Safety and Security for Canadians

BETWEEN THE BORDERS
How the RCMP is fighting to keep Canada’s borders safe from terrorist threat

BY ANNA NICOLLE

It’s only nine p.m. but, in February, that’s late enough to take advantage of the cover of darkness. It’s dark enough, you hope, that the border patrol on the other side of the river won’t be able to see you load your small boat with illegal human cargo and a large duffle bag. As you push your boat further into the current of St Claire River, you scan the Michigan coastline for the sign that your partner is waiting to pick up your cargo and transport it further into the United States. Off in the distance, you see the truck lights flash once and you steer toward the shore.

It's a short trip across St. Claire River from the northwest tip of Canada's Walpole Island to Algonac, Michigan. credit: Cst Charles Stevens

This is the safest place for you to drop your illegal cargo. There’s just too much territory between Sarnia and Windsor, Ontario, for the police to keep watch on every square kilometre. You look at the nine people, huddled against the cold in the bottom of your boat, one last time before pulling into the shallows. You don’t know why they want to sneak from Canada into the United States. You don’t know what they’re going to do when they get there. You don’t care. It’s an easy way for you to make money and, you think, you’ll never get caught.

Think again, says Cst Chuck Stevens of the Windsor-Detroit RCMP Integrated Border Enforcement Team. Try to get away with smuggling at this section of the Canada-U.S. border and you will likely get caught, tried and sentenced to hard time in a U.S. federal penitentiary. That’s what happened to the smuggler described above earlier this year, Stevens says. A joint force of U.S and Canadian authorities apprehended him, his human cargo and the 5 lbs of illegal drugs crammed inside the duffle bag. Stevens says intelligence reports tipped them off about the smuggling operation. The rest was good team work and good communication.

“In this case, we watched the boat go across and communicated that to the INS (U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services) and U.S. Border Patrol by cell phone,” he says. “They were there and ready to pick the courier up right out of the water.”

Successful arrests such as this are happening more frequently along the thousands of kilometres of wilderness that separate the manned border-points between Canada and the United States, Stevens says. That’s because, in the wake of September 11, a major priority for both countries has been to eliminate terrorist and criminal threats along their shared border.

“In the last year, we have worked more closely with the U.S. Border Patrol, INS and other police forces to build an intelligence base and share information,” Stevens says. “What we have found is, we each have half of the puzzle and we put it all together with each other’s help.”

Last October, the federal government gave the RCMP $59 million to improve national security. Included in that was money for intelligence-sharing and operational technology, and for staff to deal with cross-border, criminal activities. In December 2001, the federal budget allocated an additional $517 million to the RCMP to fund its national security initiatives. The same month, Canada and the United States formally acknowledged their intention to combine law enforcement efforts to crack down on criminal activity at the border, including preventing terrorism under the Smart Border Action Plan. The 30-point plan was put into place in September. The goal of the plan is to ensure the free flow of goods and services across the border while improving cross-border security. It includes issuing permanent resident cards to all new immigrants to Canada, the exchange of fingerprint and criminal records information between the countries, an agreement to jointly freeze terrorist assets and large-scale joint enforcement at the border.

Enforcement at the Border
One of the most dramatic changes for the RCMP that came as a result of the funding was the increase in the number Integrated Border Enforcement Teams (IBET) across the country. With a mandate to enhance border integrity and security by “identifying, investigating and interdicting persons and organizations that pose a threat to national security or engage in other organized crime activity,” the IBET philosophy was perfectly suited to the post-9/11, law-enforcement world.

Prior to September 11, there were four IBETs—one each in British Columbia, Ontario, New Brunswick and Quebec. Today, from coast-to-coast, there are 22 teams covering 15 regions along the Canada-U.S. border. The teams are overseen jointly by six national partners: the RCMP, Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, U.S. Border Patrol, U.S. Customs Service, Citizenship and Immigration Canada and the U.S. Coast Guard. On the ground, the operation is run in co-operation with every law-enforcement agency within that region’s jurisdiction. “People think that we’re out there in marked cars doing border patrol,” says Insp Jean Yves Lemoine, officer in charge of IBET. “That’s just not what IBET is about.”

An IBET is comprised of joint teams of investigators who gather intelligence related to national security and organized crime. This information is passed on to analysts who identify major threats within each of the 15 geographical regions. This information is then communicated to other IBET regions through a shared database. The team brings in the necessary specialists, such as drug investigators or commercial crime investigators, to deal with the needs of that particular investigation.

“The big success in all of this is that everybody from all of these agencies is working together and contributing their information,” Lemoine says. He predicts the number of IBETs will double over the next five years to meet the Canada-U.S. commitment to border security. “We always had a close working relationship with the United States law enforcement but it’s generally been on a case-by-case, incident-by-incident basis. Now, we’re working toward identifying issues of mutual concern and working to solve them together.”

Urban Intelligence
Teamwork is also the buzz word for the other major national security initiative that has helped improve border security since September 11.

The Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams (INSETS), created with the new government funding for counter-terrorism, are a part of the National Security Investigation Branch under the Criminal Intelligence Directorate. Made up of more than 200 investigative and analytical personnel, located in major cities across Canada, the INSETs focus exclusively on investigating and routing out terrorist threats. While INSET investigations are national and international scope, the intelligence gathering and communication networks that exist between the IBETs at the borders and INSETs in the urban centres have also helped improve border security since 9/11.

Like the IBET, Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams are not purely a post- 9/11 invention. Supt Wayne Pilgrim, officer in charge of the National Security Investigative Branch, explains that, prior to September 11, there were National Security Investigations sections in 11 divisions. “We had the investigative and the intelligence collection capacity in those areas before September 11,” he says. “What’s different since September 11 is increased funding, more human resources and, more importantly, a different approach.”

The approach is intelligence-led and integrated, Pilgrim says. INSETS share and receive resources and intelligence with other RCMP operations as well as international, national, provincial, regional and local agencies who are working to counter terrorism. He adds that the other National Security Investigation sections across the country have also adopted the integration philosophy. “This integration really gives us an enhanced enforcement capacity,” he says.

One of the biggest challenges, Pilgrim says, is the lack of shared databases between partners. He says this means information gathered by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service can’t be electronically accessed by RCMP investigators or analysts. “We’re now working together to ensure that we create those networks and those communications links to make the sharing of information first and foremost in everybody’s mind, especially as it relates to national security and terrorism,” he says.

C/Supt Dan Killam of the Criminal Intelligence Directorate says, while the increase in funding and program changes have made a difference to policing since September 11, it’s the change in attitude of the policing culture, nationally and internationally, that has improved security across the country and at the border.

“In the past, police organizations were often very territorial with respect to their intelligence and information,” he says. “One thing September 11 has done is caused people to really assess the way they’ve done their operation in the past. People that would traditionally not be willing to share information are working together. That’s where you see integration and that’s where you see people on the ground actually working together.”

This article originally appeared in the November/December 2002 issue of the Pony Express, the RCMP's national internal magazine.

SEE also: INTEGRATED POLICING IN ACTION
High levels of collaboration continue one year post-9/11