about that yesterday. I'm specifically interested at this moment about what discussions you've had, about what the agreements are about these drones going into Canadian airspace, and how you feel generally about this kind of technology being deployed along the border.

[D/Commr Raf Souccar]

We have had discussions with our U.S. counterparts. Initially they were running these drones on their southern border. Then when they began to implement them on the northern border—our southern border—they were implementing them on their side. We've had discussions over how to improve border security, over technology, over how to work together to complement each other, as opposed to duplicating our efforts. They're working right now on the secure border initiative. We have one person seconded to them to ensure that all technology that's brought in, such as drones, for example, is done in a way that we can work together to complement each other.

Any time a vehicle such as a drone enters Canadian airspace, we're notified before that happens.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

What agreements are there on these drones being allowed into Canadian airspace? Aside from notifying you, what are the conditions under which they're allowed to cross? Is it simply a matter of notification that one of their drones is crossing? How does this work?

[D/Commr Raf Souccar]

I'll turn it over to Mike for the details on that.

[Inspector Mike Furey, Inspector, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

The drones are not allowed to fly in Canada. Transport Canada will not authorize a certificate for air-worthiness. As a result, those drones are currently going to fly only on the U.S. northern border within their territorial area. They will not be flying in Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you.

Mr. Richards, please.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Thank you.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today. We certainly appreciate the information; it's been very informative and useful. I was pleased to note that both groups in your presentation indicated the threat we face from organized crime and how it is a major priority at our border. It certainly is probably the biggest threat to Canadian safety and security, not just at our border, but within our borders as well. I was pleased to note you identified that. I'm particularly pleased with the deputy commissioner's remarks that we have to make sure that our efforts within the borders and our efforts at the borders have to complement each other and work in synchronization.

I'd like to get some examples from you, and I'll start with Mr. Rigby. In your remarks you indicated you recognize that given the economic environment we're in today there's going to be a need to be creative and work together with your partners to ensure optimal allocation of border resources to priorities. I was wondering if you could give me an example of a way you feel you could be creative working with your partners, be it the domestic partners or international partners, to save money, to save duplication, maybe an example of how you feel we could be creative in that way.

[Stephen Rigby]

Thank you.

To echo remarks I made earlier, one of the prime areas where I think we need to continue to evolve relationships is with law enforcement on the gun-smuggling side. A lot of work is going on there now. I think all of us who are involved in these dialogues simply have to become more adept at exploiting the sources we have, sharing them and making sure we can get those to the point of attack, if I can use that term.

The so-called “cold hits” that Deputy Commissioner Souccar referred to earlier, which we do have and we do have successes on, are a very inefficient way of tackling the problem, because it's purely reliant on the skills of the border officer. You're typically going to end up with a onesie-twosie type of situation. That would be one area I would mention.

Another area is in our efforts to push our efforts offshore and do interdiction earlier in the supply chain, we have migration integrity officers and we have officers associated with our container security initiatives. I've started discussions with my U.S. colleagues along the lines of where are there ways in which our officers abroad can work together more efficiently and perhaps reduce the burden on both administrations in terms of the sorts of intelligence we can find, and the sorts of information we can share in terms of assets that are coming onto the North American perimeter.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Okay.

Maybe I'll go with a similar question to you, Deputy Commissioner. You've recognized as well that there needs to be a focus on building partnerships. In your comments you mentioned that you could do so with joint threat assessments and developing innovative ideas and solutions. Maybe you could provide some examples of how you feel you could accomplish those goals.

[D/Commr Raf Souccar]

Absolutely. Thank you.

I spoke about the importance of inland teams and the seamless integration that exists between inland and the border. That is crucial to getting ahead of the problem, internationally and domestically. We have a number of integrated teams working inland--combined forces, special enforcement units that look at organized crime. We have integrated national security enforcement teams that focus on national security-related issues, integrated proceeds of crime teams that look after the laundering of money and movement of money back and forth across the border. That integrated portion exists within most of our teams.

But that's one component of it, one piece of the puzzle. We need to ensure also that people who live at the border are our eyes and ears. Having 10,000 police officers standing shoulder to shoulder across a stretch of land is an ineffective use of resources. We have to be intelligence-led, we have to be able to squeeze criminality to where we are, and we have to adapt to crime as opposed to having it adapt to us. I'm referring to technology.

In terms of technology, I mentioned earlier the SBInet, the secure border initiative that the United States is working on. We have a person seconded to Washington, an inspector who works with them to ensure the flow of communication so that as they move forward, the work we're doing in Canada and the work they're doing in the United States complements each other, rather than duplicating.

There's one other point, and that's the choke points. As people come across the border, there are certain areas where you have no choice but to end up at one single point. We call that the choke point. Sensors at one part of the border crossing give us time to be able to get to the choke point.

Visibility is important, outreach with the community is important, technology is important, integrated teams are important, as is the international part--pushing the borders out. Those are all components.