Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Members of the committee, thank you for having us.
As has been highlighted already, the Canada Border Services Agency has announced that as part of its strategic review in Quebec, it intends to close two land border ports of entry, reduce the hours at three others, and further to close four inland points of service in that particular province. The CBSA further intends to close a land border point of entry in Saskatchewan, as well as an inland point of entry—that's the port of Kenora that we were discussing earlier—as well as five inland points of service in the province of Ontario, the express purpose being strictly cost-cutting, having now described these closures as being the agency's lowest priorities.
There's a further element to the agency's reductions, which is highlighted in our brief. There are primarily four things that stick out: reducing local intelligence-gathering capacity by centralizing targeting activities; ending the Canadian involvement in the international container security initiative, meaning abandoning Canada's only pre-arrival examination capacity; abandoning CBSA's role in the federal tobacco control strategy by redirecting the funds earmarked for assessing the effectiveness of reducing tobacco smuggling; and fourth, ending funding for joint Canada-U.S. flights—those are joint charters—that would usually unfold for individuals determined to be a threat to national security, or high-risk criminals, or uncooperative deportees. This in fact would be redirecting money initially earmarked as part of the public safety and anti-terrorism initiative.
The CBSA has, at least to this point, provided no non-operational alternatives to these direct reductions in service, so our brief endeavours to do just that.
I would just like to point out that the French version of our brief has not yet been proofread or corrected to ensure that the English and French correspond. I would just ask you to take that into account. A revised version will be published on our website by the middle of the week. We only received the French version this morning, but out of respect for Francophone Committee members, we did want to provide the translation.
In our brief, we have listed the offices affected by closures and estimated what these closures represent in terms of savings. For Franklin Centre, Quebec, the maximum savings are estimated to be $500,000. For Jamieson's Line, the savings would amount to $350,000, and for Big Beaver, Saskatchewan, $450,000. We also explained how we did our calculations and arrived at these results. For those offices where reduced hours of operation are being proposed, we are talking about maximum savings of $300,000 for Morse's Line, $300,000 as well for East Pinnacle, and $600,000 for Glen Sutton.
With respect to inland points of service in Quebec—I referred to this earlier—we will only mention those with respect to which we have information. There is one in Drummondville, where maximum potential savings would amount to $230,000. The same applies to the Granby office which, it should be pointed out, serves the Bromont airport. Therefore, the entire CANPASS Air Program would be compromised as a result of the Granby office being shut down. Furthermore, there would be considerable additional expense if it were decided that this airport should be served by other land border offices.
With respect to the Kenora office, in Ontario, the information we have collected, primarily from the Agency's website, shows that, even though it is a seasonal office, according to the website, it is open throughout the year. In actual fact, it seems it is only open from May 1 to October 31. According to our calculations, the maximum savings would be considerably less than what is indicated.
There is also a list of other affected offices on page 6 of our brief, except that the Agency has thus far providing no details. We are therefore unable to estimate the potential savings.
Based on what we know, the maximum savings would be approximately $3.4 million, and it is important to bear in mind that savings in Kenora would be less than the current calculation.
Canada's unilateral intention to close ports of entry and to reduce its presence at other such locations is in complete contrast with the long-standing Canada-U.S. collaborative border security approach, which until now, and particularly since 2006, has been just that: collaborative. The approach used also seems to undermine the joint border security approach reflected in such joint initiatives as “shiprider”, as well as particularly the joint border security study just recently announced by the public safety minister—that was in June of this year.
Understandably, U.S. officials have reacted to this unilateral CBSA action in blunt terms, including suggesting that it violates the 2002 U.S.-Canada Smart Border Accord.
CBSA's proposal to withdraw from the international container security initiative is a disturbing abandonment of the accepted joint strategy of pushing our borders out to proactively identify items of risk before they arrive in North America. We therefore urge the committee to probe, certainly in that area and the other areas that we've listed in our brief.
There is no doubt that reducing an already very thin customs and immigration presence at the border will clearly promote what is known as port-running—in other words, people who do not report at a border crossing—as well as other illegal entries.
It is extremely important to note that the RCMP's recent Canada-U.S. integrated border enforcement team threat assessment—that's the IBET threat assessment for 2009 on border security issues—reportedly identified an alarming increase in northbound illegal smuggling activities between land border points of entry since 2007. The report specifically identifies a dramatic increase in northbound people-smuggling into Canada, which for the first time since 2007 is greater than such activities running southbound into the United States. We have material supporting that as an appendix to this brief.
So, Quebec has been identified as an area that is particularly affected, because of the number of unguarded roads in Quebec, which is already very high. That is what the IBET report says. However, what the government is proposing today will in fact increase the number of unguarded roads.
I would like to quickly summarize the remaining points. We have prepared a summary of alternative solutions. By changing its implementation of the arming initiative, the Agency could save at least $2 million. Our brief sets out our proposals in that regard.
There is also the fact that, as a result of arming and ending work-alone initiatives, there has been a phenomenal increase in the number of frontline supervisors. As my colleague was telling me this morning, they literally don't know where to hide them anymore. There are superintendents working in offices where, previously, a single officer at a time was assigned. There are now two officers, as a result of work-alone being eliminated, as well as two superintendents, because of shift rotation.
Therefore, in Quebec alone, we estimate that savings could amount to $1 million by bringing frontline supervision back down to a level that reflects reality. We also have details in that regard.
Under unspecified contract expenses incurred by CBSA, a review of the “Management Consulting”, “Unspecified”, “Information Technology Consulting”, “Other Business and Professional Services”, and “Welfare” contracts issued by CBSA for just the last fiscal year show spending of over $30 million. Similar CBSA contract spending in these vague areas for the first quarter of fiscal year 2010-11 is approximately $12 million.
We urge the committee to look into whether there would not be areas where the agency would be able to make cuts without having a direct impact on the service that is being delivered.
We will now entertain questions.