Canada Border Services Agency
Canada Border Services Agency Agence des services frontaliers du Canada | |
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Previous Uniform Shoulder Patch of Border Services Officers Previous Uniform Shoulder Patch of Border Services Officers | |
CBSA Heraldic Badge CBSA Heraldic Badge | |
Common name | Border Services |
Abbreviation | CBSA/ASFC |
Motto | Protectio Servitium Integritas Protection, Service, Integrity |
Agency overview | |
Formed | December 12, 2003 |
Preceding agencies |
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Employees | 12,000+ |
Jurisdictional structure | |
Federal agency | Canada |
Operations jurisdiction | Canada |
Governing body | Public Safety Canada |
Constituting instruments |
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General nature | |
Operational structure | |
Elected officer responsible | |
Agency executive |
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Regions | 8
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Website | |
CBSA Homepage |
The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) (French: Agence des services frontaliers du Canada - ASFC) is a federal law enforcement agency that is responsible for border enforcement, immigration enforcement and customs services. The Agency was created on December 12, 2003 (the same day Paul Martin became Prime Minister of Canada), by an order-in-council amalgamating Canada Customs (from the now-defunct Canada Customs and Revenue Agency) with border and enforcement personnel from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). The Agency's creation was formalized by the Canada Border Services Agency Act,[1] which received Royal Assent on November 3, 2005. Since the September 11 attacks against the United States, Canada's border operations have placed a dramatic new emphasis on national security and public safety. The Canada-United States Smart Border Declaration, created by John Manley and Tom Ridge, has provided objectives for co-operation between Canadian and American border operations.
The CBSA oversees approximately 1,200 service locations across Canada, and 39 in other countries. It employs over 12,000 public servants, and offers around-the-clock service at 119 land border crossings and thirteen international airports.[2]
The Agency oversees operations at three major sea ports and three mail centres, and operates detention facilities in Laval, Toronto, Kingston and Vancouver.
The CBSA operates an Inland Enforcement branch, which tracks down and removes foreign nationals who are in Canada illegally. Inland Enforcement Officers are "plain-clothes" units, and are armed with the same sidearm (PX4 Storm) as port of entry Border Services Officers.
History
Prior to 2004, border security in Canada was handled by three legacy agencies:
- Canada Customs and Revenue Agency
- Citizenship and Immigration Canada
- Canadian Food Inspection Agency
The CBSA was created in an attempt to address issues found in a review by the Auditor General including an inability to share certain security information and shortcomings in inter-agency communication.[3]
On July 6, 2010, CBSA was granted its own armorial bearing consisting of a coat of arms and a heraldic badge by the Canadian Heraldic Authority. The unveiling ceremony was the last function attended by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II as part of her 2010 Royal Tour of Canada. The ceremony was also attended by the Governor General Michaëlle Jean and Prime Minister Stephen Harper.[4]
Responsibilities
The Agency's legislative, regulatory and partnership responsibilities include the following:[5]
- Administering legislation that governs the admissibility of people and goods, plants and animals into and out of Canada
- Detaining those people who may pose a threat to Canada
- Removing people who are inadmissible to Canada, including those involved in terrorism, organized crime, war crimes or crimes against humanity
- Interdicting illegal goods entering or leaving the country
- Protecting food safety, plant and animal health, and Canada's resource base
- Promoting Canadian business and economic benefits by administering trade legislation and trade agreements to meet Canada's international obligations
- Enforcing trade remedies that help protect Canadian industry from the injurious effects of dumped and subsidized imported goods
- Administering a fair and impartial redress mechanism
- Promoting Canadian interests in various international forums and with international organizations
- Collecting applicable duties and taxes on imported goods
Border Services Officer
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5d/CBSA_and_Vancouver_Police.jpg/220px-CBSA_and_Vancouver_Police.jpg)
A Border Services Officer (BSO) is a federal law enforcement officer employed by the Canada Border Services Agency. BSOs are designated peace officers, and primarily enforce customs and immigration-related legislation, in particular the Customs Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act as well as over 90 other Acts of Parliament. Because of their peace officer designation, they also have the power to enforce other Acts of Parliament, including the Criminal Code of Canada. Border Services Officers are equipped with handcuffs, oleoresin capsicum (OC) spray, batons, and are currently being armed with Beretta PX4 Storm pistols. The arming initiative began in 2007 and will cover most officers in Canada by 2016.
Border Services Officers are trained at the CBSA Learning Centre, located in Rigaud, Quebec. The training begins with a 4-week online program called Pre-POERT, and a 18-week program called Port of Entry Recruit Training (POERT) which covers a range of topics from criminal law to customs legislations.
Changes to the CBSA
Since the creation of the Agency in 2003, the CBSA has undergone significant changes to its overall structure as services previously offered by different agencies are now housed under a single banner. Not only has the structure of the organization changed, but the range of duties and the institutional priorities have changed. Where the prior coupling of Canada Customs with the Canada Revenue Agency lent itself to a focus on tax collection, the new Agency was created to address heightened security concerns post-9/11, and to respond to criticisms, mostly from the United States, that Canada was not doing enough to ensure the security of North America.
Substantial changes began before the 2001 terrorist attacks in the US. In May 1998, the Government of Canada passed an Act to amend the Customs Act and the Criminal Code,[6] which changed agency policy to allow the officers to arrest and detain individuals at the border for non-customs related violations of Canadian law. These new responsibilities led to the implementation of use of force policies. Border Services Officers across Canada started to carry collapsible batons, OC spray and handcuffs. The 2006 Canadian federal budget introduced $101 million to equip CBSA officers with side arms and to eliminate single-person border crossings to help officers perform their duties. The decision to arm BSOs has been a subject of some controversy in Canada for several years, but the idea has had the support of other law enforcement agencies as well as the union that represents the affected officers.
In August 2006, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that arming BSOs would begin in early 2007 and would continue over the next 10 years. Some of the first officers to be armed will be those working at the Windsor, Ontario port of entry, the busiest highway port of entry in Canada. Arming at the other Ports of Entry across Canada is being conducted systematically with those Ports considered the busiest and/or most dangerous to be completed first. At this time it has not been decided when, and if, officers at airports will be armed.
Current CBSA Structure
- Minister of Public Safety
- President
- Executive Vice-President
- Vice President, Programs
- Vice President, Operations
- Regional Director General, Atlantic Region
- Regional Director General, Quebec Region
- Regional Director General, Greater Toronto Area Region
- Regional Director General, Northern Ontario Region
- Regional Director General, Niagara Falls/Fort Erie Region
- Regional Director General, Southern Ontario Region
- Regional Director General, Prairie Region
- Regional Director General, Pacific Region
- Vice President, Human Resources
- Vice President, Information, Science and Technology
- Vice President, Comptrollership
- Vice President, Corporate Affairs
- Executive Vice-President
- President
Operations Rank Structure
- Border Services Officer (usually referred to as just Officer) - No insignia, although one stripe is technically allowed.
- Superintendent - 2 standard silver stripes
- Chief of Operations (Commanding Officer of a Point of Entry i.e. a land checkpoint or an airport inspection area) - 3 standard silver stripes
- Chief in a Headquarters (usually referred to as a manager of a program) - 4 standard silver stripes
- Director (Commanding Officer of a District which is multiple land borders or an airport)- 1 gold CBSA pin and 1 gold pip
- Regional Director General (Commanding Officer of a Region i.e. Pacific Region) - 1 gold CBSA pin and 2 gold pips
- Vice Presidents (of operations, human resources etc.) - 1 gold CBSA pin and 3 gold pips
- President (the head of the Agency) - 1 gold CBSA pin and 4 gold pips
Immigration to Canada
The CBSA plays a key role in immigration to Canada, as it has assumed the port-of-entry and enforcement mandates formerly held by the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada. CBSA officers work on the front lines, screening persons entering the country and removing those who are unlawfully in Canada.
As of the end of 2003 there were up to 200,000 illegal immigrants in Canada (most residing in Ontario). Most are refugee claimants whose refugee applications were rejected by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada.[7] There are very few illegal immigrants who enter the country without first being examined by the CBSA. The reason for this is that Canada is physically very difficult to get to, with the exception of crossing the Canada/U.S. border. As the U.S. is itself a prime destination for illegal immigrants, not many illegal immigrants then attempt to cross the border into Canada in the wild. This differs significantly from the illegal immigration patterns in the U.S., which stem from illegal border crossings.
There has been a recent increase in the number of illegal entrants from St. Pierre & Miquelon who travel in makeshift boats. High unemployment in the French colony has spurred this increase, which has been acknowledged by the Government of France. The CBSA and Royal Canadian Navy are considering increased marine patrols to intercept the illegal migrants. While residents could lawfully travel to France, the expensive airfare has made the relatively short 5.5-nautical-mile (10 km; 6 mi) boat ride to the Canadian province of Newfoundland more attractive for destitute economic migrants. [8]
Examinations, searches and seizures
All persons and goods entering Canada are subject to examination by CBSA officers. An examination can be as simple as a few questions, but can also include an examination of the subject's vehicle and/or luggage, more intensive questioning, or personal searches. The intensity of an examination depends on the reasonable grounds that the officer has to escalate the intensiveness of a search.
Examinations are performed to ensure compliance with Customs and Immigration legislation. CBSA officers are given their authority by the Customs Act[9] and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. In addition, BSOs are also able to enforce other Acts of Parliament as they are designated as Peace Officers under the Criminal Code of Canada.
The agency will also seize items it labels obscene, as it did in February 2009 when it detained and banned two films by the adult film director Michael Lucas.[10] The CBSA's Policy On The Classification Of Obscene Material states that the "ingestion of someone else's urine... with a sexual purpose" makes a film obscene.[11]
In the year 2000 after a ten year long controversy over items the agency labeled obscene, the case reached the British Columbia Supreme Court. One judge in the case concluded not only that Customs officials had wrongly delayed, confiscated, destroyed, damaged, prohibited or misclassified materials imported by the appellant on numerous occasions, but that these errors were caused “by the systemic targeting of Little Sisters' importations in the Vancouver Customs.[12]
Secondary examination can at times be a lengthy process and may cause delays to travellers selected for examination.
Intelligence and Enforcement-oriented programs and initiatives
Intelligence
The Canada Border Services Agency maintains a robust and comprehensive Intelligence program, which is mandated to provide timely, accurate and relevant intelligence support to operational decision makers at all levels within the Agency. Information is lawfully collected from a variety of sources, including open and closed source materials, domestic and international intelligence partners, joint operations with other law enforcement agencies, sophisticated technical means, covert surveillance, and informants/human intelligence. Intelligence officers and analysts are deployed within Canada — along the borders and throughout the country — as well as overseas.
The CBSA turns the information it collects into intelligence by using automated risk analysis, analytical tools, and risk management. This allows it to work toward its objective of balancing security concerns with the need to facilitate the flow of people and goods. The Agency seeks to manage risks through a number of means, including the collection and analysis of intelligence information, the use of detection tools, the analysis of indicators and judgment of front-line officers, and random checks.
Threat and risk assessments are widely recognized as valuable decision-making tools when setting examination priorities. The Agency's intelligence directorate conducts a border risk assessment of its border operations every 2–3 years. Under this process, the Agency assesses the risks of smuggling contraband, such as drugs, firearms, proceeds of crime, child pornography, illicit tobacco etc. The information is assessed and ranked by commodity and by mode of transport. The Agency will include the risks of irregular or illegal migration of people, and the movement of food, plants, and animals, now under the Agency's broader mandate, in the next version of its border risk assessment.
The Agency also prepares a national port risk assessment every two years. The Agency assessed the relative risk to 168 ports of entry in 2006 and 220 in 2004. Regional intelligence analysts, in consultation with other sources and port operational staff, complete a questionnaire detailing port demographics, traffic volume, enforcement, and intelligence information. The 2006 risk assessment ranked 23 ports as high-risk and included information on suspected criminal and national security risks, as well as the risk of irregular or illegal migration of people.
In addition to the border and port risk assessment processes, the intelligence directorate provides daily, weekly and monthly updates on specific threats and trends in unlawful activities. Intelligence officers and analysts frequently participate in tactical and operational law enforcement activities such as search warrants, arrests, surveillance, the recruitment and retention of confidential informers, interviews of detainees and the analysis of seized goods and evidence.
Border Watch
The CBSA Border Watch toll free info line offers citizens the opportunity to report suspicious cross border activity directly to the Agency in a direct and confidential manner. The Border Watch line differs from other phone lines for the public, such as Crimestoppers or the Royal Canadian Mounted Police info line in that it is designed to focus directly on border-related intelligence.
The toll free number is 1-888-502-9060.
Smart Border Declaration and Action Plan
The Smart Border Declaration and Action Plan, also known as the Smart Border Accord, was signed in 2001 and is an initiative of the Government of Canada, specifically the CBSA, RCMP and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and the Government of the United States, specifically the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the United States Coast Guard. The two major signatories to the Declaration were Canadian Deputy Prime Minister John Manley and then-US Director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge.
The Accord was set up in order to facilitate the cross-border flow of travellers and goods, while co-ordinating enforcement efforts in the two countries.
The Accord consists of 30 points of common interest[13] to improve both security and trade between the two countries. Included in the plan are initiatives to improve the biometric features of Permanent Resident Cards in both countries, sharing Advanced Passenger Information, and creating compatible immigration databases.
There are four main pillars to the Action Plan:
- Secure flow of people
- Secure flow of goods
- Investing in secure infrastructure
- Coordination and information sharing in the enforcement of these objectives
Canada–United States Integrated Border Enforcement Teams
Integrated Border Enforcement Teams[14] (IBETs) were created as a part of the Accord to consolidate the law-enforcement and intelligence-gathering expertise of different agencies in both countries. The key Canadian contributors to the IBETs are the CBSA, RCMP, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Coast Guard, and U.S. ICE Teams. However, IBETs also enlist the help of other municipal, state/provincial and federal agencies on certain projects.
In Canada, IBETs operate in 15 regions across the Canada-U.S. Border in air, sea and land modes. They are based on a model started along the British Columbia-Washington State border in 1996. Since their inception, IBETs have helped disrupt smuggling rings involved in the drug trade, alcohol, tobacco and vehicle smuggling, and human trafficking.
Detector Dog Service
The CBSA's use of detector dogs began with three canine units at the Windsor port of entry in 1978. The program has since expanded to include 69 detector dog teams located at ports across Canada. Detector dogs work in mail, air, land and marine modes. Each dog is trained to detect specific commodities, and are generally trained to fit into one of three profiles:
- narcotics, explosives and firearms
- currency
- plants, food and animals
Role
Detector dogs provide Border Services Officers (BSOs) with one of the most effective tools in the detection of contraband. Although other tools are available to BSOs, detector dogs are highly efficient in their ability to accurately locate the source of a scent, and thus can save time in labour-intensive examinations of vehicles, luggage and cargo. This speeds up the process for BSOs as well as for the travelling public.
The CBSA uses passive detector dogs, unlike some other law enforcement agencies, which use active dogs. When a passive dog detects a scent that it has been trained to recognize, it sits beside the source of the smell. While active dogs, which bark, scratch, dig or bite at the source of the scent, were used initially by the CBSA, passive dogs allow the officer to circulate among passengers more peacefully, and are considered by the Agency to be more effective in the course of their work. The Passive Dog training was implemented in 1993, and is now the Agency's preference.
Training
Detector Dog teams (consisting of a dog and a single handler) undergo a 12 week training course at the CBSA Learning Centre. The handlers are Border Services Officers, and are trained on how to care for, maintain, and train their dogs. They are also trained to understand the Cone of Scent. Odour particles always disperse in the shape of a cone: more concentrated at the source, and less concentrated farther away. After the initial training, the handler must keep up a training regimen to ensure their dog remains in top form. Only about 1 in 10 dogs who begin the training eventually become detector dogs.
While there is no specific description for a detector dog, the CBSA looks for certain characteristics that make a better potential detector dog,[15] including:
- ability and desire to retrieve
- good physical condition
- alertness
- sociability
- boldness
- temperament
About the dogs
Detector dogs begin training between the ages of 11 and 16 months and work for an average of 8 to 10 years. Several different breeds are used, but the CBSA primarily uses Labrador Retrievers for firearm, drug and currency detection, and the Beagle for plant, food and animal detection. Dogs that are used to detect firearms, drugs and currency live with their handler. However, dogs trained to detect agricultural products live in a commercial kennel as living around large amounts of food full time can cause the dog to become desensitized to some scents. While the dog is at work, it is transported in air-conditioned vehicles that act as a mobile kennel.
The AMPS program, implemented in December 2005, is a system that encourages compliance with Customs legislation through the tendering of monetary penalties. It is used mainly as an enforcement tool on technical infractions, where the subject did not necessarily intend to breach the legislation, but failed to comply in some way. For more serious or deliberate infractions, the goods in question may be seized or subject to forfeiture. AMPS penalties are imposed depending on the severity and frequency of the infraction. Multiple infractions will result in higher penalties under the AMPS system.
Commerce and trade-oriented programs and initiatives
Customs Self Assessment Program
The CSA program gives approved importers a streamlined accounting and paying process for all imported goods. Importers are required to apply for acceptance into the program
Advance Commercial Information
A major ongoing project of the CBSA is Advance Commercial Information, which requires shipborne and airborne cargo entering Canada to be registered with the Agency. This assists officials at seaports and airports in their inspections, and allows for the tracking of suspicious materials. These phases of the project were implemented in 2005, with a similar highway and rail cargo program to follow in the near future.
See also
- Passport Canada
- Foreign Affairs Canada
- Correctional Service of Canada
- American entry into Canada by land
- U.S. Customs and Border Protection
- NEXUS
- CANPASS
Notes
- ^ [1]
- ^ "About the CBSA - What we do". 2006-08-31. Retrieved 2007-11-09.
- ^ "Bill C-26:Canada Border Services Agency Act". Parliament of Canada. Retrieved 2010-01-11.
- ^ Armorial bearings presented to CBSA by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
- ^ "About the CBSA - Responsibilities". 2008-04-18. Retrieved 2010-01-11.
- ^ "House Government Bills". Library of Parliament. Retrieved 2010-02-25.
- ^ Jiminez, Marina (2003-11-15). "200,000 illegal immigrants toiling in Canada's underground economy". Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2007-11-09.
- ^ National Post, 30 December 2009, page A7, "Unemployment on St. Pierre & Miquelon brings migrants"
- ^ "Customs Act, 1985". 1986-02-13. Retrieved 2007-11-09.
- ^ Michael Lucas Implores Obama, Harper to Talk About Porn, AVN News, February 20, 2009.
- ^ Lucas Porn Films Detained At Border, DNA Magazine, February 13, 2009
- ^ http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2000/2000scc69/2000scc69.html
- ^ "Border Cooperation 32-Point Action Plan".
- ^ "IBET".
- ^ "Detector Dog Service".
External links
- Canada Border Services Agency Official site
- CBSA Wanted List
- Smart Border 30-Point Action Plan
- Canada Nexus Border crossing system Educational Video - ID Cards RFID Chips
- Integrated Border Enforcement Teams
- IBETs 2006 Joint Cross-Border Operations
- Chapter 5—Keeping the Border Open and Secure—Canada Border Services Agency
- Gomorrahy.com (Archives CBSA Quarterly List of Admissible and Prohibited Titles.)