Evidence of meeting #65 for Public Safety and National Security in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was traveller.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
Thank you for your time and your effort, and also for your work with your union.
Ms. Bell.
5:10 p.m.
Charlotte Bell President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
Mr. Chair, honourable members, I am very pleased to appear before you on behalf of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, the TIAC, in connection with your study of Bill C-23.
Chairman Oliphant and dear members, on behalf of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, thank you for the opportunity to share our views on Bill C-23.
For the record, my name is Charlotte Bell, and I'm the president and CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada.
For those who are unfamiliar with us, TIAC is the only national voice representing the interests of all sectors of the tourism industry in Canada. This includes accommodations, transportation, destinations, and attractions. Our members range in size from small businesses to some of Canada's largest hotel chains, national airlines, rail services, and iconic tourist attractions from coast to coast to coast.
Tourism is the top economic driver for Canada, which last year generated $91.6 billion in revenues, surpassing forestry, agriculture, and fisheries combined. It also employs in excess of 627,000 Canadians and is considered a top employer for Canadian youth. With almost 80% of Canadian tourism being domestic, our efforts are focused primarily on international growth and competitiveness. Quite simply, we aim to strengthen the Canadian tourism sector by increasing the number of international visitors to Canada. In fact, in 2016, Canada welcomed just shy of 20 million international visitors, generating $20 billion in revenue, and 2017 is also showing early signs of continued growth from all key international markets, including the U.S., which represents roughly 70% of international visits to Canada.
Tourism is one of the world's fastest-growing sectors, including here in Canada, and it is expected to grow at a steady pace in the coming years. But we need to be ready for it. Canada's success is in large part attributed to its brand. In 2017, Canada's brand is at an all-time high with Lonely Planet, The New York Times, and National Geographic touting Canada as “the place” to visit this year, and we couldn't be more proud.
As Canada welcomes more visitors, and as more people transit through our country by whatever means, whether for leisure, business, or study, we need to ensure that their experiences will be memorable. When I say memorable, I don't mean, “I got lost hiking” or “I spent three hours in line at border security and missed my connection.”
We know one thing about travellers: they love to share their stories with friends and family and through social media, whether good or bad. We hope that when they share their stories about their time in Canada, whether they spent two weeks travelling through the country or they were transiting through one of our airports or harbours, they'll be talking about their great experience and encouraging others to visit.
Travel is a journey that doesn't begin just when you check in to your hotel. It actually starts the moment you leave home, and it continues until you return. For millions of travellers each year, that journey includes clearing border security. Against the backdrop of an increasingly competitive landscape, Canada must keep pace with the growth of traffic in our airports, as well as at our land and marine crossings. By facilitating efficient border security in more markets and locations across the country, we can ensure the unencumbered flow of people and products across our borders, all, of course, while preserving the integrity of our national security. This is something, we believe, that has been achieved through pre-clearance in the past and that will be enhanced by modernizing existing legislation and expanding services to other markets.
Pre-clearance operations between Canada and the U.S.—
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
I'm sorry, Ms. Bell, but I need to interrupt for a minute to confirm that I have unanimous consent to continue the meeting while the bells are on. My proposal will be that we go for about 15 minutes of the 30-minute bell, which should allow us to get about four minutes from each party, and one question.
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
Dianne Lynn Watts Conservative South Surrey—White Rock, BC
I don't think that's going to be enough time for us to get up to....
May 17th, 2017 / 5:15 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
Mr. Chair, I think personally we should just hear all of the witnesses, make sure they've given their presentations, and call it at that.
5:15 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
I have one minute left, just so you know, if that helps.
Pre-clearance operations between Canada and the U.S. have been in place as far back as the 1950s and are available in eight Canadian airports, which now pre-clear millions of passengers each year. The new act will extend benefits to other airports, as well as to luxury rail service—Rocky Mountaineer, for example, or Greater Victoria Harbour—to enter into agreements with U.S. Customs and Border Protection to offer pre-clearance to their passengers.
TIAC has long supported pre-clearance as an effective means of facilitating the flow of people and goods across the border. As tourism continues to grow, so does the need to efficiently facilitate the processing of passengers travelling to the U.S., whether they originate in Canada or they arrive from other countries. The tourism industry is anxious to move forward with this new legislation as we hope to see pre-clearance expanded into other parts of the country for the benefit of passengers, national security, and the tourism industry as a whole.
Thank you once again.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
Thank you.
We have 28 minutes. Would you like to end now, or would you like to go for a few minutes with one question each?
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
Let's take two to three minutes each.
We'll have Ms. Damoff, Mr. Clement, and Monsieur Dubé.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
Thank you all. I'm glad I got a chance to ask a question.
Unfortunately, the Canadian Bar Association has left.
I flew down to New York in March with Porter. We left Toronto Island, no problem. I got in the airplane and away we went. We landed in Newark and were easily over an hour going through customs because we were landing with not just Canadians but people from all over the world.
I was watching the U.S. border agents going through the passports. We had no problem. We flew right through, but the people in front of us were from the Philippines and were 15 minutes as they went through every single page on the passport.
If Billy Bishop had pre-clearance, I would be going through customs here in Canada with the protection of Canadian law as would everyone else going through. I really appreciate the concerns people have expressed with the way the legislation is written, but recognizing it was negotiated by a previous government and it's been passed in the States, we have limited ability to change it.
My concern is that I would rather go through that pre-clearance here in Canada with those protections than have to go down to the United States as I did when I flew—it was a great flight—being in the U.S. and not having the protections of Canadian law.
I know what your answer is. You would like to see us go ahead with it. Can you speak to that a little? I'm not trying to belittle any of the comments you have made in any way.
5:20 p.m.
Board Member, Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association
I'll address that in possibly less than 20 seconds. No one's against pre-clearance and its expansion. It's great on all fronts. It's going to help with business travel and tourism. The only requirement is to do it within the confines of the law and the charter and the protections we afford.
While we say we want to do it on Canadian soil so that we have the protection of the charter, in reality we do not seem to have mechanisms for enforcing the charter protections in the event that border officers aren't abiding by them. If there is discriminatory targeting of certain populations or things like that, the very mechanisms to breathe life into those charter protections are not present in the bill, as multiple witnesses have testified, including the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. We don't see those protections and those mechanisms as a vehicle in the bill at all.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
Thank you. If you would like to add some written work on that question to your brief, it would be helpful.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Tony Clement Conservative Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON
I want to follow up on Pam's comment because that's the gist of the issue for me. We keep hearing from the minister and others not to worry: “We have charter rights. This is Canadian territory.” Then we hear your concerns and those of the CBA that it doesn't work that way because, as you just put it, it's one thing to have the charter right, but it's another thing to have that charter right applied or to have a remedy.
What do we have to do in this legislation to fix that problem?
5:20 p.m.
Board Member, Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association
What would need to happen is for some of those immunities to be stripped. The bill includes an explicit provision that civil immunity is granted to border officers. There's no civil remedy. You can't go to the courts for the border officers. It also explicitly states that the State Immunity Act applies. Under the State Immunity Act, again, the border officers themselves are immune, and the U.S. government as a whole enjoys immunity except for where there is death, bodily harm, or damage to property. There's an explicit statement that the border officers will not be crown agents, therefore barring access to the federal courts as well, as an agent of the crown. The three avenues in which you most often seek recourse to the courts are explicitly barred.
I understand the first time the minister appeared you suggested that he or his aides might come back for a second hour of questioning. I would invite you to pose that question to the minister, “Where are the mechanisms that allow us to enforce those charter protections?”, or to ask the question, “How are the enforcements going to be measured against the charter and its applications and other Canadian human rights legislation?”
We have scrubbed down the present bill and the Preclearance Act as a lawyers' organization, and so has the CBA and so has the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. As organizations we find this deficient in the bill. We don't see a mechanism for its enforcement, for its use.
5:20 p.m.
Chair, Legal Advocacy Committee, Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association
Removing immunity might be an issue, as a practical matter, with the U.S. government. Three things we could do are, first, to return to the current state of the Preclearance Act, which allows people to withdraw without giving reasons; second, not allow U.S. agents to conduct strip searches, and third, if there is a violation of Canadian law, have the CBSA come in and take over. The U.S. agents don't need to continue.
5:20 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC
I have one last quick question on the suspicion of committing offences that we talked about. Given the standards of what is suspicious for Canadian border officers versus for Americans, would you say that causes a risk of seeing profiling and things like that?
5:20 p.m.
Board Member, Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association
I'll take that.
Absolutely, it's a major concern of our organization, especially when you see that the explicit protection.... The act of withdrawal is not going to be exempted from, in and of itself, being deemed a reasonable ground to suspect the commission of an offence. With the removal of that protection, as well as the realities that we are experiencing at the border presently without these expansive rights of investigation and search, we're very concerned that they're going to be applied most palpably against racialized and vulnerable populations.
