Public Safety Committee on Oct. 19th, 2017

[Michael Ferguson]

Performance indicators can be a challenge. They need to be focused on the results and the objective that you're trying to achieve. Again, the Beyond the Border action plan audit that we did had a number of initiatives that were designed to improve security at the border. How do you know whether the security has been improved?

They had different activities that they wanted to do, for example, putting in new screening equipment at airports. You can measure whether they have done that or not—have they put in place the new screening equipment—but that doesn't necessarily tell you whether the security is any better or not. That's really the challenge in performance measurement.

Often what ends up happening is that organizations measure what's easy to measure—did they put in a new piece of equipment—rather than measuring what I'll call important to measure, which is, did what they did actually improve security at the border?

I think what all organizations need to work very hard on is identifying not just whether they put a piece of equipment in place, but how they have a sense of whether they feel that the security is better or not.

Thank you.

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

I only have one minute, so I'll skip to a shorter question.

In the report, it says that 11% of exporters whose goods were detained for more than a week reported experiencing a major impact. Nearly half of the legitimate exporters that were surveyed who had goods temporarily detained had little to no impact. Eleven per cent is not an insignificant number. What exactly are the reasons for that?

[Michael Ferguson]

I'll ask Mr. Swales to provide the details.

First of all, all of that part of what we talked about is in paragraph 2.63 of the audit that we did on controlling exports at the border.

I think it's important to understand that we said that there was not a lot of negative impact on Canadian trade by delays of exports at the border. When you're talking about the 11%, I believe it was 11% of the compliant shipments that were detained. It's not 11% of all exports. It was what was detained, which ones were compliant. Maybe Mr. Swales can provide the details.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We'll have to save Mr. Swales' response for another occasion.

Mr. Motz, you have five minutes, please.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, sir, and your team for being here today and giving us information on the implementation of Bill C-21.

Sir, you had noted several times in the past that in some of your reports you see the same issues repeatedly coming up over and over again in the delivery of programs from different organizations that you have done audits on. Since we know that what's predictable is preventable, what would you suggest are the top predictable risks in this bill?

[Michael Ferguson]

Well, I'm not sure I can talk in detail about the bill. There are risks that the bill is intended to help address. For example, on the entry-export, the government was going to spend over $100 million on that initiative, but to be able to get the full benefit of all that money, they need to have the authority to share the information on Canadian citizens. Likewise, on the exports, the issue was the need for the authority to inspect on a random basis all exports to identify whether they include things that shouldn't be there.

In a general sense, when the departments are starting to spend money on an initiative—in the case of the entry-export they had already spent about $50 million and planned to spend more—there is a risk of not getting the authority to do what you want to do and then not getting the benefit of the money you're spending. That was what we were trying to identify in that audit. We wanted everybody to understand that if the government is going to get the full benefit of the money it's spending, there is a need to make sure that the assumed authority is actually put in place. That was the general risk. The risk in terms of Bill C-21 has to do with whether it will give the government the authority it needs to get the benefits. I can't speak to that. That's something we would look at in a follow-up audit, which would tell us whether they could do what they needed to do with, for example, the entry-export initiative.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you.

Through the chair, Mr. Swales, you indicated just a moment ago to Mr. Fragiskatos that the CBSA had no mechanism in place to determine what packages to check on leaving Canada. I'm wondering whether you foresee this bill filling the gaps that currently exist in the identification of those types of packages. How are they going to do that? Do they have processes in place to even begin that process?

[Nicholas Swales]

It's not all packages. Let's be clear about that. We're talking about the ones that are non-reported. There is a series of exemptions under the exporting goods regulations for those kinds of packages. These are the ones where the authority, prior to Bill C-21, did not exist to open them at random.

It goes back to the point I made earlier, that the starting point for efficient border management is risk assessment. We know that in the great majority of cases people who are exporting or sending packages abroad are doing it for legitimate purposes. You don't want your border services attempting to open or look at every package. You want them to be able to identify the ones that are likely to be in non-compliance. One of the fundamental ways you do that is by doing random checks from time to time, to see what you find when you look in a series of packages. Are there new types of risks, new types of configurations? If so, you can create a system, a mechanism to look for those indicators, those tags, and pick those packages to look at.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

You indicated in your report that the bill before us today includes two legislative limitations: the limitations on authorities, and the limitations on the security initiatives around the tracking of people. Based on your initial assessment of Bill C-21—and I know you're going to have to do an audit down the road—does the bill cover off the concerns you had in the 2016 report?

[Michael Ferguson]

The two issues we identified were the sharing of information on Canadian citizens in the entry-export and the ability to inspect exports more randomly to identify possible risks. I think the bill contains sections intended to deal with those two issues. How effective these measures will be, however, we won't be able to comment on until we've looked at those areas again.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Motz.

Mr. Picard, you have five minutes.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

Thank you.

The implementation of an electronic IT system that would enable better performances in terms of information exchange at entry/exit, particularly in preparation for Bill C-21, depends on a computer system.

I would like to come back to a point Mr. Swales raised earlier.

In your report published in 2015, you said that you noted a lack of resources caused by past cuts or the fact that the people who were leaving were not being replaced. Were the 2015 observations so significant that we could say that any future project, including the one concerning the implementation of an entry/exit system, would be compromised because of a considerable lack of resources? Could the type of initiative with the implemented computer system compensate for what was apparently a lack of resources?

[Nicholas Swales]

You are drawing a link between two things that are not directly related.

The entry/exit system has to do with individuals, while our concerns over exports and the lack of resources—or the absence of resources in some cases—have to do with exports. The entry/exit system will not change the situation in terms of information technology.

That said, I will briefly come back to my idea that we need to have a proper risk analysis from the outset. If you had a proper risk analysis and a system that could help you respond to those risks, you could do a better job of targeting needs and sending resources to the right places.

The concerns we outlined in the report on exports were not related to cuts or the fact that employees were not being replaced. The agency actually decided to move staff elsewhere. The agency can change those decisions and, with a better risk analysis and a better targeting information system, it will find better places for individuals.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

Does the Border Services Agency have a good grasp of what a performance evaluator should be? Will your office, thanks to its analytical rigour, be able to collaborate and propose a direction when it comes to what must be assessed and the way to assess it to both reach the agency's objectives and fulfill the criteria you could use to establish a better analysis.

[Michael Ferguson]

The way the department decides what type of work all its staff will be doing is a general issue. Of course, it's important for the agency to organize the necessary information to identify risks in order to determine the right way to assign staff to those duties. I cannot comment, but I can ask Mr. Swales whether he would like to.

Generally speaking, that has to do with the way the agency assigns work to its staff.

[Nicholas Swales]

In the 2015 report on exports, two of our recommendations concerned the fact that there should be information on performance in some cases. More specifically, agency employees worked on maintaining the targets sent to them by other departments. One of the roles related to export control is to ensure that things handled by other departments do not leave the country if they shouldn't. There was no way to check whether that was working. So that is an area where we could have a measurement system.

The other recommendation had to do with what stood out about detained goods. We said that there should be a better understanding of why it happens and for how long. That's another type of performance measurement that helps ensure that this does not cause any issues....

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

Allow me to interrupt you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have 30 seconds left.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

I agree with my colleague Mr. Paul-Hus in saying that the invested amount is considerable. That's a lot of money. Can the size of the investment be explained by the obsolescence of the systems in place or is it an investment that is in line with as updated modern value, an investment in preparation for future progress?

[Martin Dompierre]

Assessments were done to identify each initiative, its value and its budget. I could not tell you whether it was for major replacements of outdated systems.

After all, we are talking about 34 initiatives within 18 departments. Each entity had its own particularities in terms of implementing systems or other activities. Those were not only activities related to information technology, but also collaborations, discussions and policies to be implemented. So there was an array of activities.

I can't tell you whether the budget was developed to resolve obsolescence issues.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Picard.

Mr. Van Kesteren, you have five minutes.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I just have a few short questions, and then I'm going to pass it on to Monsieur Paul-Hus, if I could, after I'm finished.

I first want to echo what my colleague said. I think I was serving in finance at the time, Mr. Ferguson, and nobody doubted your credentials, but there was some real criticism about your inability to speak French. Anybody that was born in the same decade we were born in knows how difficult it is to learn another language, and I want to commend you. I think you've accomplished something that's quite extraordinary.

There was a question raised, and I don't know if we got clarification on it, at least not in my mind. I googled “marijuana order in Canada” just now, and I had 10 sites that popped up. An example is Ganja Express, “a Canadian company based in BC that provides legal, safe access to high quality...Marijuana” for medical and recreational use across Canada. This is an advertisement at a time when we have not yet legalized marijuana.

I'm wondering with the complications we have at the border, where you see that in another.... Well if the Liberals do legalize marijuana by July 1, as they've said they're going to do, what do you foresee in the future as far as that legislation is concerned in regard to this legislation?

[Michael Ferguson]

Again, I can't really speak to other legislation.

The item we raised in the audit was that at the general level there are restrictions on the export of certain items. What we would expect is that the Canada Border Services Agency, or any other government organization involved in that, would make sure that any restrictions on exporting things would be respected.

In terms of something like the export of marijuana, obviously it depends on what the export rules or export restrictions would be on marijuana in the future—how those might or might not change. In the period of time that we looked at, obviously the exportation of illegal drugs was something that was not allowed and should be managed and controlled at the border.

However, what we found, again, was that the agency felt—and primarily because they didn't have the ability to do the random inspections of the non-reported shipments—that they didn't have the authority to systematically identify where there may be some exports of illegal drugs.

Again, fundamentally, the issue is always whether there are things that are restricted under Canadian law and regulation to export and if there are, how the government organizations are making sure those export restrictions are being respected.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Okay, thank you.