Senator Poulin: We only have three?
Mr. Jolicoeur: Those on the largest ones. We also have marine points of service which are not always open.
We also have small marinas which open occasionally. There are also 200 airports that are used as points of entry into Canada.
Senator Poulin: What is the annual budget of the Canada Border Services Agency?
Mr. Jolicoeur: It will be between 1.2 and 1.3 billion dollars next year.
Senator Poulin: Considering the environment we’ve been living in since 2001 from the point of view of security, have you developed a plan identifying clearly the black holes? You’ve referred to long sections of the border without any post. What would be the solution to this problem and how much would it cost?
Mr. Jolicoeur: Yes, but I was referring to the management of the border as a whole. Our responsibility is limited to entry points. Despite that, we have discussed the possibility to create something equivalent to what the Americans have, which they call the Border Patrol and has a responsibility between the official points of entry. In our case, this responsibility belongs to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Senator Poulin: Are you saying that the responsibility for the border is shared between two agencies?
Mr. Jolicoeur: Indeed I am.
Senator Poulin: Does that not create problems for needs identification?
Mr. Jolicoeur: Obviously, especially since 9/11 but it had started earlier. The agencies work in close cooperation. We have common groups with staff from both organizations who cooperate, among other things, on the «high belt» concept, in an integrated manner, with all the safety agencies and US agencies. We are wondering now if it would not be better to have one single agency at the border instead of two. It's an open question.
Senator Poulin: I was a bit surprised to learn that the new government has given only 101 million dollars in the last budget for an issue as important as border post security. We are informed that this budget should allow us to eliminate single agent posts. The other objective was to provide weapons to officers at the border. You stated of while ago that even if the officers were armed, the present policy would not change. Why give them weapons, then?
Mr. Jolicoeur: In the 2006 budget, the first objective of the 101 million dollars was to give weapons to our staff. That was not the only amount for our organization. In total, for the first two years, we got 365 million $. So there are many other important projects that have been financed in the last budget. The plan to give weapons to our officers was not specifically aimed at resolving the problem of people running the border but rather to give some tools to our employees when they are faced with dangerous situations at the border. In those cases, our operational policy will change because, if our officers are armed, they will be called upon to intervene more directly in those situations whereas they could not do so in the past when they had no weapons.
To put that in context, we talk to our American colleagues about their level of comfort with our strategies and with what we’re doing. It is important to underline that we continuously compare our operational methods and our effectiveness to those of our American friends and that they are comfortable with them. Improvement is continuously made on both sides on the border as we go along.
Senator Poulin: Do American officers have weapons?
Mr. Jolicoeur: Yes, since the seventies.
Senator Poulin: Will our officers receive training on carrying and using weapons?
Mr. Jolicoeur: Yes, we're working with the Police Institute in Nicolet and with the agency training American officers to develop a course that will last about three weeks. That course will ensure that our people have the proper knowledge and training to use their weapons.
Senator Poulin: This is roughly what this committee had recommended a few weeks ago.
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Senator Atkins: While at airports, one gets the impression that the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA) has all the personnel it needs and then some. Can you tell us how many personnel you have increased by since the last time we met?
Mr. Jolicoeur: I do not know the exact number of increase but we will have about 13,000 employees within a year. It has been a gradual increase since we started.
The difficulty in reporting an exact number is that CBSA was not created in one shot. It was created gradually by adding pieces. Our numbers have been increasing steadily since our creation.
Senator Atkins: Getting back to the barrier question that the chairman addressed, if someone arrives by plane and goes through immigration, they see an officer who interrogates them and are then given a card in order to be put through another process where that card is examined.
Is there not a simple way of implementing a system where you could avoid having vehicles go through the border without examination, such as by having some form of barrier that could not be broken unless they provide evidence they have been examined?
Mr. Jolicoeur: If you are relating to the point raised by Senator Banks and Senator Campbell, to develop a physical means of completely preventing people from racing through the border, the answer is yes, it is certainly doable. There is significant cost related to it, but it is doable.
Senator Atkins: Would that process require more personnel?
Mr. Jolicoeur: Yes, more personnel and more capital to build infrastructure.
Senator Atkins: Have you any idea of the number of people or the amount of capital needed?
Mr. Jolicoeur: No, I do not have an estimate on that.
Senator Atkins: That would be helpful.
Do you have a waiting list of people applying to be members of your service?
Mr. Jolicoeur: Yes. Every time we open a competition, there are many applicants. However, our budget allows us to hire only a certain number. At the moment, the real challenge is to schedule training for these people through our institute at Rigaud. It is fully booked for at least a year.
Senator Atkins: With regard to the infrastructure for training, can you handle the increase of personnel or will it require serious adjustments to your training process?
Mr. Jolicoeur: There is no question that we need additional financial and human resources on the training side because of what I just described. We obtained additional resources in the last budget specifically for the new training aspects that are coming with the arming of employees. There will be a requirement for additional space and expertise due to that. We received the resources and have a plan to deploy that over the coming years.
Senator Atkins: I understand that you are extending the training period.
Mr. Jolicoeur: Yes. It is a bit more complicated because now we are one organization. Our employees are coming from three different organizations. We have created a new integrated course that includes all the expertise that was covered by three organizations in the past.
Senator Atkins: What are the three?
Mr. Jolicoeur: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Citizenship and Immigration Canada and customs. We have created a new program that is currently being tested that is more integrated.
Senator Atkins: Is three weeks long enough to train a student?
Barbara Hébert, Vice-President, Operations Branch, Canada Border Services Agency: The training we give our students covers the requirements they have to carry out their assigned responsibilities. Our students do not fulfil the full range of responsibilities that a regular border services officer would have.
Earlier you expressed interest in the air mode. Using that as an example, even full-time indeterminate officers would receive three weeks of training if they were to work in the air mode. A student who is to work in the air mode would also receive three weeks of training to do primary processing. From that perspective, they are quite compatible. If a student were asked to do more than that in the example I just gave, additional training would be provided.
Senator Atkins: Do you have the facilities to provide that training?
Ms. Hébert: The students are trained locally and regionally. They do not go to our training facility in Rigaud. That facility is for our indeterminate officers.
The Chairman: Are the students on land crossings fully trained?
Ms. Hébert: The students who work at the land borders also receive three weeks training. They receive the training required to carry out the responsibilities they are assigned.
The Chairman: That is a vague answer. Are there times when students are working alone and unsupervised?
Ms. Hébert: No, Senator Kenny, they are not.
The Chairman: What would you say if we produced examples of that happening?
Ms. Hébert: I would like to have that information because it is the policy that they should not be.
The Chairman: This is a policy that you monitor and that you are certain is in place?
Ms. Hébert: I can assure you that I regularly raise it with my management team.
The Chairman: Do they monitor it?
Ms. Hébert: I believe they do.
The Chairman: How often do they tell you that it is not observed?
Ms. Hébert: I have had this conversation with them no less than once every quarter in the last year, and I believe that any discrepancies have been corrected.
The Chairman: You are telling me that on a number of occasions in the past year you have found that students were in charge of a border post?
Ms. Hébert: No, that would not be an accurate statement.
The Chairman: Clarify for us, if you would, what you meant when you said that any discrepancies were corrected. You need not correct something if there is no problem.
Ms. Hébert: Students are never left alone at a port. I was referring to the latter clause of your sentence. Students would not necessarily be only at the port of entry.
The Chairman: My question stands. Have instances been reported to you of students being alone?
Ms. Hébert: Instances have been reported, as a result of appearances before this committee, and I have taken action to deal with my management team as a result of those representations.
The Chairman: In the past year, how often have you found that there were students working there alone?
Ms. Hébert: I am not aware of any student in the last six months who has been working alone. You asked about a year. Off the top of my head I am not aware of any, but I do not want to mislead the committee. However, I am sure about the last six months.
The Chairman: You can be assured that every time you appear before us that question will come up. If you could, double-check before your next appearance.
Ms. Hébert: To be clear, I believe that we have no students working alone now and have not for some period of time.
Senator Banks: Some students have done wonderful work.
Ms. Hébert: I agree.
Senator Banks: A student is not a bad thing. However, the policy is that students are always working under the supervision of an experienced officer, most of whom I assume would be indeterminate officers.
Exactly what does "under the supervision of" mean? I know that if a student is in a booth at a border crossing, there will not be an experienced officer sitting beside him in the booth. How far away is the supervision under which that student is working, and what exactly does "under the supervision of" mean? Is the experienced officer at a different place or at home where he could be reached by telephone, or does it mean that there is sight contact with the supervisor?
Ms. Hébert: You are absolutely correct about a student working at a primary inspection line (PIL) booth. There will undoubtedly be people working in the office or at the commercial primary inspection line. The supervisory presence to which I referred could be in another booth or inside the actual facility at the port, but would absolutely be on site.
Senator Atkins: With regard to PIL booths, it has been suggested to us on other occasions that there is an unofficial time allotted for the processing of a car. Is that a practice that is implemented by your senior people?
Ms. Hébert: We have statistics that indicate the average processing time for the average traveller over the course of history.
Senator Atkins: What is that?
Ms. Hébert: I believe it is 30 seconds.
Senator Atkins: I believe we heard that it is 20 seconds.
Ms. Hébert: I would generally use 30 seconds. That is certainly the average time history has shown us. Having said that, I am not aware of any instance where we direct officers that they shall take no more than 30 seconds or, in your example, 20 seconds.
Officers are expected to exercise discretion and process the traveller until he or she, being the officer, is satisfied that that traveller can be admissible to Canada. Some processing might take 17 seconds; some might take much longer than that.
Senator Atkins: Therefore, they would not be penalized if they are slow in their operation?
Ms. Hébert: That is correct.
Senator Atkins: How is CBSA working with the RCMP to combat organized crime in the ports?
Mr. Jolicoeur: We are working at different levels, but the main instrument we are using is the IBET, the integrated border enforcement teams we have across the country. They are led by the RCMP but with participation of our agency as well as others. We also share intelligence regularly at different levels and feed that intelligence through our national risk assessment centre to the local level when it is important that the information be available. We are working as teams.
Senator Atkins: Could you describe the experiment in Saint John?
Mr. Jolicoeur: Are you talking about RADNET?
Senator Atkins: Yes.
Mr. Jolicoeur: RADNET is a system that we have developed in house to measure radioactivity that might be present in containers. We first deployed RADNET to Windsor. It is a sophisticated way to discriminate between radiation readings that would be problematic and related to something illegitimate and the radiation readings that you get regularly from products that properly contain radiation. We have that system in place. Every container is basically screened or read by the readers and the information fed into our risk-assessment system TITAN and compared with the information we have on the importers and carriers, et cetera. A decision is made on the system as to whether or not there is a need to flag a concern and trigger an action by our officers locally. It is a more-advanced system than what they have in the United States for making that decision and will be deployed to other ports this year.
Senator Atkins: I am surprised you would pick Saint John because there is not that much container traffic there.
Mr. Jolicoeur: Yes, but when you test a system and deploy a big machine, a big system, you want to do it in a secure way. You do not want to create havoc so the decision was made to start there for that reason. It could have been somewhere else.
Senator Moore: I want to follow up on what Senator Atkins was asking. In your opening statement, Mr. Jolicoeur, you have mentioned at the bottom of page one that once fully implemented our radiation detection program will allow us to screen virtually 100 per cent of incoming marine cargo.
When do you anticipate the implementation to be complete?
Mr. Jolicoeur: This calendar year, I believe.
Senator Moore: By the end of December 2006?
Mr. Jolicoeur: Yes.
Senator Moore: Senator Banks was asking at the beginning about the type of technology used in the connections of the various posts. You mentioned there were three unconnected posts but you were waiting for a contract to be procured and there are 18 others that you may upgrade to that type of new technology. Will all 21 be via high-speed Internet?
Mr. Jolicoeur: That is what we are aiming for. That is why we want to continue with those 18 to bring them to the level of high-speed Internet but it is a separate line. I could not describe more precisely than that but it is at that level, yes. It is the same level that the others have.
Senator Moore: When you started out there were 110 not connected and now you have it down to three, but 18 you want to upgrade. Are all the others connected via high-speed Internet?
Mr. Jolicoeur: I would not call it high-speed Internet but it is that standard or better. We have our own network.
Senator Moore: It is not dial up then?
Mr. Jolicoeur: The others, no; they are not dial up.
Senator Moore: I am interested in the Canada-U.S. border Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. We had your colleague, Andrea Spry, before our Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce on June 8. On that day we also heard from U.S. Congresswoman Louise Slaughter from the state of New York. We were talking about access, moving people, equipment and goods across the border but primarily part of that discussion focused on tourism. When Congresswoman Slaughter crossed the border she was told she had to have a passport. When Ms. Spry gave her presentation she said that was not required. I am wondering where the idea came from whereby the border officers required that visitor and her staff to provide a passport. Are we now moving towards implementation of passports only, or are we using photo ID and citizenship or birth certificates?
Mr. Jolicoeur: At the moment the passport is not required. It may be that some officers have asked for that but our direction at the moment is that a passport is not required. It is not required in the air mode when you go to the U.S. either and they are asked all the time. However, it is not required.
Senator Moore: How often does the working group that you chair meet?
Mr. Jolicoeur: In the last two months we have probably had three meetings. The U.S. is presently into a rule-making process where they have limited ability to communicate on WHTI while decisions are being made about the specifics of the requirement for the air and marine modes at the moment.
The Chairman: What is the WHTI?
Senator Moore: That is the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. It is referred to as WHTI.
The air and marine crossings have one date. What is their date when a card or some other type of identification will be required?
Mr. Jolicoeur: January 1, 2007.
Senator Moore: Is land the following year?
Mr. Jolicoeur: That is correct.
Senator Moore: We heard evidence that there are 123 million crossings each year of people going back and forth between Canada and the United States. We are aware that the United States Senate has passed an amendment to the immigration bill extending the implementation dates by one year, and that the House of Representatives has not.
Do you have any information, in terms of your meetings with colleagues in the U.S., on the likelihood of that one-year extension being put in place?
Mr. Jolicoeur: Everyone is planning on the basis that those target dates will remain the same. There may be some changes at the end; first, the immigration bill would have to pass in the House of Representatives. People do not think that the date will be changed and there will be an amendment in place that will effectively change those dates. If there is a change, it would come close to the end. There is no question that both sides feel we have to plan for those dates to remain in place at the moment.
Senator Moore: Is there any possibility that the provisions with respect to the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative would be carved out of that immigration bill and, perhaps, dealt with separately or do you think we are locked into that bill?
Mr. Jolicoeur: At the moment, I believe they are part of that bill and their survival is linked to the survival of the other bill.
Again, there could be other amendments introduced in the future. There could be some changes. We do not believe we will see, certainly before the end of the calendar year, a change in the official implementation date.
Senator Moore: You do not think there will be a change?
Mr. Jolicoeur: No.
Senator Moore: That is certainly the position of Secretary Chertoff a little over a week ago. He said they are sticking by those dates and they think they can do it. What do you think will be the card or document of preference here, given that only 20 to 24 per cent of U.S. citizens have a passport, and they do not think they would support a NEXUS card, for which I understand the application fee is $100?
Mr. Jolicoeur: I think it is $80.
Senator Moore: Okay, $80 for a NEXUS card and I think there are less than 100,000 of those in existence — 75,000 to 100,000 have been issued. We are talking about millions of travellers. Practically speaking, given these dates of implementation, how will that be achieved?
Mr. Jolicoeur: First, I have said many times I do not think they will be ready, if we define ready as meaning that people will have cards to cross the border. I know the official administration position is that they will be ready.
Senator Moore: Practically speaking, I do not see how they can be but you are closer to it than we are.
Mr. Jolicoeur: I do not think they will be ready. In terms of what we are doing about it, we are trying to get an agreement with the U.S. administration on a standard under SPP — the Security and Prosperity Partnership — that could be met by different documents. If they meet that standard, then they would become acceptable under WHTI.
Senator Moore: Is this is part of your committee's working group tasks — to come up with some combination such as we have now, the photo ID plus your birth certificate to show citizenship? Is that one of your objectives?
Mr. Jolicoeur: Our objective is to have as many acceptable cards that are properly secured as possible.
The Chairman: May I have a supplementary on this? In June 2005, this committee recommended that cards be developed — that the standard should be tamper-proof, machine readable, biometrically enhanced and based on secure and reliable documentation. Are those the standards that you are pursuing?
Mr. Jolicoeur: There are three categories of standards that need to be addressed and which are being addressed. One is the robustness of whatever cards or documents are used to ensure that they cannot be modified or tampered with and so on.
Senator Moore: You mean secure?
Mr. Jolicoeur: Yes. Some have to do with the card itself. Others have to do with the information that you put on the card — that is, biometric, which one, et cetera.
The third category concerns how they are delivered. For example, is the infrastructure secure, can the blank be stolen or not? All of the delivery systems need to be secure as well. Those are the three things.
The U.S. is working on a fourth category, on which we will have to agree — namely, the exact formatting and technology that will be used to read those documents. We are working on the four areas and discussing them.
The Chairman: We are talking about a card that can be read by just swiping it like a credit card — is that correct?
Mr. Jolicoeur: Beyond that — it can be read at a distance.
The Chairman: What about the documentation that is considered to be secure and reliable — in other words, the very premise of the card itself? What will constitute satisfactory identification to get the card? How will you be certain that the identification that you are provided with is reliable?
Mr. Jolicoeur: We have a document integrity exercise that actually started in Canada. At the provincial and federal levels, we have an initiative to strengthen the base documents. We have offered the work we have done to the United States as being the first element of those standards that both sides would accept. What documents will be accepted finally and deemed to be secure, either as final documents to cross or as documents to be used to justify obtaining those documents, are decisions that have not yet been made.
Senator Moore: I have a further question. Do you want to ask a supplementary question, Senator Atkins?
Senator Atkins: Where do you draw the line on privacy?
Senator Moore: I was going to lead to that area next.
Senator Campbell: You are both reading each other’s minds — so much for privacy.
Senator Moore: There has been some discussion that the cards may have certain personal information imbedded in them, and that not only could they be waved and read at a border crossing, but they could be tracked in terms of your movement within, in this case, the United States. To me, that would be quite a substantial invasion of privacy. Is that one of the issues you are considering in your working group to ensure that does not happen?
Mr. Jolicoeur: A big debate that we have internally and with the U.S. — and it is one of the reasons why we do not have formally approved standards for the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative yet — is the question, which is linked to privacy, of whether we will go with vicinity cards or proximity cards.
Senator Moore: Could you explain the difference between these, Mr. Jolicoeur?
Mr. Jolicoeur: Yes. They define proximity cards as cards that would be read only within 10 centimetres.
Vicinity cards are the cards that we are using currently with the NEXUS program where you can flag them a few metres from the reader and they would be seen from a greater distance.
The debate is the following. From the perspective of the logistics of managing the border, we almost need to go to vicinity cards. One of the reasons NEXUS works well is that you do not have to stop every time and touch something or speak to something; you have been pre-approved, accepted as someone who is okay. The challenge with the vicinity card at first is whether it can be read at a greater distance. Other people can read it, too, if they have a mechanism to read the card.
The second question is — what do you put on the card? Do you put personal information? It is not required because we will have databases. Thinking of NEXUS, we have a database of people so it can only be a reference to the database, a number. A number does not tell much about an individual, so it is less of a concern.
However, the debate is not finished. The concern is that, even without knowing anything about you, if I can read your card illegitimately with a machine, just knowing your number gives me an advantage because I can more easily follow you in the future since I know that number is associated to you. We are looking at ways to protect that number so it can only be read when the person wants it to be read when crossing the border. The technological challenge here that is not resolved has to do with the privacy question.
Senator Moore: We are told that no more than 100,000 NEXUS cards have been issued. Do you know how many of those have been issued to Canadians?
Mr. Jolicoeur: It is probably close to half and half. I do not know the number. It is 95,000 for land and about 6,000 for air. However, we believe that, because of WHTI, many more people will want NEXUS cards.
Senator Moore: Is there a different card and a different application depending on whether you are a regular air or a land traveller?
Mr. Jolicoeur: At the moment, yes, but we are moving towards a one-card, one-enrolment process, and a card that would give you access to all services.
Senator Moore: To get one of those cards, do you have to go through an interview?
Mr. Jolicoeur: Yes.
Senator Moore: Where is the application made?
Mr. Jolicoeur: We have points where it can be done.
Senator Moore: I understand Toronto and Vancouver but are there more ports?
Mr. Jolicoeur: Yes.
Senator Moore: Is there an office in the country where you can do that as well?
Ms. Hébert: You are correct that Toronto and Vancouver are the big sites. There are a couple more. They can be located either on the U.S. or the Canadian side. As you are aware, this is a joint bi-national process so it requires a comfort level by both Canadian and American inspection agencies that a candidate is acceptable to the program.
Senator Moore: Is your application reviewed by each side when you apply?
Ms. Hébert: You are correct. An interview is done with the candidate at those limited number of sites where the application is processed. We are pursuing having what we call "urban enrolment centres," so that people in key urban areas would have greater accessibility to the program. It is an evolving situation.
The Chairman: Regrettably, we have run out of time. We have about a dozen other questions we would like to put to you, Mr. Jolicoeur. I wonder if we could do it by letter and if you could respond to us in writing.
Mr. Jolicoeur: Yes.
The Chairman: I would be very grateful for that. We will put them to you and append them to the record of the meeting today.
On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you both very much for appearing. These subjects are a matter of continuing interest to the committee, and we appreciate your providing us with the information you have this morning.[/color]
