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Uneasy at the border

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Canada's once-lax border security has tightened enormously since the 2001 terrorist attacks. But huge gaps remain, as yesterday's 14-page submission from the border guards union to the Senate national-security committee outlines in harrowing detail. It makes for unsettling reading.

And it shatters any lingering hope that the borders are now impregnable.

The 10,000-member union warns that the Canada Border Services Agency has implemented a management plan that sets "artificial numerical targets" for searches. That, it argues, means that "intelligence-based, targeted high-risk searches are routinely discouraged because of the time involved." Even more upsetting, it adds that management bonuses are actually linked to hitting those targets, a link that dangles an "outright incentive" to dis-regard the agency's law-enforcement mandate. In other words, border guards may be processing entrants at such high speeds that there is no time to followtheir hunches and tear apart suspect vehicles.

There were more unsettling charges. The union has complained in the past that its unarmed members, who sometimes perch alone at border crossings, are instructed to wave through entrants who they suspect are dangerous -- and to call the police. They cannot pursue border-crashers, either. But yesterday's submission adds unnerving details. Canada Customs staffs 1,065 sites across Canada, but it knows how far away police departments are at only 114 of those sites.

There are 250 unguarded roads spanning the Canadian-U.S. border, including two in Stanstead, Que., that 250 vehicles cross each month.

And while the union recognizes the value of the current 15 international border enforcement teams that operate away from the border itself, analyzing intelligence data, it argues in favour of a greatly enhanced police presence along the border between crossings, and in favour of arming and training their members.

The union is not an impartial witness. Its representatives are, after all, adept politicians representing their cause. But as committee chairman Colin Kenny has noted, they have supplied his group with valuable, chillingly specific information when Ottawa has shrugged off problems as a few minor snags. The committee, in fact, has often received data from the union that it has been unable to pry out of government.

And that information has prodded politicians into action. Yesterday, Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan told the committee that she has asked RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli to investigate ways of providing an enhanced armed presence at the border. That does not necessarily mean that border guards themselves will be armed. But Ms. McLellan's action, after months of stout refusal, does indicate that the union is becoming an early warning signal.

It is normal and quite proper for governments to set efficiency targets. But it is surely not in the long-term interests of efficiency, let alone security, if the guards are not doing a thorough job.