Mr. Speaker, in response to (a), in July 2005 the Canada Border Services Agency, CBSA, announced the launch of consultations on a new fairness initiative that included a series of proposed commitments on how people should expect to be treated at the border. The CBSA also announced that it would be working on an improved complaint and compliment mechanism.
Between July 2005 and June 2007, the CBSA received comments on CBSA’s commitment to fairness through a web address on CBSA’s Internet site specifically designated to receive comments on the fairness initiative.
During the last 20 months, the CBSA has pursued a number of activities to further develop this initiative to bring it to the point where it is ready for implementation. These activities have included the following:
review of the service pledges of other modern border administrations to adopt the best practices of those organizations which have resulted in the expansion of the original initiative to include the responsibilities of the client, as well as identifying a detailed proposal for an enhanced mechanism to manage complaints;
development of draft preliminary procedures for a singlewindow complaint process;
and creation of a client feedback form and a prototype for a national complaint reporting system, which would allow for a more nationally consistent mechanism to analyze, respond, track and report on complaints received by the CBSA.
Given that the initiative evolved into the three distinct components of service commitments, client responsibilities, and a complaint mechanism, the “fairness” banner did not appropriately capture the full essence of the broadened initiative, and the expanded initiative became “CBSA’s client rights and responsibilities”.
During this period, a consultative document entitled “A Guide to CBSA’s Client Rights and Responsibilities” was developed. In addition, in anticipation of the implementation of this initiative, a full communications plan and supporting communication products publicizing the initiative and the enhanced complaints process were developed.
Throughout this period, feedback on the expanded initiative was sought internally, as well as from the Canada Border Services Advisory Committee, CBSAC, whose membership is drawn from a cross-section of academia, businesses and associations that would be affected by broad border management decisions. In all cases, the proposed commitments, client responsibilities, and the anticipated complaint mechanism received significant support.
While CBSA senior officials have acknowledged the importance of this initiative, and significant progress has been made on this file, no final decision can be made with respect to implementation of this initiative until a source of ongoing funding is identified to support this initiative. Once final decisions have been made with respect to A Base and Core Service recommendations, CBSA will be in a better position to determine if there is a source of funds for this initiative.
In response to (b), no direction has been required from the minister or his staff on this initiative in the last 20 months.