Public Safety Committee on Feb. 11th, 2009

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Changing the topic back to border services, when I talked to Mr. Rigby.... There are two parts to this question. One has to do with the cost and the timeline around arming border agents. Where are you on that? There was a concern at the committee last time that the estimate was as much as a billion dollars in ten years to do that.

The second part is about your procedures and statistics around the use of arms, incident reports. Where are you with that in your procedures? And are there difficulties, as has been indicated, where some border agents didn't even know they were to file reports?

[Stephen Rigby]

The total budget for the project is $781 million over ten years, commencing in 2006. We are on plan and on budget to complete it in 2016. To date, in the period ending with the conclusion of last month, we have armed 717 officers. That puts us pretty much where we had expected to be at this time. We're seeing a good success rate in our training and generally good feedback in how that training is being adopted. We have an 88% to 89% success rate on the training at this time, with good follow-up on the remediation. Generally speaking, I can report that the project is going pretty much as we planned. The plans that we have for the next couple of years are unfolding in a similar fashion.

Since we began the rollout of weapons, there have been 38 incidents of weapons drawn. Each of the incidents has been fully reported. There is a panel convened to review the incident report. Each one of the 38 panels has reached the conclusion that the officers behaved according to the procedures and policies that we have for the drawing of the weapon.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you.

Mr. McColeman, I understand you are going to be sharing your time with Mr. Richards.

Go ahead, Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Thank you.

Mr. Head, I would direct my question to you in regard to escorted temporary leaves. In my view, our criminal justice system frequently focuses too much attention on the rights of the criminal. Often, this focus occurs at the expense of the victims and the victims' families. I think the creation of a federal ombudsman for victims was certainly a good first step, an important step to valuing the rights of victims. But I know there's more that needs to be done. My predecessor received a number of calls over the years from families of victims who had read in the newspaper of a criminal being allowed out on an escorted temporary leave. Even though they were registered as victims, they were distraught because they were not given any information about the reason for allowing the prisoner out into the community. I'm wondering if this is something that has been addressed.

[Don Head]

It is one of the things that we're currently looking at as part of our transformation agenda. There were a series of recommendations in the independent panel review report that talked about the needs of victims. One of them had to do with providing victims with more information about offenders—their progress, transfers, and temporary absences. We're currently looking at that. There are some restrictions in the way the current Corrections and Conditional Release Act is constructed. We're looking at what changes are possible, and we will be bringing forward proposals to address the recommendations in the review panel report.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Are there any other measures being implemented to further respect the victims' rights and the rights of their families?

[Don Head]

Mr. Dion can probably talk a bit about this as well, because we both have resources to provide services to victims. We received money a year or so ago to put in place 30 victim services unit officers. We have been working hand in hand with the National Parole Board in providing services to the victims. We currently have 5,500 victims registered with us. Since the inception, we're running about 32,000 contacts with those victims and providing them with about 40,000 pieces of information.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

At this time, I'll defer to Mr. McColeman.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

My question is directed to Mr. Rigby. I would like to follow up on the documentation requirements at border crossings. It was quite impressive to hear the minister say that 60 million Canadians now have the necessary passports. I'm interested specifically in the NEXUS program, and I'm wondering how that's being rolled out to get more Canadians involved. I have some personal experience there with my family. I think it's an excellent program going forward. Could you comment on that?

[Stephen Rigby]

Certainly. We have had a number of advertising campaigns promoting the use of NEXUS, and we hope to have some more over the next year. At the same time, we have increased the number of enrolment centres around the country at airports and in some places on the land border. Also, because it's a binational program, we work extensively with our counterparts in the United States to make sure travellers on both sides of the border, those in border communities, and frequent travellers such as business people, etc., have good knowledge of how the program works and how they can apply for it, and get the vetting done to acquire the card.

We've also worked extensively with our friends south of the border to make sure that our investments in infrastructure mirror theirs as closely as possible. This is particularly true in the case of the land border, along which there are 16 sites where we have NEXUS capacity. At some of the sites, such as in the southern B.C. mainland, for example, the participation rate for the use of the NEXUS card is really quite high.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Do you foresee, moving forward, border crossings moving to that standard of NEXUS card screening?

[Stephen Rigby]

Well, certainly it's part and parcel of the WHTI effort. I think it's the intention of the U.S. government to ensure that they are moving in the direction of having RFID capacity in as many of the documents as possible for individuals they see crossing the border southbound.

For our part, it's something we would like to see expanded in terms of participation and use, particularly at airports, because it helps us deal with volumes, but it also helps in the general vetting of higher- and lower-risk people as we're dealing with flows.

At the land border, at the 16 sites we have now, we are actually covering a pretty good proportion of the high-volume sites. So as we look forward to further investments, and you get into the 20th or the 25th site, you're going to see fewer potential users on a volume basis, so our selection will be governed in part by those sorts of considerations.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

We're going to have Monsieur Ménard wrap it up.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My question concerns the Correctional Service. The Correctional Investigator makes recommendations from year to year. When you read his report, you see that he makes the same recommendations from year to year.

What is the problem with his recommendations? Do you think they are bad, that he poorly analyzes the situations, that his recommendations aren't applicable or that you don't have the resources to implement them?

[Don Head]

I think it's not an issue of whether the recommendations that have been brought forward by the correctional investigator in the past are good or bad. There's no question from our perspective. We recognize the thrust of the issue that has been brought forward. The problem we have is that sometimes the specific solution that's being proposed is not manageable in the long run or runs contrary to some of the other pieces. For the most part, we're not in disagreement with the root issue. Where there's debate at times is on the best solution to move the agenda forward.

We've been working relatively closely with the Office of the Correctional Investigator over the last couple of years to try to find a better formula for raising issues and bringing forward solutions so that we get out of this cycle of seeing the same recommendation or same type of recommendation over and over again. We do not disagree with the main thrust of his report. We know we have to do work around mental health. We know we have to do work around aboriginal offenders. We've made some significant progress in terms of how we do investigations and the kind of information that's done. We've made significant progress around women offenders. Sometimes the debate is between a specific solution that's being proposed and what is sustainable, or in some cases, what can be funded within the existing budget.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Now let's talk about borders. There are a lot of rumours about the creation of a border patrol, somewhat like what exists in the United States, in cooperation with the RCMP.

Could you tell us whether you have any such plans? If so, when do you intend to implement them and what do you intend to do?

[Stephen Rigby]

The government has indicated that it wishes to examine the possibility of creating a border patrol between the efforts of my organization, the RCMP, and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. At the present time we are developing options for the minister's consideration.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

All right.

Ms. Mourani can use the time I have left.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

I also have a question for Mr. Rigby. We're hearing a lot of rumours to the effect that the no-fly list that was established in 2007, I believe, contains the names of minors. There are apparently minors whose names appear on that list, youths, children, is that true or false?

[Stephen Rigby]

I can't comment. The no-fly list, as you call it, I believe is a list that is administered by the Department of Transport. What the Canada Border Services Agency deals with is information coming from airlines after the takeoff of aircraft, and we deal with that from a customs and immigration admissibility point of view.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

All right. No one at this table can answer that question. Is that correct?

[Stephen Rigby]

No. It's Transport Canada.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

All right. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Do you have any further questions, Mr. MacKenzie?

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

No.