Public Safety committee  Thank you. I'll take the first question first. Legislatively, there are two things that would have to change. Number one would be the Public Service Superannuation Act. Border officers would have to be added as an occupational group, as exists for all other occupational groups,

Public Safety committee  At the CBSA, you're absolutely correct, our frontline numbers are not nearly what we need. We estimate that we need between 2,000 and 3,000 additional officers on the front line. In the time you described, we've added about 2,000 middle managers to the CBSA. It seems to be the on

Public Safety committee  Sadly, that is the process, yes. The CBSA has the security and professional standards directorate, which investigates more serious cases. If the allegation is deemed to be serious enough, the officer's security clearance will be pulled, meaning that they're not suspended and the

Public Safety committee  What Bill C-20 is proposing is important, and an oversight body is not something the union is against. The data we're looking at collecting is very important. Our concern is that the data be used to address systemic issues, that it be used to provide officers training, that it be

Public Safety committee  That's correct, yes.

Public Safety committee  That's correct.

Public Safety committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you here today. As the national president of the Customs and Immigration Union, which represents Canada's frontline border officers and other personnel working for the Ca

Government Operations committee  Thanks for that. I think what the consultation could have achieved for us would have been to share with the developers the plan in general around the ArriveCAN app with respect to what the reality would be on the ground, what would happen when the lineups became long or when peo

Government Operations committee  Thank you for the question. Our services could have been better used by having us actually do the job we're there to do at the border. In terms of enforcing public health measures, the only requirement we saw being fulfilled through the ArriveCAN app, practically, was showing

Government Operations committee  I'm sorry, but you cut out for a second.

Government Operations committee  I don't think it is whatsoever, no. We have so many other, more pressing needs. I mentioned a few of them before. We don't really look at rail or marine. We're examining a small fraction of what we should be on land borders. Some of them are falling apart. I can give you an exa

Government Operations committee  On overall numbers, I could give you 2,000 to 3,000, but on specific numbers, I could give you examples at some ports. For example, at the Toronto Pearson airport, our busiest airport in Canada, we had approximately 600 frontline officers in 2017. We have under 300 now. We're a

Government Operations committee  Across the entire country, we estimate between 2,000 and 3,000. If we're looking at a figure like $54 million, by our rough math we could probably hire about 500 additional officers with that, which would be a really good start right now. One of the other difficulties we have is

Government Operations committee  The morale is really low. For every port that I go to visit as a union president, you would think that one of the first things that would come up is the topic of union issues, labour issues—we currently have no contract—and I can tell you that, for the members I speak with across

Government Operations committee  It was extremely negative. We have a really hard time understanding why all of these questions and this app were implemented the way they were. All those questions were included in the app, when all we were doing at the border was verifying if someone was vaccinated. That could h