Seek Profiling Data At CBSA

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A Senate bill would allow first-ever investigation of racial profiling allegations at border crossings, says the Canadian Human Rights Commission. The Commission has heard 77 complaints against the Canada Border Services Agency since 2011.

“Data should be collected about how discretionary decisions are made,” said Fiona Keith, counsel for the commission; “If officers are not being asked at border crossings to collect that information, we can ask for it – and we have – but it doesn’t exist.”

Bill S-205 An Act To Amend The Canada Border Services Agency would see appointment of a chief inspector to investigate public complaints against customs officers; supervise security of databases; and monitor the “rights and freedoms” of cross-border travellers.

The Agency has been targeted but numerous allegations of profiling, including one complaint from a Chinese-Canadian air traveler upheld by the federal Agricultural Review Tribunal in 2013. The finding was dismissed by the Federal Court of Appeal in 2014 after judges ruled border guards “cannot be expected to leave their experience usually acquired after many years of observing people from different countries.”

Testifying at the Senate national security committee, Human Rights Commission staff said profiling data is essential. “The absence of this information has the potential to impact public trust,” said Chief Commissioner Marie-Claude Landry.

“Everyone in Canada, no matter their circumstances or how they wound up here, is entitled to basic human rights protection,” Landry said; “We are convinced that effective monitoring and oversight must be supported by the collection of human rights-based data.”

Senator Wilfred Moore (Liberal-N.S.), sponsor of Bill S-205, said the measure was inspired by the 2013 suicide of a Mexican national, Lucia Vega Jiminez. The woman hanged herself in Agency custody in Vancouver nineteen days after she was detained on a deportation order.

“She had border issues, was put in jail – I didn’t know Canada Border Services Agency operated jails in Canada – was denied legal counsel; was denied medical help; was quite despondent and ended up taking her own life in a jail cell in Vancouver,” Moore said. “I just can’t believe that sort of thing happened in Canada.”

“We’re not doing something right here,” said Moore. “People may have immigration problems but they have a right to life, and we should be respecting that. I don’t want her death to go without impact.”

Currently complaints against the Border Services Agency are managed in-house. “We are talking about a system that is not working,” Moore told the committee; “This is not acceptable in a democracy.”