Public Safety Committee on Oct. 17th, 2017

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

—at the land borders...?

[Jean-Pierre Fortin]

Probably less for individuals: you're correct.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Okay. Will the real sharing, then, be what information the Americans collect on their side of the border and gets shared back into Canada?

[Jean-Pierre Fortin]

That's correct.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Okay. The reverse is also true: what information we collect will go back to the American side.

[Jean-Pierre Fortin]

That's correct.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

From that perspective, is that where we would likely see some increase in responsibilities for Canadians returning to the country, as opposed to leaving?

[Jean-Pierre Fortin]

Well, again, we're unclear about the level of detail. This is something that we put in our brief with regard to the policies. We haven't seen them yet, but we suspect that with the magnitude of this project, which is called entry/exit, there will be more work for our officers, even analysis.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

The devil is in the details...?

[Jean-Pierre Fortin]

You are correct.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Okay.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. MacKenzie, and thank you for bringing out the devil in those details.

Thank you again to both witnesses. We're going to suspend for two or three minutes in order to re-impanel.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We're now back in session.

We have new witnesses. Mr. Abram Benedict from the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne is here.

I'll assume you will introduce Mr. Bero, Mr. Benedict.

For the ordering of the meeting—Monsieur Picard in particular—I'm going to cut us five minutes short because we have to do a little business on budgeting for this panel. I'll suspend at 10:40 and we'll go in camera and discuss very briefly the anticipated witness schedule for the next meeting.

Without any other commentary, we'll hear from Mr. Benedict, please.

[Grand Chief Abram Benedict, Grand Chief, Mohawk Government, Mohawk Council of Akwesasne]

Good morning.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to meet with you and to present this morning. I am Abram Benedict, the Grand Chief of the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne, which is a community about an hour southeast of here, right on the Canada-United States/Quebec-Ontario/upstate New York border. I felt that it was important that we request to meet with you. I want to thank the secretary and the chairman for the quick response and the opportunity to present to you on an issue that I believe is very impactful for our community.

I'm joined this morning by Dwight Bero. He is one of our researchers at the aboriginal rights and research office, the office that assists my office, the community, and the organization of the Mohawk Council with border issues, research issues relating to land claims, and other such issues. I'm glad that he's able to join me today.

I have some speaking notes, which we've circulated. I'm not sure if they've gotten to you. I will use those as a bit of a reference, but I'm also interested in dialoguing a bit or answering some of the questions the members may have.

The community of Akwesasne is greatly impacted by the international border and, more specifically, by the legislative impacts of the Customs Act, as well as some of the proposed amendments that are being considered in regard to this act.

Our community is unique, as I described earlier. It's a community in Canada, the United States, Ontario, and Quebec. The Mohawk Council of Akwesasne is the federally recognized first nation governing body on the Canadian portion of Akwesasne, with a membership of about 12,500 people.

We are geographically landlocked by the St. Lawrence River, as illustrated by the map we have here. Two parts of our community, shown as the yellow portions on the map, are landlocked by the United States border. In order to transit to those two parts of our community, we must go through the United States and then come back into the two portions. The two portions are part of Quebec. The orange portion shown is part of the province of Ontario, and the green portion is part of New York state.

As we move about our daily lives, our community members transit across the border several times a day. From personal experience, the amount of times that I have to transit.... I live in the orange portion and daily I have to go through the green portion and back up into my office, which is in the yellow portion. For those two yellow portions, there are no border inspection stations, simply because those portions of our community are landlocked by the St. Lawrence River and the United States. There's nowhere you can go; you can go in, but you can't go any further into the mainland of Canada.

Specifically, as I was mentioning, when I cross daily, I provide a piece of identification to the Canada or U.S. border inspection stations to be able to be processed and go. Several years ago, when I took my daughter, who is 16 years old now, to one of the other border crossings down in the Windsor-Detroit area, I presented at that time my passport to the U.S. inspections officer. He swiped it and, with a blank look in his eyes, asked, “Why is it that you cross the border so many times?” In the few moments that I had to speak with him, I explained to him that I live in Ontario and work in Quebec but have to go through New York state every day to get to my office. As you know, the systems that are in place track how many times you cross the border. As somebody who wasn't accustomed to seeing people crossing so frequently, he was stunned by the fact that, according to the system, I had crossed probably three times daily, at least five to six times a week. That is the reality of the community.

The amendments that are being considered today in proposed paragraphs 92(1)(a), (b), and (c) fail to consider the unique geographical challenges our community faces, especially in regard to being a border community like Akwesasne, whose residents must cross the border on a regular basis for work, school, and/or recreational events.

The Cornwall port of entry is the 10th busiest entry point in Canada, with approximately 2 million vehicles crossing annually, but 70% of the people who cross that border are Akwesasne members. Seventy per cent of those who cross at the 10th busiest border crossing in Canada are Mohawks of Akwesasne, indigenous people of Canada.

In the two districts I've outlined, it equates to 1.4 million trips through the Cornwall port of entry, most times represented, again, by Akwesasne people. Take the two districts in which Akwesasne communities are considered. That represents three million crossings if we take the number of times you have to cross into the United States, back into Quebec to be in the office, back again into the United States, and then back into Ontario as a regular day of being in Akwesasne.

We have worked diligently to minimize the impacts of the international border. For example, we have students who cross the border every day—from the yellow portion going to the orange portion, and vice versa. We've been able to work with the local ports of entry on exemptions with regard to providing identification every day. A bus full of little children carrying certificates of Indian status or passports is something that's very difficult to manage. These buses cross at a minimum twice a day, and hold about 30 children. About 600 children move across the international border line daily.

Emergency vehicles—police, ambulance, and fire—have been able to come to an agreement that upon entering one of those districts for emergency purposes, they do not have to report forthwith, as prescribed under the act. The reason is that they must be able to provide the services needed by the persons in distress. They respond first to the emergency situation and later to the requirements.

The Mohawk Council as an employer has nine departments, with upwards of 1,000 employees. As well, 80% of the people who work for the Mohawk Council and deliver services daily are Mohawks of Akwesasne.

Regulations that are developed must consider the unique geographical location of our community. Akwesasne continues to experience the negative consequences of being the only community designed in a mixed-traffic corridor. Because of the unideal location of Canada Customs on the mainland, in the city of Cornwall, people entering into our community—coming from the green portion, which is the United States—must report to the city of Cornwall port of entry. As they go through there, they enter through the mixed-traffic corridor. The legislation has resulted in Akwesasne being one of only four border crossing pilot programs in Canada. We have been pushing for alternative reporting from the Canada Border Services Agency.

The reason I bring up the mixed-traffic corridor, which is not being considered in these amendments but is a piece of the legislation that you fine people deal with, is that we are the only community that is greatly impacted by the mixed-traffic corridor. What this means is that any traffic that has not actually left the country of Canada, but that goes through Canada Customs because they have to go through that to get to the city of Cornwall, can be subject to inspection through the powers derived from the Customs Act itself. Specifically, paragraph 99(1)(f) gives a border officer the power to search vehicles. It also is a piece of the legislation that allows for examination of domestic travellers when most border crossings across Canada process only international traffic. The Cornwall border processes domestic and international traffic, and in large numbers.

One of the things I can't stress more is that there are many border communities across the country. There is no doubt about that. But this one is compounded by, first, being indigenous, and second, 70% of the users being Mohawk people. As well, two million cars cross there daily. It's not a small, slow border crossing.

The Mohawks of Akwesasne must be specifically consulted on the U.S.-Canada border legislation that adversely affects our rights and existing agreements. That's one of the reasons we're here today—to actually present to you the impacts that entry/exit information will have on our community.

We completely understand that there is a reason these amendments are being considered, but because two parts of our community are not processed by a border agent or customs, theoretically you could leave Akwesasne, Ontario, the orange island shown on our map, go back around to my office in the Quebec portion, which is shown in yellow on the map, and never be processed by the Canada Border Services Agency for months on end. You could simply choose to go into the United States to do your daily business, whether it be shopping, services, or anything else, without being processed by a CBSA station.

This means that if these amendments are considered, the system would tag you as leaving the country and not coming back for a long time, when in fact you could be residing continuously in the Canadian portion of Akwesasne, which is landlocked.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Benedict.

Mr. Fragiskatos.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much for being here today, Chief Benedict. I do want to ask you about Bill C-21, but I read in Cornwall's main daily newspaper something you said in early 2017 that I thought was very interesting and important. You said:

We had the Minister of Indigenous Affairs visit our territory not only once, but twice in 2016. We’ve built a number of relationships with the government we want to maintain. It improves the profile of our community not only to the federal government, but to the communities around us. These are opportunities that will continue to be a priority to myself and our council moving forward.

Can you expand on that comment? I think it's very important.

[Grand Chief Abram Benedict]

One of the things I have done since I became Grand Chief two and a half years ago is try to raise the image and positive profile of our community while creating stronger relationships with our stakeholders and partners, whether it be the City of Cornwall, private entities, or the Government of Canada.

Specifically, under the Minister of Indigenous Affairs, who now is the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs, Carolyn Bennett, our council and our community forged forward in creating a more positive relationship with the department. I believe that by continuing to work toward a positive relationship we have seen many results in collaboration with the Government of Canada.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

You said, “positive relationship”, so it has been positive...? With two visits in 2016, there seems to be engagement.

[Grand Chief Abram Benedict]

Yes, for the most part, it is a positive relationship.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Okay.

Are there things in Bill C-21 that you can get behind? You have touched on some of your concerns with the bill, and I'm glad to go into that further, but there are things in the bill that I think are a net positive for everyone.

We've heard that for Amber Alerts, for instance, when a child goes missing for whatever reason—such as abductions—Bill C-21 would help in the tracking of that child. Can you touch on that?

[Grand Chief Abram Benedict]

Well, I think that border security and national security are of the utmost importance to our community as well, because we are greatly impacted by any negative or positive events that occur around the border. On the information sharing, absolutely, that's positive, but there must be some serious consideration given to the realities in our community. We're not talking about five people who may cross the border and enter back into a part of our community that doesn't have a processing station; we're talking about literally hundreds if not thousands of people.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

I understand that, but I want to focus on Bill C-21 as a whole. You would agree that Bill C-21 does provide important guards against things like a child going missing, and that's a benefit for everyone, correct?

[Grand Chief Abram Benedict]

Yes, the intentions and principles of the information sharing are a positive aspect.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

You mentioned this in your remarks, but I think it's worth looking at again. If we recognize the unique situation of your community and the position of the port of entry in Cornwall, as I certainly do, can you speak more broadly about your concerns for indigenous border communities, bearing in mind that Bill C-21's changes will not be felt by the traveller? For instance, there are going to be changes within CBSA and with information sharing.

[Grand Chief Abram Benedict]

I'm not sure if I entirely understand your question. I can only speak for my community. I can't speak broadly for other communities that may be impacted by border legislation or just regular border business, but—