CEUDA Submission - Senate Committee on National Security and Defence

Note:

1. CEUDA or the Customs and Excise Union is the Union representing persons working in CBSA and CRA in the areas of Customs, Trade Administration, and Excise/GST.

2. It is worth knowing how this department has been structured over time, to whom it is responsible (Search: http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/sitemap-e.html
Minister, Deputy PM Anne McLellan and the President, Alain Jolicoeur.) and that there has been tension between management and front line staff evident in this submission and the reasons for it.

3. Look for what seem to be outright lies in this submission and the evidence here or offered to prove this. A compelling report.

4. This is incomplete; more may come later, time permitting. It should give you a fair idea of just what has been going on. Get the report and read it.

Source:
www.ceuda.psac.com/english/english.html




The latest news: Guns at border near you -- Feds relent on armed officers Maria McClintock, Nov. 1, 05

NOV 01 Sun Media article Feds relent on armed officers, by Maria McClintock ... "OTTAWA - The federal government is consulting with the new Border Services Agency and the RCMP about creating a new, permanent armed presence at the Canada-U.S. border, Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan said yesterday. The news represents a change of heart on the part of the Liberals over the hot-button issue. The Customs and Excise Union (CEUDA) has long called for the government to arm their officers at specifically targeted border crossings, but has always been shot down."

Check the fine print.




The CEUDA Report

Explosive information on border insecurity in this!

CEUDA Submission to the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence

CEUDA testifies before Senate Committee on Bill C-26
OCT 31 Brief CEUDA calls for Armed Customs Border Patrol

Bill C-26 — An Act to establish the Canada Border Services Agency

Monday, October 31, 2005
Ron Moran
National President

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Mr. Chairman, Honourable Senators, Members of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, thank you for inviting us to testify on Bill C-26 — An Act to establish the Canada Border Services Agency.

1.2 It’s an honour to be here today and to have an opportunity to speak about a Bill that formally recognizes and makes a priority of the law enforcement mandate of Canada Customs, or as it is called today: the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA).

1.3 To our great dismay in the early 1990’s we learned that government had abandoned its plan of creating a national security agency and was instead consolidating the Department of Customs and Excise into the Department of Taxation; we considered this to be nothing less than a taxation take over of customs and excise, and we were quite upset about it.

1.4 We lobbied for years to have Customs carved back out of National Revenue so it could be relocated into a security portfolio instead. Clearly we’ve held an ever solidifying position – and it hardened after 9/11 and firmed up even more after the London bombings – that Customs must have a stronger public security mandate, above and beyond the mandate to protect revenue at the border.

1.5 Thankfully, to his credit, and we applauded him for this, the Right Honourable Prime Minister Paul Martin took heed to our call and relocated Customs into the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness on December 13, 2003 – the day he took office. Obviously the Prime Minister and his Government felt quite strongly about the need to give Customs a stronger public security mandate; a view, we are delighted to know, your Committee also shares.

1.6 As this presentation will attest, however, the bureaucracy seems to be nothing less than light years behind the will of the Prime Minister and his Cabinet, let alone that of your Committee and that of thousands of Customs Officers.

1.7 The Agency has a new name, and is located in the right Department, but next to having Customs Officers who want to do more law enforcement, these are the only things CBSA has going for it when it comes to making public security a priority mandate. The managerial culture in Customs is still overwhelming tied to the policies and practices of tax collection - meaning there is a strong reliance on following the honour principle and allowing people to self declare.

1.8 Things need to be shaken up at Canada Customs if its management and operations are to come into the 21st Century.

1.9 Before going on, we must and want to take this opportunity to express the heartfelt and sincere appreciation of CEUDA and its members have for your Committee’s hard work on the issue of Canada’s Land Border Crossings, for your June 2005 groundbreaking report Borderline Insecure, and for the recommendations in your report that were not only progressive but highly insightful. Your Committee clearly shares the mindset of the Prime Minister and his Cabinet in that revenue collection at the border is no longer what Customs is primarily about. We share that view wholeheartedly, as do our members. We however can’t help but notice how CBSA management has yet to acknowledge or respond to your report, more than four months after its release. It’s hard not to conclude that this is another sign of how ill-advised this country’s Customs service is, and to what extent the service needs public-security minded leadership that has vision and isn’t afraid to recognize today’s realities, and – more importantly – isn’t afraid to instigate the required changes.

1.10 The Prime Minister’s repositioning of the Customs Service in December 2003 and your report of June 2005 are both acknowledgements that the world in which Customs operates has drastically changed and that Customs needs to adjust its operations accordingly.

1.11 There is a growing sense among Customs Officers that their job is increasingly dangerous and that they are not equipped or trained to deal with those dangers. Every law-enforcement officer knows that withdrawing and disengaging from dangerous situations is not always an option, contrary to what CBSA would have all of us believe. CEUDA is fully supportive of its members in each of these work refusal cases.

1.12 On that point, we trust members of this Committee have taken note that Customs Officers have recently been exercising their right, under Part II of the Canada Labour Code, to refuse to do dangerous work. In fact, what we have witnessed is an increasing number of Customs Officers exercising that right. What started in November 2004 with one Customs Officer in Roosville, British Columbia, exercising his right to refuse dangerous work for a few hours, grew to 110 Customs Officers exercising that right for 30 hours at the three busiest international bridges in Ontario’s Niagara Region the night of August 30 and morning of September 1, 2005. Shortly thereafter, on the morning of September 10, some 40 Customs Officers exercised their right to refuse dangerous work and kept 14 Customs Offices closed for hours along Quebec’s border with the U.S. Each of these cases involved armed and dangerous criminals known to be heading towards the Canadian border. In the Québec case, the felon had already shot at and hit a law enforcement officer State-side.

1.13 Yes, CEUDA fully supports Bill C-26; in fact we loudly applaud it. But in our view there’s a long way to go before the intent behind the Bill becomes the practice at our nation’s points-of-entry. There is also a long way to go before we can feel safe and confident that the front-line security of the nation is solid and strong and before the men and women who stand on guard for thee can feel safe and secure while carrying out their duties.

1.14 If the Canadian Customs Service is to one day be looked upon as having found a respectable balance between its responsibility to keep the economy flowing and its public security mandate, then major, gaping security holes at points-of-entry need to be dealt with rather than ignored as has been the case. Bill C-26 can’t fix these things alone given the problem lies more with those who manage. We wish to take this opportunity to flag some of these problems.

1.15 As you may know, the border is divided into two elements: the first comprises the points-of-entry and these are guarded by unarmed Customs Officers; the second comprises the distances between the points-of-entry and these are supposed to be guarded by armed police officers, who are also supposed to respond to calls for help from the unarmed Customs Officers.

1.16 Your Committee correctly reported problems with police responses to calls for assistance from Customs, and made recommendations accordingly. But it seems things weren’t bad enough already because the RCMP has been systematically closing Detachments along the border. This has exacerbated existing problems. Detachments were closed in Ontario in the late 1990’s, in Quebec a year ago, and are currently in the process of closing in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Members of Parliament, city mayors, and representatives of this Union were among those who condemned these closures, but to no avail. The RCMP Commissioner’s agenda marches on with complete disregard for what others have to say, including a Parliamentary Committee that had asked him to hold off until Parliament could review this questionable agenda.

1.17 Bill C-26 is refreshing to those of us who have always taken issue with the traditional concept that border security is twofold. This notion happens because the Customs service currently only has jurisdiction at land-border points-of-entry while Police Officers have jurisdiction between these points. Rarely has the border been looked at in its entirety, therefore rarely have solutions impacting problems both at and between border crossings been considered and looked at in a way that would encompass this broader reality.

1.18 Bill C-26 as well as this committee both clearly acknowledge that the border needs to be looked at as a whole. Your abovementioned report pointed the direction for the next step in Chapter VI, Afterward, under the heading A. The challenge of ensuring security between border points. This presentation will build on your initiative and provide clarity about where and how Customs Officers believe the next steps should be taken.

1.19 On March 22, 2005, CEUDA was invited to present testimony to the House of Commons Justice, Human Rights, and Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Committee. The Committee was struggling with the reality that the RCMP Commissioner was closing Detachments along the border in Quebec despite the Committee’s wishes that he postpone such actions, and despite animated objections from mayors in those communities. Backed by fact and evidence, CEUDA proposed that the Committee support the creation of an armed Customs Border Patrol.

1.20 The following are excepts from our submission:

1.21 Commissioner Zaccardelli told you on December 9 (2004) that, while the RCMP has the mandate to patrol the border between ports of entry, the RCMP does not have enough resources to keep Detachments open and actively patrol the border in Quebec (or anywhere else). In Québec and Ontario, neither the Québec Provincial Police nor the Ontario Provincial Police have the mandate or jurisdiction to enforce border security and have in fact pulled resources away from the border. Mayors from Québec’s border municipalities testified to this Committee about how they are facing serious problems related to border crime with no ability or resources to deal with them; we have no doubt other border Mayors from across Canada will echo that very same sentiment and we are in the progress of canvassing them all.

1.22 There is a huge border security crisis in Canada. The closure of the nine RCMP Detachments in Québec has simply brought the issue to the forefront and exacerbated that crisis. Further, grow ops and the cannabis trade are adding an additional layer of challenges to this crisis in that exporting cannabis across our border should be as much of a concern for us as it is for Americans who are dealing with its importation.

1.23 We recently read the February 1, 2005, testimony from the Deputy Prime Minister, as well as that of the President and Vice-President of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), to members of your Sub-Committee on Public Safety and National Security, as it related to the Sub-Committee's study of Bill C‑26 establishing the CBSA. We were flabbergasted and astounded at the slanted testimony, the extent to which it gave the wrong impression, and the degree to which efforts were undertaken to downplay the threat and illegal activity known to be taking place along the border.

1.24 In her testimony, the Deputy Prime Minister said a mere 18 vehicles were known to have blown the Lacolle border in one year, meaning their drivers did not stop to report to Customs but rather chose to proceed into the country illegally. In reality, our members documented no less than 17 vehicles during a three (3) week period in the month of December 2004 alone - you may have heard about it at the time since Radio-Canada television decided to report it in the news. At five (5) British Columbia border crossings, using another example, 26 vehicles blew by the ports without stopping during the week of February 7, 2005. According to city officials in Stanstead, Québec, the count is consistently well over 250 unidentified vehicles illegally entering Canada each month by using two (2) unguarded roads namely Leeball and Church Roads (that’s almost 60 a week). We’re also aware that in 2004, CBSA documented over 1,600 vehicles as entering Canada at border-crossings and failing to report to Canada Customs.

1.25 Senators, security is only as strong as the weakest link. Keep in mind then that absolutely no one is checking any of the hundreds of vehicles and their passengers and/or contents that illegally enter Canada via unguarded roads every week. That’s hundreds, every week!

1.26 Moreover, using CBSA’s own number of over 1,600 for the year 2004, an average of more than 30 vehicles blew by Customs offices every week and entered Canada, few of these vehicles are ever intercepted by police, which again means no one is checking these vehicles, their passengers or their contents. Canada spends hundreds of millions of dollars guarding and protecting the front doors to our nation at points-of-entry. All the while, the back door remains not only unlocked but wide open for anyone to come through.

1.27 We believe it is important that we quote a question from Mr. Serge Ménard (Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, BQ) and the answer from Mr. Alain Jolicoeur, CBSA President, during a February 1, 2005, appearance by Mr. Jolicoeur and the Minister before the Subcommittee on Public Safety and National Security of the Standing Committee on Justice, Human Rights, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness when they testified on Bill C-26 and discussed vehicles blowing by Customs’ points-of-entry.
Mr. Serge Ménard (Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, BQ): I have a very simple question.
A car approaches the border, the driver is asked to stop, he does not do this but continues driving straight ahead. What can the customs officer do?
Mr. Alain Jolicoeur: … we did a study throughout the country in order to assess the magnitude of this phenomenon.
We noted that in most cases, the people who stop and then drive away without complying with the conditions are individuals who have problems that are not related to smuggling or anything of that nature.
You asked a question about what procedure is followed in such cases. The police are called and provided with the licence plate numbers, and the people who are caught are then fined. A certain percentage of these individuals do get away, but in most cases, they are caught and brought back to the border crossing. (Emphasis added by CEUDA)

1.28 The evidence we gather from our members who work at the border says quite the opposite to what Mr. Jolicoeur tried to convince the House of Commons Subcommittee members. For example of the 17 vehicles documented in Lacolle during a three-week period in December 2004 (referred to above in paragraph 1.24), none were brought back to the port by police in spite of a full description having been immediately provided to police in each case.


1.29 CEUDA submitted an ATIP request asking exactly how many “port-running” vehicles are actually caught by police and returned to Customs and Immigration for processing. While CBSA’s ATIP Office has yet to respond, we don’t expect to learn that CBSA keeps track of these statistics and, if it does, that we’ll learn most are never caught and brought back to the border contrary to what Mr. Jolicoeur stated. [. . . . ]

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