Customs and Immigration Union president Jean-Pierre Fortin arrived on Parliament Hill with stark news Thursday: 1,026 Canada Border Services Agency jobs would be slashed across the country over the next three years, including about 100 intelligence officer positions and 19 of about 70 drug-detecting canine units. The service has more than 12,0000 employees.
Regionally, the Greater Toronto Area is poised to be hardest hit with 124 job losses, followed by Quebec with 118, the Prairies with 114, the Pacific region with 106, southern Ontario with 94, northern Ontario with 37 and Atlantic Canada with 23. Some 410 jobs will also be cut at CBSA headquarters.
Fortin said he was told an additional 325 front-line jobs would also be cut, but officials deny more front-line cuts are coming.
"To be blunt, the cuts that are proposed will have very serious consequences to our public safety and national security," he said, noting he's concerned not just as a union boss, but also as a 30-year veteran customs inspector and father.
"What the government led us to believe about budget cuts not having an impact on direct service provided to our com-munity is wrong. They're misleading us."
Julie Carmichael, a spokes-woman for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, said the government has increased front-line border officer jobs by 26 per cent since coming into office.
"We are now looking at ways to make our border leaner, more efficient and faster for Canadians," she said. "We will keep it open to legitimate travel and trade, but it will remain closed to criminals and terrorists."
The CBSA is losing $143.4 million from its budget over the next three years. While details about the cuts were not laid out in the budget, newly released figures indicate $1 million in savings will be found when the government stops paying the salaries of full-time CBSA union representatives.
"Fortin is obviously upset that we are cutting the $1 million slush fund for big union bosses," Carmichael said. "Canadians don't believe tax-payer dollars should be used for union salaries. We agree."
The CBSA plans to save $5.2 million by allowing cruise ship operators to gain clearance for vessels and passengers once, at their first point of entry.
"We will find savings by reducing unnecessary spending and duplication of work such as cruise ships that currently need to be cleared numerous times instead of just one," Carmichael said. "This is a needless waste of time and costs our tourism operators money."
Carmichael offered little explanation for the 100 intelligence officer cuts that seem to worry Fortin most of all.
Fortin said the cuts represent about half of all CBSA intelligence officers who "have the difficult task of surveilling [and] gathering intelligence critical to intercepting hardened criminals such as sexual predators."
For example, he said, each region has an intelligence officer dedicated to investigating child pornography. He said they were among the 1,151 employees notified that their job could disappear.
"If these massive cuts go through, there will be little, in some cases potentially no investigating or surveillance to keep these criminals out of the country and out of our communities," he said.
NDP trade critic Brian Masse said the cuts were worse than expected given the Conservative government's tough-on-crime approach to policy-making.
"We know from this decision alone that more child pornography is going to get into this country," he argued.
"They're great at trying to market themselves as tough on crime but they're not very smart at it. ... Crime prevention starts at our border and what they've done here is they've opened up another gaping wound and they'll probably open up some more criticism from the United States on Canada and our capabilities at our border."
The Windsor West MP, whose riding includes Canada's busiest land border crossing, also argued new technologies, like the expanded use of automated systems to decide which transport trucks to inspect and biometrics, are no substitute for boots on the ground.
Original Article
Source: vancouver sun
Author: Tobi Cohen
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