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Demystifying CCRA misinformation about security
spending, post 9/11 “CCRA would have Canadians believe they’re spending millions to increase security at the border but reality is they’ve hardly made a blip on the security radar,” says Ron Moran, National President, of the Customs Excise Union, representing 12,000 members, of whom 3,700 are uniformed Customs Officers. “Essentially, CCRA has thrown money in two directions since 9/11: 1) expensive detection machinery; and 2) dedicated lanes at border crossings and special programs to let what-they-refer-to-as low risk people and goods enter Canada faster. In Customs lingo, that translates into expensive enforcement tools for Customs Officers and a way to save the current compliment of Customs from having to deal with low risk travellers and commerce.” Moran declares, “Enforcement tools are completely useless if there aren’t enough people to use them, if they’re not user friendly, or if their would-be operators haven’t been trained on how to use them, which is, sadly, the case. As for the bottom line, the equipment’s great, we simply need more people to operate it.” To understand the upshot regarding dedicated lanes and special programs for low risk people and goods entering Canada you need to be aware of the fact that the flow of traveler and commercial traffic has grown tremendously over the past 10 years (the number of travellers has more than doubled to over 110 million per year, and commercial value has more than doubled to $1.2 billion per day). Without increasing the number of Customs Officers, that simply translated into Customs management ordering that corners be cut as well as longer line ups and wait times to get cleared when entering the country. CCRA refuses to hire more frontline people to deal with this. Instead, they create special programs and dedicate lanes at border crossings for low risk people and goods. That way, the volume of traffic can go up, but lines don’t get longer and CCRA can keep saying they don’t need to hire more frontline people. “NEXUS, FAST, and CANPASS may seem great for speedy crossing, but they have nothing to do with security. The reallocation of resources from low risk to high risk has not materialized, which was promised when these programs were introduced,” says Moran. Missing in all this? National Security Alert Levels! Are there any? Do they exist? Customs Officers are completely unaware of any graduated system of alert levels in Canada and are not at all clear as to what role they should play during heightened levels of alert. Moran concludes, “It seems we’re letting the U.S. set security levels and when that happens we’re left scratching our heads wondering what we should do in response.” Review the attached Backgrounder, which details:
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