Trouble at border: Customs agents warn Senate that security gaps are 'critical'

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Gaps in Canada's border security are so severe that an airport accepts international passengers without on-site immigration checks, a marine border unit has no boat, a computer glitch systematically hides information about terrorists and officers at 62 border crossings are unable to link to a computer to screen incoming travellers.

These are among dozens of security problems documented by front-line border agents and presented behind closed doors to the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence.

Canada's border shortcomings include 225 unguarded cross- border roads; long distances between unarmed border agents and police detachments; the freeing of drunk drivers stopped at major border sites because they are not tested by police quickly enough; and large drug, weapons and cash seizures stored without any armed guards, the officers say.

A copy of the brief, several incident reports and other documents assembled by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) officers' union to push their security and safety concerns were obtained by the National Post.

"A mountain of evidence has emerged that clearly points to critical problems in border security," says a briefing paper presented on Thursday to Senator Colin Kenny, chairman of the committee, by the Customs Excise Union.

The revelations come as Anne McLellan, the Minister of Public Safety, is scheduled to appear before the committee today to address border security.

"Canada has always been seen as a benign environment.... We don't have that benign environment up there any more. These issues should be addressed," said Dan Mulvenna, a retired RCMP Security Service officer who is now a professor at the Center for Counterintelligence and Counterterrorism in Washington, D.C.

"It's downright ridiculous that even today, we have computer systems and watch lists that are not amalgamated and accessible, that the first line of defence cannot access some of the most important databases.''

Among the problems cited by the officers is the fact that Deer Lake airport, on the Trans-Canada Highway in western Newfoundland, is receiving international commercial charter flights from London, despite the airport not being designated as a Customs Service Site and not meeting international airport standards.

CBSA agents there process arriving international passengers in a fire hall, the union's dossier says.

Immigration officers are not present and CBSA agents do not have access to computer databases listing wanted fugitives, terrorists, criminals or others they should watch for, meaning they cannot run live computer checks on arriving passengers, according to the dossier.

The Deer Lake airport recently sought Customs Service Site designation, but was denied.

"Targeting is supposedly done from Halifax while the passengers are in flight," the dossier says. These arrangements for the airport "fly in the face of Custom's own operating and security guidelines," it says.

Other problems cited by the officers include:

- Water but no boat

The Customs Marine Verification Team in Gananoque, Ont. -- in the 1,000 Islands in the St. Lawrence River -- has five officers dedicated to searching boats crossing the Canada-U.S. border and yet has no boat of its own, officers say.

The team enforces border regulations at more than 60 marine sites spanning 150 kilometres, officers say. Pilots of pleasure boats arriving in Canada self-report their presence and the marine team may then wish to inspect a boat or passengers.

However, the third busiest site for such calls is Grenadier Island -- which is not accessible to border agents because there is no CBSA boat in the region.

"We are told that Customs has a standing offer for a free boat from a local marina; local management would accept the offer but senior management in Ottawa has rejected it," the dossier says. "There are also hundreds of unguarded marine locations that are supposed to be fully serviced and monitored by Customs."

- Paper agents

There are 62 land border crossing sites staffed by agents who do not have access to CBSA computer databases, according to the dossier.

That leaves them unable to run live, computerized checks on the licence plates and names for incoming travellers.

A CBSA source tells the Post that concerned agents are forced to find an alternate solution: telephoning their counterparts at the U.S. border post and asking them to run the names of particularly suspicious travellers.

"We're working off clipboards -- flipping paper with lists of names and numbers," the officer said, requesting his name not be published.

"They [on the U.S. side] have full access to the Canadian database, so we usually just call them. We're not supposed to but what else can we do?" he said.

This situation remains despite an announcement in 2003 by Elinor Caplan, then the minister responsible for customs, to "connect the unconnected."

- Computer glitches

Computer database systems designed to warn agents about high-risk travellers are inadequate and contain a programming limitation consistently preventing officers from knowing if they are dealing with armed and dangerous fugitives.

(See accompanying article for details on the errors.)

Even the full CBSA database has problems, according to the dossier: 18 people on the FBI's list of most-wanted terrorists are not listed as being armed and dangerous in the Integrated Customs Enforcement System.

- Drunk drivers go free

Impaired driving cases have been dropped -- after CBSA agents detained travellers driving into Canada under the influence -- because police response time exceeds the legal time limit for admissible blood-alcohol tests to be done, the dossier says and documents support.

CBSA agents administer a test on drunk drivers but a specialized police officer must conduct a follow-up test to support criminal charges within two hours.

On July 24, 2004, a driver was stopped at the busy Peace Bridge crossing in Fort Erie, Ont., after alcohol was seen in the back seat, according to a Criminal Code Incident Report. The driver failed a breath test and was placed in a holding cell while Niagara police were called.

"Due to lack of available bodies and the distance to transport the subject to the Niagara Falls office there would not be sufficient time to perform a proper breath analysis," the incident report says.

"Subject was released."

- No firepower

CBSA agents do not carry guns and rely on police officers to offer the only armed response to border incidents. The dossier says this offers inadequate protection to citizens and border agents.

Not all border crossings are close to police stations.

Last summer, U.S. border guards refused entry to a man travelling from Manitoba who was deemed inadmissible and dangerous. The U.S. officers escorted him back to the CBSA in Windygates, Man., where a lone agent was on duty. The agent immediately called the RCMP, who did not arrive for almost two hours, the dossier says.

"U.S. Border Patrol officers were kind enough to stand by while our member dealt with this dangerous individual on the Canadian side and waited for the RCMP," it says.

Windygates is one of 139 border sites in Canada staffed by only one officer.

The closest police station to the Wolfe Island port, which checks ferry traffic on the St. Lawrence, is an Ontario Provincial Police station in Gananoque; it is more than 35 kilometres away -- and then requires a 30 minute ferry ride to reach the CBSA, according to the dossier.

An independent job hazard analysis, done in 2002 for CBSA management, called for an armed police presence at six of the busiest land border crossings and in some airport search areas, the dossier says.

The six land sites named in that report are Ontario's Windsor Tunnel, Windsor Bridge, Peace Bridge and Bluewater Bridge; Pacific Highway in B.C.; and at Lacolle, Que. The union says the recommendation was removed from the report before its release.

The union says CBSA agents should be armed for border security and officer safety. The government has previously refused them guns but issued protective vests, pepper spray and batons.

Telephone calls to Sen. Kenny were not returned.

A designated CBSA spokesperson could not be reached for comment yesterday.

PUBLICATION: National Post
DATE: 2005.04.11
EDITION: Toronto / Late
SECTION: Canada
PAGE: A6
BYLINE: Adrian Humphreys
SOURCE: National Post
ILLUSTRATION: Black & White Photo: Glen Godwin had a murder conviction that went undetected.
NOTE: ahumphreys@nationalpost.com

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Computer glitch raises border safety concerns: Violent offenders not flagged

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Glen Godwin was serving a sentence for murder when he escaped from California's Folsom Prison in 1987. He soon turned up in Mexico where he was nabbed dealing drugs. That didn't keep him down long; in 1991 he escaped from a prison in Guadalajara after allegedly killing an inmate.

Considered "armed and extremely dangerous and an escape risk," Godwin is one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted fugitives.

Should he cross into Canada through a land border site, however, the computer check by the primary border agent would not flag danger.

All that could be gleaned on Godwin is a benign immigration notation, according to documents prepared by the Customs Excise Union and obtained by the National Post.

His case highlights a programming glitch in the computer system used by members of Canada Border Services Agency who staff border crossings.

Border agents in booths on the primary inspection lines use a computer system called PALS (Primary Automated Lookout System) to check travellers.

However, PALS has the ability to display only a single "hit" for each person, regardless of how many entries are registered against a traveller, the union's dossier says.

Moreover, only the most recent entry in the system is displayed to the agent handling the incoming traveller.

Because the system from which PALS draws its data is completely refreshed each day by linking to Canada's Immigration database, the same immigration entry is always considered the most recent entry -- and is the only one seen by agents -- no matter how old that information is or how important other entries might be to national security or an officer's safety.

"PALS will only return [an immigration] hit to the officer on the primary inspection line with absolutely no other information, including no warning that the person is ... known to be armed and extremely dangerous," the dossier says.