Public Safety Committee on May 29th, 2017

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

That was my experience when I flew from Billy Bishop. I had to go through clearance on the other side, and I hadn't done that in years. It was quite extensive.

To our friends via video conference, you were talking about Homeland Security being able to give derogatory information. So you're saying that your employees will now have two security clearances, one by Canada and one by U.S.? Did I understand you correctly on that?

[Robert Ashton]

Yes, you did.

I'm the president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada. What happens currently is that when our people want to work at Canada Place, they apply for security clearance through Transport Canada. If they pass their security clearance, they're allowed to work at that terminal.

Now, under this new bit of work that they have to do, our employers will have to send those individuals' names and birthdates, from the information that we've been given, down to the Homeland Security department. Once Homeland Security takes a look at them, if there are any derogatory—I'd put that in quotations—comments, Homeland Security will then send that information to our employers. Our employer will have to make the decision on whether or not my members are allowed to work at that terminal.

We don't know what a “derogatory” comment is. We haven't been told what the parameters are. We haven't been given the parameters for our current TC program.

Yes, to answer your question directly, Homeland Security has to give their approval to Canadians working in Canada.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I had another question for you, but we seem to be having a bit of an audio issue, so I might turn back to the airport folks.

I wonder if you could speak about the economic benefits of having and expanding pre-clearance in Bill C-23.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

In one minute, please.

[Daniel-Robert Gooch]

In very broad terms, it's a competitiveness factor. The ability for travellers to arrive in the U.S. as domestic travellers and just step outside and get into their taxi within 15 or 20 minutes is a tremendous advantage relative to travellers from other countries. It's part of a broad package of what airports are doing with partners in the air carrier world to be more competitive against hubs in other parts of the world: providing a better passenger experience and reducing time required as well.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

That's it, right?

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Ms. Watts.

[Dianne Lynn Watts, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Thank you.

I would like to direct my questions to Robert Ashton in order to expand on what was already discussed.

Down at Canada Place, the terminal for the cruise ships, any roster is now given ahead of time and is pre-cleared by the cruise lines as it relates to passengers, and I expect that it would be the same context in terms of working on a cruise ship. I want to drill down on this in terms of you saying that the information from the employees would go back to the employer.

Can you identify the employer? Are you talking about the cruise ship lines?

[Robert Ashton]

Let me clear up a couple of things. Longshore work is a little different. Any member who wants to work at the cruise ship terminal puts in for the Transport security clearance. As for what happens then, we're a daily dispatch, so on a Sunday morning, let's say, Cerescorp, our employer, would put in orders for anywhere from 100 to 200 workers for Sunday, and then they would go to work.

[Dianne Lynn Watts, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

On the cruise ship.

[Robert Ashton]

Yes, at the cruise ship terminal, plus on the cruise ship.

[Dianne Lynn Watts, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Fair enough.

[Robert Ashton]

Now, on that morning, Cerescorp won't know who their workers are until the first thing in the morning, about seven o'clock in the morning. They're supposed to send those 100 or more names down to Homeland Security, and then Homeland Security is supposed to respond to Cerescorp. Then Cerescorp.... Don't get me wrong. I feel bad for Cerescorp, because they're stuck between a rock and a hard place. Cerescorp then has to tell us and our dispatch hall that employees X, Y, and Z can't work there today and we need more people for them. It's an unworkable situation.

[Dianne Lynn Watts, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

I would agree with that. I think you said that this is the first time it's been brought up, which it is. We've been going through this process for quite some time.

In looking at the legislation—and we're going clause-by-clause at, I think, our next meeting—I don't recall seeing any of that language in the legislation, so where are you getting this from?

[Robert Ashton]

It's from Transport Canada actually. We didn't hear about any of this stuff until the end of last year at a meeting with Transport Canada. It had a stakeholders meeting.

[Dianne Lynn Watts, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Transport Canada has not given this committee that information, which would be helpful when we're looking at this legislation. I'm glad you brought this up, because it seems a bit disconcerting. I can see having the pre-clearance areas if you're travelling into the United States, but if you're parked at Canada Place and you have workers going in to do whatever it is on a Sunday or a Monday, they're not going on to travel, and I would think that this would not be applicable. I think we need to get this information to this committee as you're relaying it to us, because for any workers who show up to work, whether it's at Canada Place or not, that information should not have to go to Homeland Security and then be reported back to their employer. I see that as being quite unreasonable.

[Robert Ashton]

In February 2017, we were updated. The first time we were ever told by Transport Canada was when they gave us this Government of Canada, Canada-U.S. comprehensive agreement on pre-clearance. It's a slide show, which they gave to us as a handout. I could send it to you all, because if you look at their Public Safety Canada handout from April 20, 2016, it doesn't speak about it very much. It has a couple of sentences in it.

This took us completely by surprise, and my membership is extremely worried about it, because our security clearances are 10 times better. I'll put our security clearances up against the U.S. security clearances any day of the week.

[Dianne Lynn Watts, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

There doesn't seem to be any common sense behind the idea that the information would go to Homeland Security. If you're on Canadian soil, working for that day in Canada,... I think we really need to drill down on this and find out what's going on. I really appreciate you bringing this issue forward, because as I said, we've heard from a number of witnesses and this issue has never been brought up before, nor has Transport Canada given this committee that information, so I appreciate that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Just for the committee's awareness, we are finding it in clause 17 of the bill, on unlimited access. However, we also see there's a paragraph 17(d) about regulation. So we will follow up on it and get some more information from the departments on this.

I will give you an extra minute, Ms. Watts, because I took your time.

[Dianne Lynn Watts, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

I don't think clause 17 as I'm looking at it articulates the way it's going to work on the ground as it's been laid out by Mr. Ashton. I think the committee just needs to drill down on it a bit.

Thank you.

You can have the rest of the time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Mr. Dubé.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's an interesting question. Going back to this discussion about regulation, we usually want to get to the questions with witnesses, but I think it's worth raising on the record that I did find it troubling that we get officials in committee who are unable to tell us what regulations are going to change. To be fair, I received a follow-up response to my questions to the department, and I think it just continues to illustrate how problematic it is.

It says, “Work is underway to identify regulations that may be required under Parts 1 and 2 of Bill C-23. No regulations are anticipated to be required under Parts 3 and 4.” The piece that's important for the point being raised by our friend in Vancouver is: “Establish categories of persons not already identified in the Act who may access the preclearance area as well as the conditions under which that access may be granted”.

If we look at clause 17—as the chair has pointed out—and I think it's paragraph 17(d), “persons who are authorized by the Minister under section 45 or by regulation”, basically that response tells me, to speak to Mr. Ashton's concerns, that essentially we can change regulations to determine exactly this kind of information sharing with Homeland Security and such. In particular, if public servants from Transport Canada are raising that with these workers, then clearly that's something that's on the table. Also, I certainly find it extremely problematic that there are no answers about that and that the work is under way while we are studying the bill.

My question to you, Mr. Ashton, is in that same vein. While we're talking about transparency and the transparency of all of this, I'm just wondering what concerns you have as a union president. One of the things unions fight for, obviously, is transparency in how the employer is dealing with information and what recourse your members, those workers, would have. How concerned are you about that aspect of it, and whether it's happening at a certain level that you might not be aware of, such that you don't know what information is being exchanged or even where it's coming from, especially in keeping with the fact that even Canadian parliamentarians have very few tools to even know what the U.S. information is, and that's being used to prejudge whether someone may or may not be able to enter that area and do their job? How concerned are you about the lack of recourse and transparency in that whole process, potentially, because we don't even know what it's going to be?

[Robert Ashton]

The lack of transparency throughout this entire process is mind-boggling. First off, we have our employers—not the Government of Canada—sending information down to Homeland Security. Then Homeland Security sends back a derogatory comment—and we still don't know what that is—to our employers. We won't know what information they were given, because currently we don't have any rights to that information. Our employers could then use that to block our people from working elsewhere.

When we don't have an ability to defend our workers, or when our workers don't have an ability to defend themselves, on—I'm going to call it—a “ghost in insinuations”, then what happens? We become a controlled state.

My duty as the president of International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada is to give my members an ability to fight for their job and to fight people who will do us harm. When there is a ghost government sending back information to our employers that our employers don't have to tell us about and that they can use to the detriment of my workforce, and I have no ability to defend to them, it disgusts me. This isn't the Canada I know. This isn't the Canada I love. We're an open society.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

One of the points you raised, which I certainly agree with—and I think a lot of folks aren't grasping this piece—is that this isn't just about expanding where pre-clearance happens. This isn't just taking the current regime and applying it in more areas. There's actually a change in the powers. I know you've already said it, but I think it's worth repeating. You consider the current process of security checks that happen for your members acceptable.

[Robert Ashton]

Let me clarify. I feel the background security checks that we have currently, which my membership goes through, and that I have gone through because I'm the president, are sufficient. Our background checks are head and shoulders above those of the United States. I have absolute faith in our government to check our people and to make sure of their ability to work safely in secured areas.

We do have our issues with the current program, because we still don't know where the goalposts are. Under our current transport security program we still don't know what our people can be refused for. It does have its issues, but because of the success of the program so far—except for what I just mentioned—we don't need Americans telling Canadians when and where they can work on Canadian soil.