:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. It is an honour and a distinct pleasure for me to appear before you here today representing OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino. He sends his regrets, but unfortunately he had other commitments that prevented him from personally attending here today.
My remarks are based on the collective experience of Commissioner Fantino and me and our many years in law enforcement, working collaboratively with many law enforcement partners, including the fine women and men of the Canada Border Services Agency.
By way of background, the OPP is comprised of almost 6,000 uniformed officers and almost 2,000 civilian support staff who are deployed across the province of Ontario. All applicants for the position of OPP constable undergo a rigorous selection process. This includes various security checks, including the Canadian police information system. Applications are screened to ensure they meet legislative requirements and local OPP policy.
OPP applicants must possess a certificate of results issued by the constable selection system, and all constable selection system assessors are trained and certified. They administer a variety of specific physical tests, and I have details on that if you're interested during any questions.
Successful applicants complete a background questionnaire and are screened by OPP recruiters who interview each applicant on a one-on-one basis. Candidates who pass these evaluations then complete psychological testing of a variety of types, and these tests are scored by the OPP psychologist and either approved or not approved. The psychologist has the option of conducting a one-on-one interview with the candidate should the written testing require any additional exploration.
New recruits undergo a full year of training and assessment by the provincial police academy and the Ontario Police College, or the OPC, as well as a field recruit training officer. Recruits receive extensive training relating specifically to firearms proficiency and safe handling.
Prior to being issued a firearm, recruits undergo 33 hours of on-range, firearm-specific training at the OPC and 16 hours at the Ontario Provincial Police Academy. Recruits are issued a sidearm on graduation day when they are immediately assigned to a field posting and placed under direct one-to-one supervision with a recruit field training officer for four months. The training officer monitors the performance of the recruit for the balance of one full year and submits written monthly reports to a supervisor. Safe and proficient use of the firearm is assessed continuously during this time.
In terms of the OPP's interaction with the CBSA, of course, Canada-U.S. border security is primarily a federal matter, but the OPP does participate widely with the intelligence community as members of joint forces operations, such as integrated border enforcement teams and marine safety enforcement teams. The OPP are also engaged in border security issues through teams and projects such as our provincial auto theft team, our provincial weapons enforcement unit, and the firearms interdiction strategically targeting smugglers--FISTS, as it is known.
Should intelligence information indicate a need, the OPP can mobilize resources to deal with border issues in areas where the OPP is the police service of jurisdiction or when we are requested by another police agency.
The OPP has no resources dedicated solely to border patrol. The full array of OPP resources available to meet a provincial policing mandate are available, as they are for any other issue arising within that mandate, including uniform patrol officers; investigators of criminal investigations, narcotics, and firearms; the tactics and rescue unit; the emergency response teams we have across the province; our canine units; underwater search and recovery; explosives disposal; marine units; aviation services, etc.
The OPP does not have any formal memoranda of understanding with CBSA for emergency response purposes. Except in specifically planned interdiction operations, CBSA officers routinely conduct their daily activities without the benefit of having armed police partners like the OPP readily available for support.
As our first line of defence, they encounter weapons, including firearms, or if they are required to arrest potentially dangerous individuals who are trying to enter Canada, they do so with the training and equipment at their disposal at that time.
If they do summon the assistance of a law enforcement agency, such as the OPP, we will attend on a priority basis and from whatever geographic location our officers happen to be in at that moment in time. In many cases, that response may take many minutes, in other cases a half hour, and in some cases much longer than that. Certainly, an urgent request for assistance from CBSA will be of the highest priority. But responding OPP officers could be many miles away or tied up at another high-priority occurrence that prevents them from immediately responding.
It is our belief in the OPP that our Canada Border Service Agency personnel are Canada's first line of defence against organized crime groups, other criminals, drugs, firearms, and many other illegal commodities that may at any given time be crossing our borders into Canada. In that role, it is important that these dedicated men and women be properly trained and equipped to protect the security of our border and thereby contribute, ultimately, to the safety of Canadian communities. It is equally important that they be properly trained and equipped to protect themselves while carrying out this important mandate.
No one law enforcement agency can protect Canadian communities. It's the partnerships and the cooperation that exist between agencies like CBSA and the RCMP, as well as provincial and municipal police services, that can. It is that collective web that surrounds Canada, the provinces, and the communities therein--from our surrounding borders and into the heart of our many communities--that provides that strength.
When we established the Cornwall regional task force on smuggling and related criminal activity in 1993, CBSA, then known, of course, as Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, was part of that task force, and they were the first line of defence against contraband that was entering Canada through the port of Cornwall. Millions of dollars' worth of contraband liquor, tobacco products, narcotics, and other illegal commodities, including firearms, were brought through New York state into Ontario at Cornwall each year.
CBSA personnel interdicted large quantities of that contraband and apprehended the criminals who were moving them into Canada, right at the port of entry, using their skill and their unique legislative powers to search and seize illegal goods. The RCMP, the OPP, and the Cornwall police then patrolled the immediate area of the bridge into the city of Cornwall. Then the RCMP and the OPP established a further web, outwards, along area county roads and highways leading to the larger centres, such as Ottawa and Toronto, and further points east and west across this country.
Many of the criminals who were smuggling these illegal goods into Canada and then distributing them across Canada posed a threat to public safety, not only through the contraband products they were transporting and selling in our communities, but through their fear of apprehension and the subsequent penalties they would receive, as well as of the potential for significant financial loss.
Organized crime group members and their affiliates were quite prevalent in this trade, and in many cases, the men and women of the CBSA were their first law enforcement contacts at that critical point as they crossed that international line into Canada. Every arrest made by CBSA in that specific operation prevented criminals and contraband from further progressing into Canadian communities. It also prevented other law enforcement agencies, such as the OPP, from having to get involved with these criminals. This, of course, then eliminated some potential for police chases and the subsequent high-risk arrests from occurring along the highways or in the hearts of communities.
If these perpetrators were caught at all, the criminals were dealt with either at that very tense and most critical point of entry into Canada by the CBSA officers, or, alternatively, later, on a highway somewhere in Canada by a police service. However, in the case of CBSA intervention and interdiction, the criminals were approached by unarmed law enforcement officers.
It's interesting to note that my experience in managing that task force was that although the RCMP, the OPP, and the municipal police officers who were part of the task force were all committed to seizing contraband and preventing it from further getting into our communities, it was only a temporary assignment for us. For the most part, it wasn't our normal police business, nor was it an activity that we would participate in forever. On the other hand, CBSA officers were tirelessly dedicated to preventing contraband and unwanted persons from entering this country as an all-encompassing commitment, day in and day out, for their entire careers as public servants. They worked hand in hand with us, often in very tense situations where the potential for violence was ever present, but they did so as unarmed partners.
September 11, 2001, changed our world in terms of border security and community safety matters. The new environment tragically opened our eyes, as Canadian law enforcement agencies, to an increased threat to our safety and security.
As stated earlier, OPP officers on patrol, unfortunately, are not always close enough to the various ports of entry to respond and assist in a timely way.
When the Twin Towers were attacked, the OPP immediately dispatched officers to the various Canada-U.S. border points along the St. Lawrence in eastern Ontario to do nothing but provide armed support to unarmed CBSA officers as they dealt with the potential threat of individuals involved in the attack against the U.S. coming north to enter into Canada.
A minimum of four OPP officers, armed, stood watch to support and protect unarmed CBSA officers at Prescott and Lansdowne as they thoroughly questioned and searched people trying to enter into Canada, 24 hours a day, for a number of months. At the exact same time, at the other end of those bridges between New York and Canada, armed U.S. customs and immigration officers manned their posts, certainly with extremely heightened vigilance, but trained and armed as they always were, even prior to these tragic events.
Once again, the same criminals crossed the Canada-U.S. border day after day, but were dealt with at one end of the bridge by armed U.S. authorities and at the other end by CBSA officers who were virtually unequipped.
In summary, it is the opinion of the Ontario Provincial Police that properly trained and properly equipped armed Canada Border Service Agency officers will ultimately increase the safety and security of those officers, allowing them to rely less on the irregular and at times potentially untimely response of armed police partner agencies when faced with criminals armed with weapons.
Any arrests and seizures of contraband they make at the ports of entry will undoubtedly result in lessening Canada's police services'--federal, provincial, or municipal--need to deal with such criminals and contraband at later points, including on major highways in the heart of communities across Canada.
Thank you.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much for being here, Deputy Commissioner Lewis.
I can maybe add some personal touch to the conversation, because I represent the riding in which Cornwall is situated. I should start by thanking you for the good work that you performed while you were there, as well as for what IBET is doing currently.
Just for the benefit of the other members, I must tell you that, boy, this smuggling situation is a really serious problem. Everyone knows where Cornwall is, unfortunately, because of this terrible situation that we have there.
I was thinking, when Ms. Barnes mentioned a secure place to store these firearms, that I believe we have the only customs building that is bulletproof. The customs building on Cornwall Island is actually bulletproof, so that you can't fire bullets. When I speak about my riding, my situation, one of the best reasons for arming border guards—and I'm going to give you a few—is that everyone is intimidated, everybody in our city is intimidated, by these smugglers; the border guards are intimidated and the smugglers know that. They know that, and they let the border guards know that they have weapons, because the border guards don't have anything. To my mind, that's the best reason for arming the border guards.
It was in Cornwall where somebody ran the border on the American side, the police had been chasing them, so they phoned over to the Canadian border patrol and said, listen, you've got this crew coming through with machine guns, you'd better do something about that. Our border guards had pepper spray. Really, that's what they had. So what did they do? Obviously, they did the right thing; they left, thank God. I don't know if these people were ever apprehended.
The other thing is, when you mention the police chases in the cities, I got a call from a constituent trying to resolve the problem because he had a bullet hole through his picture window because of this very thing, a chase. He said, I've got an 8- and a 10-year-old daughter, and both daughters were playing in the living room probably two hours before that. So those are the kinds of things we live day to day.
Of course, the border guards and their wives come into my office and say, “You have to do something. I was just down at the Royal Bank, and Pinkerton's were down at the Royal Bank, and they'd been at Wal-Mart and picked up the cash that was there, and they had sidearms. My husband is dealing with crooks and he's not allowed to have a sidearm.” So I think there's a lot of things.
Can you see any reason, Deputy Commissioner—and you've lived the experience for two years, so I think you understand, probably better than anyone at these tables—why we wouldn't arm a border guard? I'm talking about the Cornwall border crossing, as an example, having lived that experience for two years.
Mr. Chair, I think everybody has the motion in front of them. I think we're pretty well all fairly knowledgeable on the issue, the incidents that we're addressing in this motion, so I will try to be as brief as possible.
Essentially, what the motion asks is that the government pay serious attention to the three detainees in Kingston who are there subject to security certificates and who are on a hunger strike. In one case, we're into 70 or 75 days; the other two, somewhat shorter.
Mr. Chair, what the motion really attempts to do is to get the government to bring the office of the correctional inspector in, which is there as a standard position to deal with complaints from all other inmates in our federal institutions. Because these three individuals are there subject to security certificates and are in fact there under a very specific mandate, the corrections investigator has not been allowed access to them.
The information we have is that the office is prepared to be involved, but they have to be directed to do so by the Minister of Public Security because it is beyond their normal mandate because of the nature by which the three detainees are incarcerated in the institution.
It's my understanding further, Mr. Chair, that simply by the minister's allowing the investigator to undertake an investigation, the three individuals would then, feeling that they will get some justice in their complaints, stop the hunger strike. All three of them are in seriously failing health.
In that regard, I want the committee to be aware that a similar motion was put forward at the citizenship and immigration committee and passed, but it was significantly amended to give the investigator specific issues to address. I'm not asking for that in this committee. The real purpose behind this is that because security certificates are within the scope of this committee's responsibility, we should be putting forward what our position is with regard to the manner in which these three men are being detained and what should be done to address the crisis.
I and my party feel it's important that we pass that message on to both the House and to the minister.
I'm moving that motion. I understand we have fairly widespread support, but I did want the committee to be aware that it also has been addressed at another committee that has some responsibility for this area.
I'll probably be supporting the motion.
If we go back, it was the Liberal government that decided to move these people being detained under security certificates. Many of them were in provincial institutions, because it was less than two years, but some of them were incarcerated for longer periods than that. I think it was the new government that went about to implement that, to move them to Kingston and set up the operation there.
So I wasn't aware that the Office of the Correctional Investigator did not have that jurisdiction. It seems to me that if they're in a federal penitentiary, they should be covered by that officer.
But what we want to do here, it seems, is end the hunger strikes.
In the last Parliament, there was discussion—I think there might have even been a motion—for members of the committee to actually attend at one of these facilities to witness first-hand what's going on. I think the Minister of Public Safety went to Kingston, but because of legal issues he wasn't able to actually talk to them.
I'll support this motion, because I think that has to be done, but it might be useful to actually go there and make sure that the government has followed through and has put them in a unit, a facility, that is humane and appropriate.
One of the things I would like to see happen—I don't know if it's feasible, but I just throw it on the table—is that if committee members, or some of the committee members, would go, they would go only if the hunger strike was ended. Maybe not make it a precondition in those precise terms; the committee members would like to visit the facility and talk to the detainees, but they cannot do that while they're on a hunger strike. I think the bottom line is to end the hunger strike.
I don't know how quickly the Office of the Correctional Investigator can be given this new mandate, how quickly the government will respond, but it's within the jurisdiction of this committee to decide if we would want to go and visit.
The other part of that, I would suggest, is if there is a will, a desire, within the committee to go and do that, and if they end their hunger strikes, at some point, whether it's before or after, we would like to get a briefing from Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada on these detainees. I know some information cannot be shared because of secrecy, confidentiality, and security aspects, but I know in the subcommittee of this committee in the last Parliament that was looking at Bill C-36, we brought the department to the committee.
There was an alleged Iranian assassin who at that time was being detained under a security certificate. The department actually took the committee through the dossier. Parts were whited out, of course, because it might compromise security sources, but it was as much information as could be legally presented and the amount of information that would come through a Federal Court, and so on.
So I throw that on the table. Certainly I'll support this motion, but the bottom line is to end the hunger strike, to make sure they're in a situation that is humane and reasonable in the circumstances, and that the government has followed up on the intent that was set in motion in the previous Parliament.