Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to again debate this particular topic. You may be aware that last week I had an opportunity as well to rise on this as a question. I see that the gentleman who had the opportunity to respond to my question is also in the House so perhaps we will be continuing our debate.
While we are in favour of going ahead with something that is already in place--it almost becomes redundant--I think it is important to take the opportunity to draw to the attention of the House this fact. Although we are going ahead with the necessary legislation to put this agency into effect, in fact and yet once again the government has brought us to a point where, although we have the necessity of a border guard, a border crossing control, for the sovereignty of our country and the security of the people of Canada, the government has turned around and completely under-resourced this absolutely vital entity.
Nothing makes this more profound than if I read to the House from the “CCRA Interim Policy on the Handling of Armed and Dangerous Lookouts”:
This memorandum is intended to disseminate to the Customs inspectors, the interim CCRA policy on the handling of individuals who are the subject of armed and dangerous lookouts.
Should a Customs Officer encounter an individual who is identified as being the subject of an armed and dangerous lookout, the Customs Officer should allow the individual to proceed and immediately notify the police and provide as much detail as possible to enable apprehension.
This interim policy will remain in effect until a longer term strategy on armed and dangerous lookouts is developed in consultation with our partners.
This is really quite pitiful.
I can relay two stories to members. One of them is from my constituency, which was relayed directly to me, and is about one of the customs officers who was on shift by himself in the middle of the night. Members may recall that this was the topic of my last debate, the fact that he should not have been on shift by himself, but he was.
He was confronted by two individuals in a vehicle who were about to proceed across the border at the border crossing of Roosville. The border crossing is an hour and a quarter away from Fernie, which is the closest RCMP detachment. It was three o'clock in the morning. The officer took a look at the two individuals in the car and came to the conclusion that they were pretty dangerous people. As a consequence, he waved them on through. He then called the RCMP in Fernie, as I say, an hour and a quarter's drive away, and was told by the person there, “Well, I can't do anything about it, because I'm on shift all by myself”.
There we had two people who the customs officer, and I have no reason to question his judgment, felt were very dangerous people. As a consequence of that, he called the RCMP, following this directive, only to be told there was nothing the RCMP could do about it either. That is the state that these Liberals have allowed us to get to here in Canada.
I have another story. Two customs officers noticed a car speeding through the Pacific crossing just south of Vancouver. It was in the middle of the day. As the car sped through, they recognized one of the people in the car as somebody who should have stopped; certainly they would have loved to interdict the person.
The two of them hopped into their vehicle and chased the car. They went down all the streets and through the freeways and, using their own personal cellphones, alerted the police to the fact that these two armed and dangerous people--they assumed they were armed and dangerous--were on the loose. Due to the customs officers shadowing the car, the police found these people, who indeed were armed, indeed were dangerous and indeed did have drugs in their car.
Everybody was really happy about this, because that meant these customs officers had done their job and the police had intercepted them so Canada was safe.
Do hon. members know what the reward was for the customs officers? It was a severe reprimand for leaving their border. Where is the common sense and logic to this?
At the Pacific crossing, contrary to Roosville and Rykerts and the other crossings in my constituency, which are undermanned, there is a certain complement of personnel at the border on the Canadian side at the Pacific crossing. What did the customs officers get for using their common sense, for using their courage and for having the conviction that they would pull these people over and indeed for getting the job done? They were seriously reprimanded and I believe even lost pay over the fact that they had left their posts.
What is wrong with this picture? Although the federal Liberals are constantly talking about the fact that they take our border security very seriously, they are not providing the resources. We are not only talking about money, but about the personnel that would flow from the money, and certainly not the equipment. On top of that, the border agents are in a position where they are not even integrating with sufficient backup and support from the RCMP and other police forces.
I do not understand a government that would be doing this to us at a time in our world's history when we are faced with some very malevolent forces in the world. Those forces could choose to come into our country at a time when we are trying to build a working relationship with our friends to the south, who are after all our biggest trading partner. Why is the government constantly underfunding and under-resourcing? The border agents are not only under-resourced in manpower and equipment, but, as I read in this interim policy, they are under-resourced in terms of this policy.
What drew this to my attention was the unfortunate passing of Adam Angel. Just to refresh everyone's memories, that occurred while he was working by himself. He should not have been working alone. He was ill the entire night long, to the point that by six o'clock in the morning he was literally on death's door. I do not know if he made it to the hospital. He was by himself. Why did he not contact anyone? I do not know the answer to the question about Adam Angel, but I know that 30% of the time the ability of these officers to contact anybody is either limited or non-existent.
Most of the time the information that is passed up the line from the U.S. side of the border is not even available to them. Other times, because of under-staffing, the backup and support they are supposed to be receiving from their supervisors, casting no aspersions on their supervisors, is not there because sometimes the telephones are not on. How seriously do the Liberals actually take Canada's border security? Not very seriously.
I also have in hand something called the “Canadian Customs Officers Critical Incident Summary Report”. In this particular instance, there was a situation at Rykerts, just south of my riding, where the border guards were actually taken hostage by people. There are over 200 incidents in this critical incident summary report. It was shut down by management because it did not want a continuation of the compiling of these critical incidents.
This legislation should be going forward, but I seriously question the actual seriousness of the federal Liberals about the safety and security of Canadians.