US embassy cable - 05OTTAWA1780

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 OTTAWA 001780 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR WHA/CAN, INL 
 
WHITE HOUSE FOR HOMELAND SECURITY COUNCIL 
 
DHS OFFICE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS (Marmaud) 
 
CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION (Bonner) 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ETRD, ELTN, ASEC, CA, PTBS, Border Patrol 
SUBJECT:  SPP:  Enhancing Canadian Law Enforcement Presence on 
the Border 
 
Ref Ottawa 0940 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED--PLEASE PROTECT ACCORDINGLY. 
 
1.  (SBU) Summary:  The President of Canada's Customs 
Officers' Union (CEUDA) has made the case before a 
Parliamentary committee that Canada needs an enhanced armed 
presence along the border between official ports of entry 
(POEs), and more generally that Customs officers need to 
have better access to law enforcement tools.  Deputy Prime 
Minister Ann McLellan, who has ministerial responsibility 
for policing and border security, is opposed to the idea of 
expanding the law enforcement activities of Customs officers 
and insists that the RCMP is doing a very capable job of 
policing the border. Post is aware of significant anecdotal 
evidence that supports the CEUDA assertion that there are 
myriad security deficiencies along the Canada-U.S. border, 
and more data will soon be forthcoming.  Creation of a 
Canadian Border Patrol may be one way of addressing these 
putative deficiencies; however, another way would be to 
leverage the presence between ports of entry of U.S. Border 
Patrol and other U.S. law enforcement agencies via the 
objectives of SPP Security Goal 6, Law Enforcement and 
Intelligence Cooperation.  Carefully managed use of the 
CEUDA information may help us achieve SPP Goal 6 objectives 
rapidly. End summary. 
 
2.  (U) In March 2005 the union that represents Canada's 
5000 Customs Officers (including front line uniformed 
officers as well as investigation, intelligence and trade 
officers) the Customs and Excise Union Douanes Accise, or 
CEUDA, began its effort to describe for parliamentarians and 
the media a series of security deficiencies along the Canada- 
U.S. border.  CEUDA's objective for this effort is to 
generate support for the notion of a Canadian "Border 
Patrol" to provide an enhanced law enforcement presence 
along the border between official ports of entry (see 
reftel). 
 
3.  (U) Currently Canada Customs officers only have 
jurisdiction at ports of entry (POEs); they do not work 
along the border between POEs as do the U.S. Border Patrol. 
The responsibility to combat the illegal entry of goods and 
people along the border belongs to the RCMP, a 
responsibility that was transferred from Customs to the RCMP 
in the 1930's.  CEUDA notes, however, that the ability of 
the RCMP to perform this task has been seriously impaired: 
the RCMP recently closed nine RCMP detachments in 
communities along the border in Quebec province, which, 
CEUDA maintains, has exacerbated "a border security crisis 
in Canada."  RCMP Commissioner Zaccardelli's statements 
before the Justice Committee on December 9, 2004, seem to 
support the CEUDA assertion that, while the RCMP has the 
mandate to patrol the border between ports of entry, the 
RCMP does not have enough resources to keep detachments open 
and actively patrol the border in Quebec, or many other 
areas for that matter (see reftel). 
 
4.  (SBU) The information which CEUDA has circulated 
includes alarming statistics (See Reftel) suggesting that 
the Deputy Prime Minister and other senior Government of 
Canada (GOC) officials, such as Canada Border Services 
Agency (CBSA) President Alain Jolicouer, are sugar-coating 
the facts with respect to border intrusions to support the 
GoC's firm position that the RCMP provides an adequate 
border policing presence (see reftel).  In their 
conversation with Emboffs senior advisors to Deputy Prime 
Minister McLellan have dismissed CEUDA's assertions of 
border security deficiencies as overblown and 
inconsequential. 
 
5.  (SBU) McLellan's advisors' assessment may reflect a 
reasonable strategic policy stance to avoid creating a new 
cadre of armed law enforcement officers who will inevitably 
demand higher pay (a danger benefit) and more crime-fighting 
tools; but the reality on the ground is that Canadian CBSA 
officers are full partners with CBP, RCMP, ICE, USCG and 
U.S. Border Patrol along the frontier and none of us can 
afford a weak link.  To illustrate this "weak link" point, 
CEUDA officials told us of a Customs Intelligence officer 
who very recently provided information to an Integrated 
Border Enforcement Team (IBET) about several individuals 
upon whom the IBET was to conduct surveillance.  The officer 
consulted the Canadian Criminal Intelligence database (CPIC) 
and provided the information from CPIC to the IBET.  The 
CPIC information available to CBSA, however, did not 
indicate that some of these individuals should be considered 
possibly armed and dangerous.  Subsequently, an RCMP member 
checked out these people on CPIC, and because RCMP has a 
higher level of access, the RCMP/CPIC information clearly 
noted that the individuals were "armed and dangerous" 
types. 
 
6.  (SBU) The CEUDA official observed that conceivably the 
lack of detail available to the CBSA, which was passed on to 
and used by the IBET, could have resulted in the IBET group 
having confronted the individuals without being fully aware 
of the danger they posed. 
 
7.  (SBU) Comment: We share the CEUDA concern that there are 
significant security discrepancies on the Canadian side of 
the land border.  We believe as well that an infusion of GOC 
resources would be a very positive step.  Rather than 
support the CEUDA call for a Canadian Border Patrol at this 
time, however, post sees clear links between the problems 
identified by CEUDA and the several possible strategies to 
address border security contained in the SPP.  Most of these 
are those contained in Goal 6, Law Enforcement and 
Intelligence Cooperation, particularly Objective 6.2, 
"Increase efforts to assess and defeat smuggling and 
trafficking," and Objective 6.4, "Enhance law enforcement 
cooperation to better address illegal activities between 
ports of entry." 
 
8.  (U) Comment continued:  Post believes that the public 
CEUDA concerns present a rich resource of examples which USG 
negotiators can leverage to push/extract the fullest GOC 
engagement on achieving SPP objectives.  These concerns have 
been documented for parliament, and more will be forthcoming 
as the result of numerous "Freedom of Information Act"-type 
requests that have been made to the RCMP, CSIS and CBSA by 
CEUDA.  Post will follow-up with CEUDA and report to 
Washington agencies on this information as it becomes 
available. End Comment. 
 
Dickson