Public Safety Committee on March 20th, 2018

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Do you know if your provincial counterparts are using scanners in their institutions?

[Supt Warren Coons]

Do you mean ion scanners?

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Yes.

[Supt Warren Coons]

I know that there are some full-body scanners that are now being used in some provincial jurisdictions. That's not something that's being used on the federal side. I'll defer to Rob on that one. I'm not familiar with it.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Okay, I just ask that question because my riding is very close to Mr. Fragiskatos', and the EMDC has gone through a lot of issues with that. It may be one of those things on which, federally, we're ahead of them.

At CBSA, by and large, it's not used at the front end with people going through. It's the secondary stage of customs, if we look at it in that manner.

[Johny Prasad]

That's the perfect terminology. We have primary, where you show your passports and get your first-level questioning and put in your declaration card or you go through a kiosk at an airport. This is secondary, if you're referred for an examination. It's that more detailed examination, where we start with non-intrusive, through the use of this technology, and then move progressively more intrusively.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

When you go through the airport, at the first stage, the little swabbing....

[Johny Prasad]

Let me help clarify. When you're travelling internationally, you see CBSA on your return. When you're travelling outbound, either domestically or internationally, it's another department, it's CATSA or aviation security. They're swabbing for a different reason.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

That swabbing is not for—

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Matthew Dubé]

That follow-up is going to have to wait, Mr. MacKenzie.

Mr. Picard, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

I will ask my questions in French, for those who need translation.

My questions are for the representatives of the Canada Border Services Agency.

When a person is referred to a secondary inspection, normally, reasonable doubt has first of all been established by a first officer during the primary inspection. Is the technology used to establish reasonable doubt, or is it simply a procedure that allows you to justify searching someone?

[Johny Prasad]

I can answer that.

Mr. Chair, from primary, if you're referred for a further examination to secondary, we're going to be looking through your baggage. As we're examining your baggage, whether it be an X-ray, an ion scan, or a detector dog.... Let's focus on the ion scan: it is exactly as you said, to either confirm and validate or negate any indicators that the officer might have had.

Obviously, quite often we're looking for concealed narcotics or something of that sort. If there's contraband within your baggage, the ion scan can help give us an indicator of which piece of baggage it might be in, by giving us an alert on the trace residue of potential narcotics.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

So the scanner is not used to verify whether the individual is carrying the drug in question on their person.

[Johny Prasad]

We don't scan the body with this device. However, if you're making contact with, let's say, cocaine or whoever packed your baggage might have some cocaine on them, that trace residue is usually transferred into that area, or your toiletry kit, or whatever else.

The scan from the ion scan will help the officer identify whether you might be carrying something, whether it be body packed or around your person, in your shoes, in your pockets, in your jacket, or quite often, within a false-sided suitcase or whatever it might be.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

I'm going to repeat my first question, but I'll reverse it.

The scanner that checks for the presence of products on objects becomes a tool that establishes reasonable grounds to search the person. Is that correct?

[Phil Lightfoot]

I could take that question.

That's exactly right, in that if we detect traces of a narcotic on the exterior of a bag, that gives us the motivation and the justification to go further. These scanners are incredibly sensitive. They're detecting nanograms of material. Nanograms doesn't mean very much to most people, but if you take a grain of salt, that's a milligram. A nanogram is a millionth of a grain of a salt. If you can see it, it's more than we need.

Really, it's just an indicator that maybe the search should go further.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

How do border services officers interpret individual searches, given the fact that just being close to people in an airplane, rubbing up against someone or touching other luggage could conceivably leave traces of a substance on one's suitcase or person? There can be real traces, but you cannot always draw firm conclusions.

[Phil Lightfoot]

Let's talk about false positives and nuisance alarms.

A false positive is where you swab something and there's no drug there, there's no heroin there, but you do detect heroin. That is because there's an interference—

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

That was not my question. My question is not about false positives, but about positive results following a transfer.

[Phil Lightfoot]

I understand. The nuisance alarms, which we're familiar with, are where you do detect very small amounts of drugs, and they're actually there, but the person is not carrying a significant quantity. We recognize this problem. For example, we don't swab currency, because the drug trade is largely a cash business. We don't swab currency.

I think it's a question of what the result is. If we detect a tiny amount of drugs through an ion scan, then that just leads us to examine further. It's not an indication of guilt.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Matthew Dubé]

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Picard.

This concludes our five-minute intervention round.

We will now begin the second hour of our meeting, and go back to seven-minute rounds.

For our first seven minutes, we have Mr. Spengemann, please.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Chair, thank you very much. I won't need the entire five minutes. In fact, I'll be happy to delegate the remainder of my time.

I want to get back to the law enforcement purpose. Is the sole reason for interdiction the risk of bringing illicit substances into the correctional facility? The answer might be obvious, but I'd like to get it on the record. Is the adjunct purpose also to prevent dialogue between visitors and people in a correctional facility who may be, from that facility, directing illicit operations outside of the facility?

[Supt Warren Coons]

I would say the primary focus and priority is to keep the illicit substances from entering the institution, because of the consequences, obviously, of them making their way inside. It fuels violent acts within the institution, because of muscling that goes on within the institution, and debts that become owed. As well, obviously the usage of narcotics inside the institution is contrary to the plan for each of the inmates.

The primary focus is to keep those narcotics out of the institution. There are other ways, as my colleague has alluded to, where we know that inmates have contact in the communities and there are illegal enterprises, no doubt, being worked with the community. We've seen evidence of that in the past, but that doesn't correlate into what we're trying to accomplish in terms of ion scanning the individuals when they come into the institution. It's primarily to keep the actual substances out of the institutions.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

There wouldn't even be a secondary purpose. If it's somebody known to be involved in illicit trade, you'll know that through other channels than through an ion scan, presumably—

[Supt Warren Coons]

Again, the ion scan is one component, whereas there might be intelligence and what have you, and that may dictate that it's not good for the correctional plan of the inmate to have that particular visitor have contact with that inmate. It's dependent on a variety of factors, the ion scan being one.