Canada’s border security is at risk, according to a union president who warns that the federal agency is dangerously understaffed, relying too heavily on phone apps over human interviews, and prioritizing “facilitation” over keeping the country safe.
Mark Weber, national president of the Customs and Immigration Union, testified during a House of Commons’ immigration committee meeting studying the Liberals’ Bill C-12, known as “the Strong Borders Act.” Weber stated that the measures in the new bill would be ineffective unless the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA)’s budget and staffing issues were resolved.
Weber said certain aspects of the bill were positive, including addressing the CBSA’s current lack of access to import and export facilities. He noted that the agency currently cannot conduct inspections on “certain modes” of export and import, such as rail, due to a “now well-established lack” of staff and facilities.
Weber acknowledged that Bill C-12 aims to speed up the refugee claim process and reduce what the government calls “lengthy processing times and backlogs.” However, he argued that the issue would be “far less considerable” if the agency’s “sustained understaffing” were addressed.
During his testimony, Weber highlighted that the CBSA lacks the staff to conduct what he outlined as critical in-person interviews with individuals attempting to cross into Canada. He added that the agency now relies on a phone app called “One Touch” to process refugee claims.
“One touch means claimants spend significantly less time, meaningfully interacting with officers, with the result of reduced security for the sake of expediency,” Weber said. “Interactions between officers and anyone who seeks to enter the country, be they travellers or refugee claimants, are a key component of border security.”
While being questioned by Conservative MP Brad Redekopp, Weber called the “One Touch app” “a terrible thing.” He said it replaced critical security screening done by human agents and that the CBSA was now prioritizing serving migrants and refugees while putting border security on the back burner.
“So essentially, we get tombstone data, we do some biometrics, and the claimant is then allowed into the country to complete their security screening and such on their own through the One Touch system they have,” Weber said. “I believe it’s 45 days to submit that. Meaning, in essence, to speed things up, because we are short-staffed, we’re allowing people into the country without first doing that security screening.”
He told Redekopp that refugee claimants simply use the app to collect basic information and are then admitted into the country.
Weber explained that in-person interviews allow officers to detect fraudulent claims through details provided, prevent “coaching,” determine if a claim is legitimate, and build a file for future enforcement if required.
“That’s where we gain that intelligence, and that’s currently been lost. Not to mention that about 10 per cent never complete the forms through One Touch,” Weber said. “So you figure, with about 100,000 claimants a year, that’s about 10,000 people who are allowed into Canada who just disappear, then it’s our inland officers, who have to find them and remove them. So you’re adding additional burdens down the road.”
He said that asylum claimants currently do not even need to provide a full answer as to why they are applying for asylum in Canada. Weber advocates for returning to a system with enough staff to conduct in-person interviews, suggesting there could also be value in recording these interviews if the agency could do them again.
Weber reiterated that he was testifying in hopes that Canada and the CBSA would pivot back to the CBSA’s original security-focused mandate and away from prioritizing “service and facilitation” in the immigration process.
Weber noted that many members tell him they “would love nothing more than to get back to the mandate of keeping Canada’s border secure” but that they simply do not have enough staff.
He joked that the CBSA “wasn’t at the stage of providing drinks to illegal border crossers ‘yet,'” but the shift in priorities and staffing issues have forced Weber to tell new recruits that they might not be doing the kind of security-focused work they signed up for and are eager to do.