Evidence of meeting #104 for Public Safety and National Security in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was theft.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:30 p.m.
Capt Allan Gray
The person who packed and declared the goods is the person responsible. However, in most cases, this discovery is only made at the destination port. There's no way to see into a container, other than through scanning.
As I said, if the paperwork has been falsified, as well, you could have a situation. For example, if it says it's a car and the paperwork matches, that's fine. You don't know whether the car was stolen or if the ownership is correct.
5:30 p.m.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
Who puts the customs seals on these containers? Is that the CBSA themselves, or it some agent or some bonded or trusted person?
5:30 p.m.
Capt Allan Gray
It's whoever packs the container or the customs broker associated with it. It's not necessarily a trusted network with customs.
5:30 p.m.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
It seems very important that we be able to identify who placed a seal on it and whether they in fact verified the contents of the container. Are they able to verify the contents of the container, do you think?
5:30 p.m.
Capt Allan Gray
The person who seals it should be verifying the contents, or whoever declares on the paperwork should verify it. Again, in an organized crime situation, there are a lot of trusted insiders, so the person who's declaring could be a trusted insider. Unless you have multiple people in the chain who are testing that process, it could still slip through. That's the nature of smuggling for whatever it is that you're smuggling: It's trusted insiders who are the ones, quite often, responsible for falsifying documents.
Unless you're going to open every container.... It's the same as imports. We don't open every container. We don't scan every container that comes in. It's risk assessment-based. You would have to take a similar approach, a risk assessment-based approach.
The more you can do to validate the security credentials of the people involved in handling the cargo along the chain, the more likely you are to reduce the number of trusted insiders you have in the system.
5:35 p.m.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
I guess that's what I'm driving at, that we need a way to filter the vast number of containers we have that we need to be looked at and be able to identify who is responsible.
Would you see this as a recommendation that we should put forward, that the logistic chain and the provenance of these containers be provided to the ports?
5:35 p.m.
Capt Allan Gray
Yes.
5:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Heath MacDonald
Thank you Mr. McKinnon.
Thank you, Mr. Gray, for your co-operation.
Go ahead, Ms. Michaud, please.
5:35 p.m.
Bloc
Kristina Michaud Bloc Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm going to continue with Mr. McKinnon's line of questioning.
One of the solutions you recommended was better information sharing among partners, the port authorities, obviously, the CBSA and law enforcement. That seems appropriate given that the police officials we heard from said that would be a good practice. They also recommended a review of the security clearance process. Personally, I wasn't aware that Transport Canada was in charge of that, so I asked to have the Minister of Transport meet with the committee to explain how it all works and what can be done to improve the clearance process.
You also mentioned the CBSA's mandate and the fact that border controls are focused more on imports than exports. Even so, the CBSA doesn't inspect every container leaving the country.
Should we change the rules or the mandate of the CBSA? I'm not sure whether we have the ability to do that or whether the agency has the staff it would need. Isn't it a good idea to do just that and pay close attention to exports? Should we do what Mr. McKinnon was talking about and look at who is putting a seal on the containers before they are shipped out of the country? Do we need to tighten the rules around when changes to the manifest are allowed, including the number of hours before shipping, to ensure that changes to the manifest aren't made once the container is shipped? Do you think implementing those measures would be a positive step?
5:35 p.m.
Capt Allan Gray
Yes, I think it's important that most customs authorities around the world are focused on protecting a country and looking at goods coming in. Whether it's quarantine or bringing pests, bugs and other things or illicit material in, their primary focus is about protecting a country, so their resources are allocated that way. I suspect, from a resource allocation perspective, that it would be challenging to take a complete focus on export.
It's co-operation between countries' enforcement agencies that is important. If you're going to try to stop the movement, that relationship with other international customs agencies to say, “Look, we have a problem here of export, and we're trying to get hold of it, but we need your assistance in blocking it at the receivable end” would help, so it's not so much our doing all the work; it's a combination of work. More information along the line and better security clearances will reduce the risk and then make it more able to do, as I mentioned, risk-based assessment; therefore, a portion of the export market could be checked based on a risk assessment.
5:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Heath MacDonald
Thank you.
We want to thank those in attendance today, and we appreciate your testimony.
I have a couple of quick notes.
The subcommittee meeting is on Thursday, and a notice went out.
Finally, the Minister of Public Safety will appear on car thefts on Thursday, May 9, and potentially the Minister of Transport. We're still working on the Minister of Transport's schedule.
With that, we are adjourned.