Evidence of meeting #4 for Public Safety and National Security in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was smuggling.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
How does the RCMP verify that the seller is doing the correct visual matchup? Is this based on an honour system? Do you have some way of following up to make sure that nothing nefarious is happening?
Director General, Canadian Firearms Program, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
At this point it would be based on that seller being responsible for that visual inspection of the licence.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Jim Carr
Thank you very much.
Now we will give the floor to Mr. Shipley, who will have five minutes.
Over to you, Mr. Shipley.
Conservative
Doug Shipley Conservative Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My first question is going to start with a little bit of statement. It sounds like, for lack of a better term, that we're trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack. The sheer amount of goods that come over the border is mind-boggling, and then we hear some statements like Mr. Weber made earlier, that one-millionth of the rail goods are inspected and there's virtually a zero per cent chance of catching even a little of these arms that come over.
I'd like to know about the collaboration. I think a lot of the problem is that because we have such a massive border, it is about finding these arms before they come up.
I'd like to know from a few different agencies, what collaboration is there with the States to prevent these arms from getting up to our border? Is that being worked on and is it something that we could be improving more readily? Perhaps we can start with our border services agency on the collaborations with their partners in the United States.
Vice-President, Intelligence and Enforcement Branch, Canada Border Services Agency
CBSA works very closely, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, with the U.S. agency for firearms and Homeland Security and others. In fact, in 2021, we established a cross-border task force on firearms that involves CBSA, the RCMP, as well as the ATF, HSI, and other American partners, CBP specifically, specifically to tackle this issue together to leverage our respective knowledge bases in terms of not only intelligence, but also our ability to intervene.
Border enforcement isn't something that just happens at the border; there are measures we take before the border, there are measures we take at the border, and there are measures we can take after the border. It's imperative that we bring together the resources from all of those partners to address that. That's what we're doing.
One of the first products this group is currently working on is a joint threat assessment that will help to more precisely target and identify efforts that can be undertaken by the respective agencies, either together or in their independent mandates so that we can fully work together, respecting obviously that we do have differences in legislation and other things that we have to be mindful of.
Conservative
Doug Shipley Conservative Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON
Thank you, Mr. Harris.
Perhaps one of the representatives from the RCMP can touch on the collaboration going on. It would be nice to know about.
D/Commr Stephen White
I'll lead off and then invite Deputy Duheme afterwards.
As Scott just said, we have great collaboration with the same partners that he just mentioned in the U.S., including Homeland Security and ATF. On top of that we also have great collaboration, joint investigations with agencies like the Drug Enforcement Agency, for example. A lot of organized crime groups, once they've established successful smuggling routes across the border, even though their mainstay may be smuggling illegal narcotics, may also use those same smuggling routes for smuggling other contraband such as firearms. Sometimes we can get great intelligence out of organized crime investigations working with those types of agencies as well.
Mike, do you have anything to add?
D/Commr Michael Duheme
From a federal policing perspective, it's not only nationally, provincially, and with municipal partners that we're working the border, but also internationally with our Five Eyes partners. With the U.S. counterparts we have several integrated teams that are set up throughout the border to address sharing of intelligence, to investigate and whatnot. You did say "needle in a haystack". We do have one of the longest international borders in the world with different types of geography as you go from the east coast to the west coast that make it more complex, but there are really good relationships going on with all agencies and countries.
Conservative
Doug Shipley Conservative Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON
Thank you for that.
Chair, is there still time remaining?
Conservative
Doug Shipley Conservative Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON
Thank you for those answers, gentlemen.
On March 31, 2021, the Liberal government announced that CBSA would be tasked with creating a joint task force with the relevant U.S. agencies to address drug smuggling.
Was that specific task force established, and how is that operating?
Vice-President, Intelligence and Enforcement Branch, Canada Border Services Agency
Yes, this is the task force that I was just referencing, with the partners that I've identified.
They are working together quite closely. It has been operating since the fall. They are working on a joint threat assessment in the firearms base at the current time, which we expect in February of this year.
February 1st, 2022 / 12:20 p.m.
Conservative
Doug Shipley Conservative Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON
Mr. Harris, I'm hoping there would be some successes out of that. For that task force, if we could hear about any successes, now or down the road, that would be great.
Vice-President, Intelligence and Enforcement Branch, Canada Border Services Agency
Absolutely. Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Jim Carr
Thank you very much.
Mr. Zuberi, we'll go over to you. The floor is yours for five minutes.
Liberal
Sameer Zuberi Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank all the witnesses for being here and for the work that they do to protect Canadians.
We've been hearing a lot about gun violence in Montreal. Are there any hot spots in the country, in particular when it relates to gun violence and illegal arms trafficking? Can you quickly just speak to that global point?
D/Commr Stephen White
I mentioned earlier the larger municipalities. If we look at the firearm seizures, especially handgun seizures across the country, just because of population, the biggest seizures, and I guess firearms-related homicides—which is a significant indicator of violence by gangs and organized crime—in 2020 were in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa. I think that's just based largely on their population.
Toronto had the highest number of victims, the highest number of firearms-related homicides, in 2020, followed by Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary. In 2019, that was very similar, so that's an indicator of where a lot of the gang violence and firearm homicides are taking place.
Liberal
Sameer Zuberi Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Thank you, Deputy Commissioner.
The Quebec government, in September 2021, announced Operation Centaur.
Can you explain to the committee the RCMP's involvement in this operation?
D/Commr Michael Duheme
Thank you, Steve. I will take that one.
The federal policing has an important role to play when it comes to firearms. In terms of the feed-in that we're providing to projet Centaure, we have several resources that are embedded with projet Centaure from an analytical point of view. At the senior level as well, if I remember correctly, we are part of the operation's strategic committee on that. We try to tie in our expertise in the work we do with our partners on the border to feed into Centaure what we're seeing border-wise.
If there are seizures between the ports of entry, there's communication directly with Centaure, and whatnot, to exchange that information. I'm referring to the U.S., but that's even on the international scene.
We are fully engaged with projet Centaure and mindful that it's a provincial initiative, but the federal aspect comes in and we're looking at it from a federal perspective of what more we could add to projet Centaure.
Last I heard, things are going very well with regard to projet Centaure.
Liberal
Sameer Zuberi Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Thank you.
We heard some testimony earlier around staffing at CBSA. I put this question to the CBSA officials, please, for clarification.
From the information I have, as of 2015-16 there have actually been 600 additional full-time employees added to CBSA. Can you confirm whether that's actually the case?
Vice-President, Intelligence and Enforcement Branch, Canada Border Services Agency
Yes, that is the case.
Between March 2016 and March 2021, there has been a 4.5% increase in our workforce, 622 FTEs that have been onboarded across the agency to respond to emerging initiatives. Some of those that were mentioned earlier include to support irregular migration efforts, as well specific investments related to firearms and guns and gangs that have come on board.