Parliament Wants Border Chief Inspector

By Dale Smith, www.blacklocks.ca

Parliament would see a new Inspector General appointed to oversee all work of the Canada Border Services Agency under a proposal pending in the Senate. The bill’s sponsor said a cabinet-level appointee is needed to scrutinize the agency’s work.

Senator Wilfred Moore (Liberal-N.S.) said regulations enacted since 9/11 have increased the agency’s workload without corresponding oversight. “We passed a lot of laws here that were very sweeping and I think it’s almost taken the time since then for these laws to settle in,” said Moore.

“These people have been operating without oversight since then, and when that happens it creates a culture within that organization,” Moore said in an interview. “They feel like they’re untouchable and nobody is watching them while they have sweeping powers to apprehend people.”

The agency’s 5,600 officers conduct some 237,000 border inspections annually, by official estimate. Management earlier complained of budget cuts that forced reduction in programs.

Bill S-222 An Act To Amend The Canada Border Services Agency Act would see appointment of an Inspector General for a seven-year term, mandated to scrutinize and report on the agency’s investigations; handling of complaints; and information management, including subpoena powers.

“We’ve seen some pretty serious complaints about the agency in terms of some people feeling harassed at the border,” said MP Wayne Easter, Liberal national security critic. “There needs to be some kind of body to which the public, when they feel offended, can challenge those who offended them. It would balance the power spectrum,” said Easter, MP for Malpeque, P.E.I.

Agency documents earlier released through Access to Information lamented the impact of 9 percent budgets, the equivalent of $143.4 million over three years. “This current fiscal year that is finishing was a walk in the park compared to what we have in front of us,”  Camille Therriault-Power, vice president of the agency’s Human Resources Branch, wrote in one 2012 memo. “Our next year or so will be like climbing Everest.”

Cuts to date included elimination of 19 detector dog teams used since 1978; elimination of 25 officers assigned to intercept counterfeit banknotes under a Cross-Border Currency Program; cancellation of multiple passport checks on cruise ship passengers; and instructions to border agents to suspend random checks on narcotics in shipping containers without police notification.

More than 14 million commercial shipments of all kinds cross the border annually.