Home Newsroom 2005 Speeches (archive) McLellan: 2005-04-11

Senate committee on National Security And Defense, Culture, Border Security and Infrastructure

Speaking notes for
The Honourable Anne McLellan

Ottawa, Ontario
April 11, 2005

As delivered

Honourable senators, it is a pleasure to be here again today.

Today I will be addressing the mandate of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada, the measures taken by the government to strengthen our security infrastructure, the integrity of the Canada-U.S. border, and the critical role played by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and other agencies within the PSEP portfolio.

With me is the President of the Canadian Border Services Agency, Mr. Alain Jolicoeur.

I would like to recognize this committee's careful scrutiny of matters that affect the safety and security of Canadians and the confidence of our American neighbours and global partners. Your valuable contributions have helped to produce tangible results.

As the minister responsible for public safety, I should begin by underscoring the significance of Canada's National Security Policy. This policy addresses our national security interests and is a blueprint for action to address new and emerging threats. It puts forward a long-term vision that builds on a chain of successive strengths in public safety and it makes significant progress to identify and close security gaps. The national security policy responds to changes in a complex threat environment, acknowledges global realities and safeguards our rights as Canadians.

I would like to focus for a moment on what I see as the culture change that has been brought to the practice of public safety and security. In December 2003, the Prime Minister brought the RCMP, CSIS, the Correctional Service of Canada, the Canada Firearms Centre, the National Parole Board and the CBSA into the public safety and emergency preparedness portfolio. This has allowed the government to share information at the right time with the right people to enhance partnerships.

Since signing the Canada-U.S. Smart Border Declaration, we have invested over $9 billion in new funds to ensure the safety of our citizens. We need to remember that this is an evolving process and there is still more work to do.

This government believes we must secure our economic future as vigorously as we ensure public safety and national security. The CBSA was created to provide integrated border management to improve and accelerate protection initiatives already in place and to develop more strategic approaches to border security that anticipate new and emerging threats.

Building on the rich traditions of its legacy organizations, the CBSA has become a fully integrated agency dedicated to border management. It respects the rights of Canadians and meets our international obligations to provide border security and facilitate legitimate trade and travel. In the recent federal budget, the government dedicated over $400 million to respond to CBSA priorities and increased demands at key border locations. This funding also will be applied to additional measures to improve the health and safety of our frontline staff; the men and women who work at our ports of entry 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Consistent with a multiple border strategy, we have worked to improve our ability to screen, identify and interdict high-risk persons and goods before they reach our country. We have come a long way in implementing the Canada-U.S. Smart Border Action Plan. We created and are now expanding the NEXUS and Free and Secure Trade (FAST) programs designed to pre-approve low-risk travellers and commercial traffic. Over 75,000 participants currently benefit from the NEXUS highway program. NEXUS Air, introduced late last year as a pilot program in Vancouver, uses iris recognition technology to verify the identity and confirm admissibility of people entering Canada.

We also work closely with our international partners by deploying Migration Integrity Officers overseas. MIOs work closely with airline and local authorities all around the world to share intelligence, detect document fraud and interrupt the flow of illegal immigrants, criminals and persons with terrorist links before they get to Canada.

Advance passenger information and passenger name record programs alert us to high-risk persons travelling to Canada, before arrival. Canada's National Risk Assessment Centre has been in operation for over a year. The centre operates on a 24/7 basis and serves as the focal point for managing and coordinating national and international watch lists.

Our Advance Commercial Information (ACI) program gives us increased ability to identify and interdict dangerous goods and to speed up processing of cargo moving legitimately across the border. ACI requires ocean carriers to submit cargo data electronically 24 hours before the container is loaded in foreign ports.

Budget 2005 provided us with $88 million over five years for Canada to work with the U.S. on the Container Security Initiative (CSI) and to increase the capability of our systems to target and share information on high-risk cargo destined for our shores. The budget also invests an additional $222 million for marine-security-related initiatives in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway and Canadian seaports to protect Canada and the U.S. from marine-based threats. Most of that $222 million goes to my colleague, Mr. Jean-C. Lapierre, Minister of Transport, with a small amount to us.

Our co-operation with the United States is reflected in many ways, including the establishment of RCMP-led Integrated Border Enforcement Teams, IBETs. These multidisciplinary teams are made up of RCMP, CBSA and local police services working with American and other law enforcement personnel at 15 strategic locations along our shared border. We have 23 IBETs but 15 regional locations across the country.

Developed in the mid-1990s, IBETs have produced impressive enforcement successes for both Canadian and American participants, particularly in the areas of contraband and human smuggling. We have recently co-located Canadian and U.S. intelligence analysts in four locations along the border. We are beginning the process of evaluating the IBET program and expect to have tangible, evidence-based results by the end of this fiscal year.

I know this committee is particularly interested in evaluation and results. Are we achieving the benchmarks we set for ourselves, whether in relation to IBETs or other programs? This is clearly something that we are doing more of, but we must do a better job in terms of determining whether we are actually achieving the objectives and hitting the benchmarks of the various agencies and units like IBETs that we have in place.

When I met with former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge last September in Detroit, we made a number of announcements, including a land pre-clearance pilot project at the Peace Bridge in Fort Erie and the expansion of U.S. pre-clearance facilities at Halifax International Airport. We also announced 30 additional CBSA officers to staff the Windsor-Detroit gateway and committed to reduce transit time across this vital trade link. I look forward to working with my new counterpart Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff in relation to these initiatives and carrying them forward.

Considerable work has already been done to develop a security plan to support the broader Security and Prosperity Partnership for North America announced in Texas last month. These efforts will take leadership, and the scrutiny you have applied continues to be critical. You have demonstrated your willingness to work with the government, and let me say that I truly appreciate the fact that your committee has taken up very important work. I am the first to say that rigorous analysis and criticism are absolutely key in terms of achieving our shared objectives.

I underscore the fact that the department is still relatively new. I thank the Senate and Senator Banks for sponsoring the bill that created the department. I was sworn in just over a week ago as the first ever Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. It speaks to the newness of the portfolio. Clearly, the challenges have existed long before the creation of this new department. However, I think the new department reflects our government's commitment, and certainly my commitment, to working in new, more focused and more integrated ways, with key partners — your committee is one of those key partners — to ensure the collective security and safety of Canadians, and to ensure that we are prepared to deal with any emergency, be it man-made or natural.

I look forward to our dialogue, as always. Thank you.