SNUD Committee Meeting

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON NON-MEDICAL USE OF DRUGS

COMITÉ SPÉCIAL SUR LA CONSOMMATION NON MÉDICALE DE DROGUES OU MÉDICAMENTS

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Monday, October 1, 2001

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[English]

The Chair (Ms. Paddy Torsney (Burlington, Lib.)): I call this meeting to order.

With us today are witnesses from the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency. We have Mark Connolly, who is the director general of the contraband and intelligence services directorate at the customs branch. Welcome, Mark.

With him are Susan Hague and Michael Crichton, and Mark is going to tell us what they do.

Mr. Mark Connolly (Director General, Contraband and Intelligence Services Directorate, Customs Branch, Canada Customs and Revenue Agency): Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, committee members, for the opportunity to appear before the special committee on the non-medicinal use of drugs. If I may, I would like to make a brief presentation on the role of the customs program in the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency as it pertains to detection and interception of drugs at Canada's borders.

The Canada Customs and Revenue Agency is the first line of defence against contraband entering into Canada. We are the principal federal law enforcement agency concerned with the interception of drugs at the first point of entry into Canada. The customs branch is mandated to provide policies, programs, procedures, and functional guidance respecting the processing of commercial goods and travellers, monitoring and controlling the importation and exportation of controlled and restricted goods, and preventing the entry of prohibited materials and inadmissible persons.

The CCRA—the acronym for Canada Customs and Revenue Agency—is committed to the interdiction of several types of contraband, including firearms, alcohol, tobacco, and drugs. However, today I will address our program specifically aimed at illicit drug interdiction.

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Drug trafficking is a worldwide problem that requires a global solution. In this regard, CCRA has a contraband and intelligence program that works with national and international law enforcement agencies to develop information, indicators, and trends to help to identify suspicious shipments and/or persons before they arrive at the border. Over the past decade, customs officers across Canada have seized over 189 metric tonnes of cocaine, opiates, and cannabis products. In street-level transaction terms, that translates into $5.8 billion.

In order to achieve these successes, CCRA has built a network to support enforcement programs, both at the headquarters and field levels. The enforcement programs are based on strategic planning, risk management, information gathering and dissemination, partnerships, and effective training of personnel.

The contraband and intelligence services directorate is responsible for the design, development, and implementation of strategies in regard to anti-smuggling and intelligence programs. The directorate is also responsible for providing functional direction to the regions on the management of intelligence and enforcement programs. As well, the directorate supports government policies directed at the control of strategic exports and counter-terrorism.

In response to the constraints caused by increases in volumes, CCRA responded with the implementation of the customs action plan to modernize customs processes and to introduce programs based on risk management. The plan will ensure a seamless process for low-risk people and goods, so that enforcement efforts can be concentrated on high-risk or unknown people and goods.

In order to support risk management, CCRA has developed a comprehensive compliance improvement plan. Part of this plan is the border management plan, which establishes levels of examinations at ports of entry, based on risk assessments. Risk is assessed based on national port risk assessments and the contraband strategy.

One of the key ingredients in CCRA's risk management approach is the contraband strategy. The strategy assesses levels of risk to various commodity bases on a number of factors. The strategy also provides strategic direction for the national interdiction effort, significantly increases drug and other contraband seizures, coordinates a multi-dimensional approach to contraband interdiction, and focuses on best practices while keeping ahead of smuggling trends.

The customs branch has a vigorous intelligence program at both headquarters and in the field, consisting of intelligence officers, analysts, and databases, to support our front-line customs inspectors in identifying high-risk persons and goods at our borders. These units are responsible for collecting and developing intelligence and disseminating it to the line officers across the country. The units are also involved in international liaison and exchanges of intelligence with law enforcement partners, both nationally and internationally.

An intelligence analysis program of the customs branch is responsible for developing strategic, operational, and tactical assessments based on research and trends in order to identify high-risk points of entry, commodities, routings, and concealment methods of individuals and groups involved in the illegal import of contraband into Canada. In addition, the customs investigation program supports front-line contraband efforts, as well as the undertaking of criminal investigations related to smuggling and customs fraud. Although not specifically mandated to conduct investigations under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, customs inspectors regularly refer cases to the Department of Justice for prosecution involving alcohol, tobacco, and other contraband.

In the early 1990s, CCRA and the RCMP began to increase their enforcement efforts at the border, in response to the growing contraband smuggling program in Canada. In February 1994, the federal government instituted the anti-smuggling initiative, a comprehensive enforcement program directed at the smuggling and distribution of contraband throughout the country. With more than 111 million travellers and 11 million commercial shipments arriving in Canada every year, it is imperative that CCRA rely on effective risk management and targeting to identify the high-risk individuals, the shipments, and conveyances.

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CCRA maintains alliances with other customs administrations, national and international law enforcement agencies, and external stakeholders in relation to contraband, intelligence, strategic export, and counter-terrorism programs.

CCRA has also built important partnerships with other law enforcement agencies such as the RCMP and provincial and municipal police. We have also built partnerships around the world with other customs administrations and law enforcement agencies, such as the United States Customs Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the World Customs Organization, the Caribbean Customs Law Enforcement Council, and Interpol.

The CCRA supports the concept of partnerships and multidisciplinary units to attack organized crime and criminal activity, including terrorism. The CCRA regularly participates in joint-force operations of both short and long-term duration. The regional task force located in Cornwall, created in 1993 to combat organized crime and tobacco smuggling in eastern Ontario, includes officers from the RCMP, OPP, Cornwall police, Akwesasne police forces, and of course, CCRA.

The integrated border enforcement teams, known as IBETs, constitute a multi-agency law enforcement initiative between Canada and the United States. These teams address cross-border crimes. CCRA and police pool resources on a daily basis with local, state, and provincial enforcement agencies to combine expertise and intelligence. Currently, there are three IBET teams operating, in British Columbia and Washington, in New Brunswick and Maine, and in Manitoba and Minnesota.

The integrated proceeds of crime or IPOC initiative is mandated also to fight illegal proceeds from drug smuggling and certain enterprise crime offences.

These units are staffed with a mix of federal, provincial, and municipal police, and Department of Justice and other government officials. Customs and tax officers participate in this multidisciplinary initiative, enhancing the investigation and intelligence capabilities of these units as they relate to the border.

The CCRA also works with the private sector through the partners in protection program, a two-way partnership between industry and government. The two-way partners sign a memorandum of understanding that outlines ways to work together to stop illegal activities. The CCRA continues to work with the partner and provide guidance on how to spot illegal activity. In turn the importer or carrier provides CCRA with information it may have regarding illegal activity.

The CCRA has been a part of the Canada drug strategy and the international drug strategy. In phase one, CCRA embarked upon several initiatives through the Canada drug strategy that contributed to 12,550 drug seizures valued at over $1.8 billion.

During the period 1992-1997, CCRA also responded. The additional work done under CDS, the Canada drug strategy, contributed to over 18,500 drug seizures, valued at over $4.5 billion.

CCRA is also a federal partner in the international drug strategy.

Customs uses highly sophisticated contraband detection equipment to conduct effective, timely and non-intrusive examinations to assist in the identification of narcotics. We currently have 55 X-ray systems, including baggage, mobile truck, and rolling cargo systems; 50 ion scans used to detect trace amounts of narcotics on almost any surface; 40 detector-dog teams deployed across the country; 67 contraband-detection kits that include a number of useful tools such as probes and fibrescopes; and one submersible remote-operated vehicle used to detect narcotics and other contraband attached to the hull of ships below the water line.

The CCRA places great emphasis on training its customs inspectors in the area of contraband enforcement. A number of specialized enforcement and intelligence courses have been developed and are delivered to customs inspectors both in Canada and in other countries.

The courses range from general drug and contraband enforcement training to training modules on our missing children, commercial aircraft search, commercial motor vehicle search, counter-terrorism, marine container targeting, intelligence, intelligence analysis, strategic exports, surveillance, and contraband detection technology.

The CCRA has access to several enforcement systems and databases, both internal and external, that help customs officers identify those not complying with the law.

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CCRA has built an automated enforcement system that stores enforcement data and records of seizures, tracks look-outs, contains intelligence on ongoing investigations, and information from external sources such as Immigration Canada and the RCMP.

The CCRA also uses other systems at the first point of entry that allow customs inspectors to identify the level of risk of travellers, carriers, and/or drivers.

Another valuable system being used at all Canadian airports is the passport reader, which scans the name and bar code of a passport. Within seconds, the system will alert the customs inspector if the traveller is high risk or if there is suspicion of drug smuggling.

CCRA also has access to police databanks such as the Canadian police information centre, CPIC, and the police information retrieval system, PIRS. These databases are used to collect information on smuggling investigations.

In order to further enhance intelligence and interdiction in the regions, there are a number of dedicated enforcement personnel. RIOs, or regional intelligence officers, work with local police authorities, targeters, investigators and customs officers to identify high-risk movement through the border.

Flexible response teams consist of highly trained customs officers who have been established across Canada to perform monitoring and compliance-verification activities and also sampling stints on travellers chosen on a random basis.

Regional intelligence analysts analyze large seizures to identify links to organized crime, conduct threat assessments based on trends, and help to identify future risks.

Investigators work with front-line staff, law enforcement agencies, and also intelligence officers to investigate the illegal importation or exportation of goods, including contraband.

Recently, under Bill C-18, designated customs officers have been given the authority to arrest individuals found to be in violation of the Criminal Code, with the primary focus on drinking and driving offences, offences involving the possession of stolen property, persons wanted on outstanding warrants, and persons involved in offences involving abduction and kidnapping, particularly of children.

Madam Chair, I am sure you will agree that in the light of the recent events in the United States it is important that we take steps towards ensuring the safety and security of Canadians.

In order to ensure enhanced security and interdiction efforts at Canadian airports, Bill S-23, currently before the House, outlines provisions for Customs to have access to advance passenger information on international travellers. This information will assist Customs to identify high-risk travellers, such as criminals and suspected terrorists, before they arrive in Canada.

Bill S-23 also requires people and airport staff to report to Customs when leaving a Customs-controlled area. Similarly, the reporting of currency and monetary instruments at the border will be imposed under the new Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) Act.

The statute was enacted to assist in the detection, investigation, and prosecution of money-laundering offences.

In conclusion, the smuggling of drugs and other contraband is of ongoing concern to Canadians and the government. The Canada Customs and Revenue Agency continues to be vigilant in its enforcement efforts at the border.

We will continue to develop and implement initiatives that enhance our border controls, improve our targeting of high-risk goods and people, and broaden our intelligence capacity through other domestic and international partnerships.

Once again, Madam Chair, thank you for the opportunity to speak before this group.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Connolly.

You've also attached a number of slides to the end of your presentation. Did you want to take us through any of those?

Mr. Mark Connolly: Yes.

In fact, Madam Chair, what we gave you is a presentation with statistical charts related to our drug interdiction program, particularly respecting trends on drug smuggling.

It's called the National Drug Trends, and what we outline there through a series of pages is the seizures that we've made in the calendar year 2000, the amount of drugs seized, the types of drugs seized, and the major ports where we have seized them. As you walk through these slides...and I don't know if you would like me to take you page by page—

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The Chair: Just top-line them. There's some pretty interesting information there.

Mr. Mark Connolly: Well, in 2000, for example, Customs made 6,444 drug seizures worth $892.1 million. The majority were seizures of personal-sized quantities, but you can see there were several large trafficking-sized seizures that actually accounted for the bulk of that value of $890 million.

It's noteworthy that, on average, the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency seizes over 50% of all the drugs seized in Canada by all law enforcement agencies every year. The primary reasons for that, of course, are that we are situated at the border and very few drugs are in fact what I'll call “resident of Canada”.

On page 12, we have listed what are basically the notable countries of origin and transshipment and the values of drugs that were seized from there. We estimate that approximately 40% of the drugs that are destined for North America, including Canada, transit or originate in the Caribbean.

Marine, which is probably one of our highest-risk areas, is where we get the biggest seizures. Of course, the reason for that is the sheer number of containers that come to Canada every year. The fact is that it's very difficult to find the drugs in containers, whether they are secreted in the walls of a container or in the cargo itself. It's one of our most successful areas for finding drugs, but, at the same time, it's one of the most difficult areas in which to find drugs.

Again, we move through and we talk about airports and the types of drugs we've seized at airports, and the volumes again. On the air side, probably our biggest problem is what we call internal conspiracies. That's where people in a foreign country align themselves with a confederate in Canada who is an airport employee—an employee of an airline, a cleaner, a groomer of an aircraft, a baggage handler, or someone who works within the airport proper—in order to facilitate the movement of drugs into Canada.

On the land border between Canada and the United States, you'll note there is not a significant amount of drug seizures. In fact, most of the drugs seized on the land border are personal quantities.

As we move through, there are several statistical charts, as well as bar charts and pie charts, that talk about the actual different drug types. They show you the amount of heroin seizures over a period of ten years, the amount of cocaine seizures in the past ten years, and once again we address where we primarily make these seizures. For example, almost three-quarters of cocaine is seized from air passengers and in air cargo.

We then talk about cocaine seizures and the country of origin or transshipment. You'll note from that particular pie chart on page 16 that a great percentage of the cocaine seizures, as I mentioned earlier, come through the Caribbean area. Of course, that doesn't mean the Caribbean countries are involved in the smuggling. It just means the Caribbean is in fact a transit point.

Our largest volume-type seizures are normally hashish. I've been in a number of fora in which the Americans quite often ask us why hashish is so popular in Canada. Unfortunately, I don't have an answer for that.

The Chair: Or fortunately you don't have an answer.

Mr. Mark Connolly: But the fact is that we do get large seizures of hashish. We can usually count on one fairly significant container-sized seizure of hashish every year.

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Again, it just goes through each, into marijuana, and the number of marijuana seizures that were made. You'll note that about 60% of the seized marijuana came again via the air passenger and air cargo streams. You'll also note that the amount of marijuana seized is not as significant—it's about 1.2 tonnes, worth about $17.7 million—as compared to other drugs that are seized.

On page 19 we talk about ecstasy. That's probably the fastest growing drug we've seen. We've seen a trend in the last few years of more and more ecstasy being imported into North America, both into Canada and into the United States. We've had some fairly significant seizures of ecstasy. Certainly, in the year 2000 the number of doses rose dramatically over previous years. You'll note on the chart that in 1999 we seized about 361 doses, and then in the year 2000 we seized over 2 million. So it's growing; it seems to be a popular drug at this time.

We talk about other drugs, which are MMDA, LSD, PCP. We just categorize most of those chemical drugs into one area.

In our outlook for 2000, of course, we try to forecast for future years, and each year we do prepare a contraband threat risk assessment, trying to identify the high-risk areas and where we should put our resources for the year. In fact, from our outlook in 2000 we believe that this year we will probably again have a fairly significant year for drug smuggling. That said, of course, since the tragic events of September 11 we have been focusing a lot of our efforts on the other part of our business. I'm not saying we're not focusing on drugs, because we are, but we have not seen a lot of significant drug seizures since the first part of September.

Then we've laid out in chart form near the end of the document the significant seizures by drug type again, the modes of transportation on a subsequent page, and then the country of origin for significant drug seizures for the calendar year 2000. That's how we end the paper.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

We'll now go to questions. Before we do that, I did want to say thank you for responding to our request to come before the committee so quickly, especially given that you've been busy trying to deal with a number of issues after September 11. We do appreciate your taking the time to come before us. You are the first witnesses for this committee.

I suggest that we start with seven-minute rounds and see how we do.

Mr. White.

Mr. Randy White (Langley—Abbotsford, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Madam Chair.

Welcome to the three of you.

The numbers seem impressive, but most people I talk to in the business out there—and I do talk to a lot of them—say that's only a very small amount of the drugs that come into Canada. Can you comment on that?

Mr. Mark Connolly: I guess if I had a crystal ball, I would be able to tell you the total amount of drugs coming into Canada. For a number of years we, with our partners, have estimated that the market for drugs in Canada ranges somewhere between $7 billion and $10 billion a year. But without knowing how much is coming in, it's really difficult to say what dent our successes would make in the drug trade. It would almost be the same question as asking me how many running shoes are smuggled into Canada every year. I wouldn't be able to tell you that either. I'm not trying to equate running shoes with drugs by any stretch of the imagination, but it's difficult. As I say, we and our partners believe it's somewhere between $7 billion and $10 billion annually.

Mr. Randy White: Okay.

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Most reports one reads from across the country concern seizure by weight, but weight is primarily bundled marijuana. The damage, however, is done by heroin and cocaine. So is there enough emphasis put on the heroin business, trying to get it in proportion, with the public looking at it and saying, well, gee, they have 147 tonnes, but that pales in comparison to the addiction from a few pounds of heroin, for instance. Do you know what I mean?

Mr. Mark Connolly: Yes, exactly. We try to measure drugs in a number of ways. Street value, obviously, is one way, though not necessarily the best way, because the price can vary in different places within Canada. We measure certain drugs by doses. The way we try to report it today, when we take drugs off the street, if we're able to, is in terms of the harm it will do to Canadians. You're quite right with respect to heroin, it does have a fairly damaging effect on individuals, as does cocaine, particularly crack cocaine. I'm not really sure what the best way to report it is. We try to report it in as many ways as we can, but clearly the harm is one factor that has to be taken into consideration.

Mr. Randy White: This committee is responsible for taking some fairly significant recommendations, I would say, to the House of Commons, which truly haven't been there at all in respect of heroin and cocaine. I'm wondering whether from your department's point of view you have any suggestions as to what areas this committee could look at in terms of CCRA. If the CCRA had a wish list for the House of Commons in regard to drugs, what would be on it?

Mr. Mark Connolly: That's a good question. There are a number of initiatives under way, particularly Bill S-23, now in the House. In that bill, of course, and in our customs action plan there are a number of initiatives to counteract the contraband problem and security problems at our borders. Technology, of course, is always something we look at. Technology can be very expensive, depending on the type of technology you buy. A contraband X-ray for cargo containers can range in price from $5 million to $40 million, depending on the type of X-ray you're buying and the quality of the X-ray. So technology is always one area.

Better information, better access to systems, these are all things, of course, that the government is working on as well, and we do work very closely with our partners to improve systems and to improve communication.

I think it's also important to note that we're only one side of the equation. We're attacking the supply side, the drugs coming into Canada, and of course, there's another side to the equation, which is the demand side, a matter for public education. We play some roles in that. Our department does have a program where people go out and speak to school children, our dog program particularly, where we do dog demonstrations and so forth. I think we shouldn't, and we don't, forget that there is a supply and demand side of the problem.

I think technology, better information systems, the advance passenger information system, which is part of our Bill S-23, are very important to us. I think having good information on shippers, cargo, vessels, and conveyances that are coming to Canada, having access to that information, either from a legislative point of view or from a technological point of view, will go a long way to helping us improve our program.

Mr. Randy White: What if we simplified it all and legalized marijuana and heroin and cocaine and ecstasy, and we said, you guys just let it through and we'll put it into packages? What do you think of that?

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Mr. Mark Connolly: Well, I don't know. Really, my job is to uphold the law. That's what my responsibility is. If the government chooses to change the law, then I will act accordingly.

Mr. Randy White: Let me put it another way. If we legalized that sort of thing, would there still be contraband at the borders?

Mr. Mark Connolly: We classify contraband not necessarily just as drugs. There's other contraband, as well.

Mr. Randy White: I'm speaking specifically of drugs. For instance, if we legalized marijuana in packages, like cigarettes, would you still get a marijuana trade at the borders, through the borders—or heroin or cocaine?

Mr. Mark Connolly: I'm not sure I can answer that question.

Mr. Randy White: You won't, or you can't?

Mr. Mark Connolly: I'm not sure I can. In order to answer that question, I would have to have quite a bit of knowledge as to what the law would be and how that law would impact on the international movement of people and goods.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. White.

We now go to Monsieur Ménard, s'il vous plaît.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard (Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, BQ): Thank you.

My first question deals with the figures contained in page 11 of your document. As regards drug seizures, the ports, especially ports in large cities, are used as routings and for transit. Moreover, there have been reports on this topic. I do not know if you have seen them. Last summer, television reports dealt specifically with the Port of Vancouver and the Port of Montreal.

Do you have any information for this committee on the very specific situation linked to routings through the ports? Is there new technology that could be acquired? What can you tell us specifically on the issue of transshipment through the ports, especially ports in large centres like Montreal?

[English]

Mr. Mark Connolly: Thank you.

Yes, marine ports are obviously one of our areas of highest risk for the importation of drugs. I mentioned earlier that the sheer volume or number of containers and vessels that come into Canada makes it very difficult for customs inspectors to find drugs.

Obviously, the other issue that deals with our ports of entry is the vast size of them. For example, at the port of Montreal, there are approximately 35 to 50 kilometres of areas where ships can arrive at Montreal and where cargo can be offloaded. There is a significant amount of paper, documentation, and systems that have to be checked in order for us to be successful in our targeting. It's looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack.

As I say, there are quite a few containers. We can examine approximately 2% of the containers that arrive at a port of entry.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: Who is responsible for implementing detection technology specifically in the ports, the port authorities or your agency?

[English]

Mr. Mark Connolly: The Customs Act does outline the requirement for ports of entry—and airports, of course—to provide us with facilities to carry out our work and to conduct our examinations. Technology is not necessarily the responsibility of the ports in terms of having them purchase the technology for us. However, we are interested in partnering with the ports, with other government departments, and with the private sector, in order to ensure the efficient movement of cargo through their ports. In some cases, there has been an expressed interest in partnering with the federal government in providing technology that will allow us to complete our examinations quickly and efficiently, while allowing them to move their cargo through their ports a lot more quickly at the same time.

So there are advantages to having the ports authorities working with us, and there are advantages for Customs as well.

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[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: My third question deals with the number of seizures. My colleague reminded us that in terms of volume, the drugs that are seized represent a very small proportion of the drugs that are actually in Canada. In terms of successful drug seizures and interceptions, do you have any idea how Canada ranks in comparison with other countries, especially comparable countries? Are we a bit more successful than other countries in intercepting and seizing drugs? Do you have any comparative data?

[English]

Mr. Mark Connolly: I don't have any comparative data with me, but we can look to get some for the committee if it desires to see some comparative data.

Again, it's a question of what you are measuring success against. You would have to speculate or guess. For example, if we wanted to compare ourselves to the United States, we would have to have an idea of what we were comparing. In other words, how many seizures do they make? I'm not sure they have a comprehensive database that would give us that information, because of the number of police forces domestically within the United States and the federal agencies that are involved in drug interdiction.

But let's say that data did exist. Again, what would you compare it to? You would have to know the amount of drugs going into a particular country. I would like to think the consumption of drugs in Canada is less than in other countries, but I can't say that with any certainty. I don't know that answer. I do know that, as I said earlier, our estimate is $7 billion to $10 billion, and we're getting probably 10% of that.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: I would like to ask one final question, if I may.

You say that as an organization, you have access to police data on investigations. You talked about co-operation with the RCMP. You have access to the various police force data centres. For example, when a major police force, like the RCMP or the MUC Police Force, identify a connection, conduct an investigation and use different means, such as infiltration and so on, are you made aware of the situation quickly? Tell us specifically about the means of co-operation that exist between your agency and the various police forces.

[English]

Mr. Mark Connolly: We have very good cooperation with other police forces. The RCMP in particular, along with the Sûreté, the MUC in Montreal, the Ontario Provincial Police, and other major police forces, regularly provide us with information on targets, on individuals, on shipments, or on vehicles that are suspected to be smuggling contraband into Canada. Similarly, when we make seizures through what we call “cold hits” at the border—those are ones for which we haven't had information, it's just that we come across the drugs through the course of our duties—we also share that information with the police in order that they can undertake further investigations.

Our cooperation is very good. It's not often that we will stumble onto an investigation already underway. That does happen from time to time, but normally the issue is quickly dealt with and the originating organization in the investigation continues on with our cooperation, if it's another organization, or other organizations cooperate with us if it's our organization.

We have memoranda of understanding with the RCMP, and we have a good relationship with them. They are normally the police of jurisdiction when we're dealing with drugs. However, that does vary in different parts of Canada.

[Translation]

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Ménard.

[English]

Before I go to Ms. Davies, can I just clarify that you think the market in Canada is $7 billion to $10 billion annually?

Mr. Mark Connolly: That has been our estimate and that of other law enforcement agencies for some time. That's what we believe it to be.

The Chair: And you think you interdict 10% of that.

Mr. Mark Connolly: Based on the seizures we have, it's approximately 10%.

The Chair: And would some of those $7 billion to $10 billion have been manufactured in Canada?

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Mr. Mark Connolly: Yes, some of that $7 billion to $10 billion will have been manufactured in Canada. But, on average, if we look back over the past, we have had good years and bad years. One year we had more than $1 billion in seizures. Last year we had $891 million. In other years, we've had half a billion dollars. So it varies, and, again, that's why I wouldn't know what the number of drugs manufactured in Canada is. So when I say 10%, I'm only looking at the numbers we have compared to that of what we estimate the size of the problem to be.

The Chair: Okay, thank you.

Ms. Davies.

Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chair.

First of all, thank you very much for coming today. From time to time, we see TV programs or media reports of fairly sensational seizures of various drug types. People may feel we're making progress in interdiction, but I think the figures you have provided today show that basically 90% of the estimated drugs coming into Canada are going unseized, that they're going into the black market. That's something to be very concerned about.

I do note that you say you had a banner year for a number of drug types in 2000, but I guess that's all relative. I think one of the questions this committee will, I hope, grapple with is really what the true financial and social costs of Canada's drug policies are. Do we do any cost-benefit analysis of the work that's being done in terms of either stopping addiction, reducing the harm of addiction, or actually stopping the drugs coming in? From the information you've presented today, I get the feeling that work hasn't been done.

Basically, you estimate that we're seizing less than 10% of what's coming into the country. I'd be curious to know what percentage of your enforcement budget is actually going towards that. How much money are we putting out to do that? That's one question.

Secondly, I'm curious to know what kind of relationship we have with, for example, the DEA. There have been various criticisms by the State Department even about decisions rendered by Canadian judges or about the fact that Canada is soft on drugs. We see statements every now and again from the DEA criticizing Canada. So I'm curious to know what kind of access they have to our systems. How far does cooperation go? How much are they into our enforcement system in terms of information sharing, joint efforts, or anything else that might be underway?

Mr. Mark Connolly: There are a lot of questions in there, and I'll try to answer as many of them as I can.

First of all, when we say $7 billion to $10 billion, again, that's an estimate. There are no hard and fast figures that say it's $7 billion to $10 billion. We try to determine those numbers through the street price of drugs—what people are paying for drugs on the street—the number of arrests that are made, what people tell us, and statistics that are produced by Health Canada with respect to drug addiction. There's a lot of information out there, and we try to gather as much of that as we can when we're trying to determine through our analytical program where we should target, where we're soft, or where we need to strengthen our enforcement programs.

So when I say 10%, that's the 10% we get. There's still another 50% that is the 10% somebody else gets, meaning all the other police forces. So are we getting 20%, or are we getting 30% or 40%? I suppose that depends on the amount of drugs coming in during that particular year. It's really hard to get a handle on that.

From a cost-benefit point of view within the CCRA, we believe we are focused on high risk. We have a multitude of mandates for other government departments to perform as well for things we have to protect against at the border, such as hoof and mouth and other diseases. So we have a multitude of roles to play.

We believe that by focusing our efforts through targeting and through risk management, we're able to concentrate resources in the right areas to combat drugs. But it's a difficult job.

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Ms. Libby Davies: Can you put some figures to that? In terms of your overall enforcement, I know you have a number of areas, but what percentage or what monetary value of your budget is actually going toward drug seizure and enforcement through that mechanism?

Mr. Mark Connolly: I'm not sure I could do that, but I could try. Every customs inspector who works at the border has a mandate to interdict drugs, of course. Now, whether every customs inspector will through the course of a day, or whether he'll have an opportunity to examine or search for drugs, depends on where he's located and what his duties and assignments are for that particular day.

We don't track. We have our specialized resources, absolutely. We can give you the numbers on the amount of intelligence officers we have, on the number of investigators, on the number of specialized teams—such as flexible response teams and things of that nature—and on our special marine groups. We have numbers on those. But for customs inspectors, it's difficult to say. If I was asked to speculate—and it would only be speculation, I would say probably at least a quarter of the time of our regular, uniformed staff is spent on contraband activities.

I can give you some numbers with respect to the size of our organization—and I think they're on page 3 in the document. We have 3,600 uniformed officers. There are roughly 425 ports of entry, including our land border operations, airports, vessel clearance stations, and rail sites. Of course, it talks about the amount of travellers and commercial releases that we've processed, the trade, imports and exports, the amount of shipments, etc.

Ms. Libby Davies: Do you think you could come back to us with a figure or an estimate of what the agency is putting out in terms of an enforcement effort, a monetary value?

Mr. Mark Connolly: We can try to do that.

Ms. Libby Davies: Okay.

And on the question about the relationship with the DEA...?

Mr. Mark Connolly: The DEA is just one of a number of partners we have. They're not our principal partners in the United States. The United States Customs Service is our principal partner in the United States. We deal with them on a regular basis. In fact, we have the Canada-U.S. shared border accord, under which we have a number of working groups and a number of initiatives underway with the U.S. Customs Service.

Our role with the DEA is simply this: from time to time they exchange information with us and we exchange information with them, or it's passed through. Sometimes we get the information from the DEA through the U.S. Customs Service. So the DEA is really just another organization that we exchange information with. We do not undertake any joint operations with the DEA.

Ms. Libby Davies: Just as a brief follow-up, one of the things I'd heard, actually—and this is just a general question—was that the Auditor General was going to be doing some sort of cost-benefit analysis of various departments. I don't think the CCRA was one of them, unless you are aware of something.

Mr. Mark Connolly: Not that I'm aware of, no.

Ms. Libby Davies: That's actually information that I would like to try to get for the committee, whether or not the Auditor General is looking at Justice or Corrections in terms of some sort of cost-benefit analysis of their drug strategies and enforcement policies. Maybe we could find that out.

The Chair: I understand he's reporting in December.

Ms. Libby Davies: To the committee?

The Chair: To the House of Commons.

Ms. Libby Davies: Okay.

The Chair: Thank you.

In terms of the budgeting as well, perhaps Mr. Crichton could tell us what his budget is for the intelligence side of it.

Mr. Michael Crichton (Manager, Intelligence Development and Field Support Section, Canada Customs and Revenue Agency): This year, my budget is around $525,000, and that is just for the headquarters component. I can't bring in all the dollars that are budgeted to our regional organizations.

The Chair: Okay.

I have Mr. Lee, please.

Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough—Rouge River, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair. I also wanted to thank the House of Commons administration for the new chairs.

The Chair: I know. Aren't they great? It was noted last week.

Mr. Derek Lee: I want to put that on the record, because I wasn't here last week. They're very comfortable, and they're better than the old hardware.

Anyway, I'm on the same wavelength as Ms. Davies in terms of cost. I think it's something a lot of the members would like to get a handle on, but I realize you wouldn't be prepared now to be really specific about the costs.

In our pre-hearing briefing materials, there was a study presented to us that was completed in 1992, which, based on their information gathering, estimated the costs paid by Customs and Excise, as it was called then. They estimated that $9 million a year was attributable to drug seizure, drug enforcement, and the cost of administering illegal drug contraband seizures, etc. So that's a starting point, but that was nine years ago.

• 1625

In allocating its resources, your department doesn't look at the harmful impacts on society when you decide you really want to seize more of this or that or some other thing. How would you decide, for example, that you would allocate 5.5% of your budget to drug contraband as opposed to alcohol contraband or firearms contraband? Do you make that kind of value judgment when you do your budgeting?

Mr. Mark Connolly: Yes, we do. In fact every year we do a contraband risk assessment. In that risk assessment we do look at harm. We look at a number of factors, including the location of where the contraband is coming in. How is it coming in, and who's bringing it in? We look at the knowns, and we look at harm.

Mr. Derek Lee: How do you measure the harm?

Mr. Mark Connolly: We measure harm through a number of factors. But perhaps Mr. Crichton can answer this question for you; he's involved in developing those hypotheses.

The Chair: Mr. Crichton.

Mr. Michael Crichton: Yes, I can answer the question, Mr. Lee.

When we look at harm, we look at the harm caused to Canadian society in terms of premature deaths and the breakdown of family and social values. We look at the cost to the economy, at hospital costs caused by the use of drugs, and at criminality. For instance, does the use of drugs in Canadian society lead to more armed robberies? Does it put our citizens at more risk?

So we do take that into account, yes.

Mr. Derek Lee: Okay.

I should cite this study for the record. It was prepared by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse, and it's in the briefing materials. Our researchers will have more information on the actual sources.

It's a striking report. As I read it, the costs to society attributable to alcohol and tobacco are quadruple, are ten times and more, the costs associated with illicit drugs. If you were to use the template of costs of harm that were used by this particular study, then you would be devoting only a minuscule portion of your resources to drug contraband. You'd really be going after the alcohol and you'd really be going after the tobacco, because these commodities are wreaking billions and billions of dollars of demonstrable havoc on our society, based on the study I've just referred to.

So I would be interested to know how you quantified the harm as opposed to just listing generic harm. If your department has been able to do it, did you generate the numbers to measure the harm or did you borrow a template from another department or other works on the subject? If you have that, it would be helpful to me in understanding your department's value judgment on the degree of harm, the relative harm, that you regard illegal drug contraband as generating. Would that be possible? Or does that go outside your envelope as simple law enforcers dealing with contraband in running shoes and things like that?

Mr. Mark Connolly: I'll try to answer the question, Mr. Lee, although it does go outside our mandate somewhat.

We do “borrow” information, if you want to use that term. We do work with our partners—Health Canada is one of them—to gather information in order to accomplish the risk assessments we do each year.

• 1630

There are two things I'd like to point out. The very first thing is that our contraband efforts are just that, contraband efforts. We try to give weight, through our contraband strategy each year, to those issues or commodities based on a number of factors—including economic factors, because these play into it as well. We also have to take into consideration that alcohol and tobacco are high-tax commodities. They're not illegal, and the drugs we deal with are illegal. Obviously that comes into focus when you're dealing with law enforcement.

The second point I wanted to go back to was the point on contraband. When we deal with contraband we don't break down how an officer's time or a dollar is spent on drugs, alcohol, or tobacco, individually for each commodity. Often they're interrelated, but we deal with it all as a contraband activity. Tobacco taxes were very high before the introduction of the anti-smuggling initiative. Once the anti-smuggling initiative was put into place, people didn't quit smuggling; they went on to new commodities, whether firearms, drugs, or something else. So we deal with the contraband as an entity.

Mr. Derek Lee: Okay, that's great. Are you going to make an attempt to quantify the dollars your department puts into the drug seizure envelope? Are you going to make an attempt to do that, although you may not—

Mr. Mark Connolly: We will try to do that. But I think what we will be able to do, really, is tell you what we put into the contraband envelope and give you an idea of what our priorities are on contraband. We can do that, and in fact this report does that somewhat as well.

Mr. Derek Lee: Okay.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you. Carol.

Ms. Carol Skelton (Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, Canadian Alliance): I would like to know, after being in Nova Scotia this weekend and watching a large container ship come in, how many officers you have, offhand, at the three major ports of entry, Halifax, Montreal, and Vancouver. Do you have those figures?

Mr. Mark Connolly: We would have to get that figure and report back to the committee.

Ms. Carol Skelton: I'd like to know that.

When I watched, there were three officers going to board the ship, and there were no sniffer dogs. I notice you have 40 sniffer units in the country. Is that correct? You have 40 officers with sniffer dogs. Where are they located, basically? Are they in airports, or container ports, or where are they?

Mr. Mark Connolly: In our detector-dog program, we have 40 dogs at various locations across Canada. But they're used at virtually all the locations, right from postal to marine facilities. The dogs are mobile: each dog handler has a vehicle, and the dogs are trained to detect not only narcotics, but firearms and explosives as well. So we use those dogs at various locations. We basically move them around as the need arises.

With respect to resources, it's not unusual that you would see three customs inspectors boarding a vessel, because they may only have been going on board to take the report and do a cursory review of documentation and other things.

Prior to the vessel being off-loaded, a number of targeters, and intelligence officers in some cases, are doing an analysis of the documentation that surrounds the cargo or the containers on that vessel to try to make the determination, to pick that needle out of the haystack, and to pick that container that needs to be examined. It's only once the containers are off-loaded that we move them to our facility to do examinations.

As for the vessels themselves, we get advance notice of vessels arriving and their cargo coming into Canada. We make a determination, based on a number of checks we make, as to whether we want to see the crew and whether there are members of the crew we want to muster. It's called a crew muster. Do we want to look at their cabins, or things of that nature? Do we want to do what we call a complete rummage of a vessel? That means, do we want to search the vessel? Do we want to do a deep rummage of the vessel? That means we put on specialized teams of customs inspectors, trained in deep rummage. They go into confined spaces with breathing apparatus. There are a number of things we do when we have what I'll call a fairly significant indication there may be drugs on a vessel.

• 1635

So to have three go on means to me that it might have been a low-risk vessel, and they were going on to do something else.

Ms. Carol Skelton: You were saying, and I believe I heard you correctly, that only about 2% of the containers are checked.

Mr. Mark Connolly: What we try to do is de-stuff 2% of the containers. In other words we completely empty the contents of that container, look at all the panels inside, see if there are false walls, look at the cargo.

When we look back at what we do every year, it's for about 2% of container traffic that we do what I'll call full off-loads. On top of those full off-loads of around 2% of containers—or that's certainly our target—we do what we call dockside checks or tailgate examinations. That's where we open the back of the container and have a look, because quite frequently drugs are just thrown in the back of the container and the doors are closed.

They're just thrown in the back or in the middle of the container, because again, very much as at airports, there are internal conspiracies at our docks. That's where someone at a foreign location has hidden drugs in the back of a shipment. When it arrives in Canada, a dockworker will open up the back of the trailer, pull out the duffel bag full of cocaine, throw it in the back of his truck or wherever, and leave.

Ms. Carol Skelton: Further to that, you were talking about the containers coming off the ships and being loaded on to railroads or whatever. In Saskatchewan, where I am, and throughout the prairie provinces, we have lots of container reload yards where the containers are loaded onto a semi-trailer or on to.... Do you ever go into those reload yards and check? Do customs officers ever do that?

Mr. Mark Connolly: We believe that if we don't get it at the first point of arrival, we're not going to get it. In most cases, if there's a transshipment after the shipment has arrived and gotten through the border, it's very difficult for us to find the drugs afterwards.

Also, once the goods have been released by Customs, of course, it becomes someone else's mandate and not ours. But when talking about rail or about marine, air or any of these modes of transport, we do have information most of the time before commercial shipments, or quite often their conveyances, arrive in Canada.

Truck traffic provides an exception. Because of just-in-time inventories and everything at the border, it's virtually impossible to have a lot of advance data, even though we do get some on trucks. We get electronic transmissions of data prior to the arrival of truck traffic.

But for the other modes, quite often we have the information in advance, particularly for rail and marine traffic, and we're able to do our targeting before the shipments arrive and make our determination as to whether we should have a look or not.

Again, you can't look at everything. It's virtually impossible. It's just like trying to stop people from coming into the country. Unless you had customs inspectors arm in arm across an 8,000-kilometre border, you would never be able to detect everybody. Even though that would be the optimum, it isn't within our capacity. That's why we work with risk management, and that's why it's important for us to have information and pick out the best number of containers we can pick out to have a look at.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Skelton.

Ms. Allard, please.

[Translation]

Ms. Carole-Marie Allard (Laval-East, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Connolly, Ms. Hague and Mr. Crichton for coming today.

You say: “We can't look at everything.” Does that mean that you feel that even if you were given additional resources, the results would not be any better, or are you currently requesting additional resources and you have not received any? Have you received what you have requested in terms of budgets from the federal government? Do you understand what I am saying? You seem to be making a point by saying that even if you had more people, you still would not be able to do more. What is the problem?

[English]

Mr. Mark Connolly: Thank you for your question.

I wish it were as simple as for me to say all we needed was resources, but it isn't that simple. We can always use more resources. Bill S-23 does have some provision for additional things we need, including resources, and there were some resources that came with our Customs action plan. But we can always use, obviously, more resources.

• 1640

Technology is very expensive. It's hard to maintain. The upkeep on a large container examination X-ray, for example, is around 10% or 15% a year. So if you've spent $5 million or $15 million buying one, you need another 10% or 15% just to maintain it. You have to have people to operate it, and so forth.

But there are other factors involved. The other factors have to do with facilities. You have to have adequate facilities to have the equipment, to house it, and you have to have adequate facilities even to house the officers you're going to use to do the examinations and the searches.

Resources are one answer in order to help us with our program, but there are other things. It's good information. We have to balance our business, and our business is one of identifying high risk, doing examinations, and protecting Canadian society, whether that be from contraband, terrorists, or other things. At the same time we have to facilitate trade. The lifeblood of this country obviously is trade. We have a lot of trade particularly with the United States, and we have to keep as much as possible an open border with the United States and at the same time carry out our fundamental protection role. So trade is important.

As I mentioned earlier, just-in-time inventory is the way industry works today. You just can't pull everybody over. You just can't search everybody. You just can't look in every box and open every trunk.

So it's better information. It is different kinds of resources and technology and access to information systems to get that data that you need to do that work.

So I would say if we have needs, some of our needs are legislation and some of our needs are resources.

[Translation]

Ms. Carole-Marie Allard: On a different topic now, we see that the majority of drugs are seized on planes. How do you determine the country of origin when you seize drugs on a passenger who has travelled through three countries? How do you determine the country of origin when you seize drugs in airports?

[English]

Mr. Mark Connolly: Actually it's not that difficult. Depending on where their checked baggage has been...quite often bags are checked through, so their tags are on the bag to tell us where the drugs came from. Quite often people are packing drugs on their body, whether that be in body packs or cavities or whatever, but they do bring drugs in on their person. Particularly if they're drug swallowers, they of course don't want to have the drugs in them for very long, so they usually don't come through two or three countries; they come direct.

I mentioned earlier about 40% of our drugs being routed through the Caribbean, and that's to North America as well. We have a lot of direct flights from the Caribbean. We know that aircraft don't stay on the ground overnight in a lot of those countries—Canadian aircraft, that is—so there are different ways we can source where the drugs came from, the type of drug, its chemical make-up, the quality of the drug. And the people we arrest, the suspects' own statements, tell us where they brought it from. Quite often they give you quite a bit of information, because obviously they don't want to spend a lot of time in jail, so they're trying to be cooperative with us.

The Chair: Thank you. Merci beaucoup.

Madam Davies.

Ms. Libby Davies: Thank you.

I wonder if you ever feel that we're just kind of going through a revolving door policy—just to follow up on Mr. Lee's questions. If it's true that the allocation of resources is based on an assessment of the harms that are caused to society, and I think you said that's part of the work you do, then there's no question that there's so much evidence that shows us that the impact of alcohol and tobacco is far greater. Yet you list it as one of the measures you use, the criminality of the drugs—these substances are illegal. But it strikes me as incredibly ironic that in actual fact, in terms of the harm we're talking about, there's more harm now caused as a result of the criminality. Yet we're still putting an enormous amount of resources in, resulting in less than a 10% effect in terms of seizures.

• 1645

I don't know if you can answer this, but it just strikes me that you're part of the Canada drug strategy. You say in your brief that it's been successful. We're into phase two, or maybe beyond phase two, but does your department participate at all in any sort of analysis with Health Canada or the justice department to actually look at a social impact or an economic impact in terms of what we're doing?

It just seems that we're on this merry-go-round. We go for the seizures. We put money into it. Well, one, we haven't succeeded, and two, the harms that are being caused in society, I would argue, are now more as a result of the criminality of what's going on. Yet you're really not able to deal with that at all. Do you ever analyze that and contribute to a debate about that with other partners or other departments?

Mr. Mark Connolly: We do work, as I said, with our partners on a regular basis. We have discussions with respect to supply and demand. Analyses are completed with respect to some of those issues you mentioned.

Our mandate, again, is to identify and interdict contraband and inadmissible persons at the borders. For example, when we talk about the resources we dedicate to that program...the person I have at a two-person office who's looking for drugs is also looking for guns and for all the other things he's looking for, plus he's checking passports, making sure the right person is coming in. Is that person a criminal? Is he a terrorist? What is he? It's a multidisciplinary job he's performing. Plus he has to put his hat on for Health Canada and he has to put his hat on for Agriculture Canada and everybody else. Is that plant allowable or isn't it allowable? Does the person have the phytosanitary certificate?

Our inspection resources are dedicated to a number of programs. When I mention 25%, I say that because I don't know what the true figure is. We'll look at that. I believe an officer spends probably 25% of his time enforcing various pieces of legislation directed at contraband.

When you were talking about alcohol, for example, we consider high-tax commodities as also being contraband—that's alcohol and tobacco—because there's a market to smuggle those commodities. Of course, we're concerned sometimes about the quality of the alcohol that's being smuggled into Canada because it isn't the same quality that's legally manufactured here, and quite often it can pose a health problem in itself. That's why we have to be vigilant for that as well, even though it is a legal commodity. Is it a healthy commodity? We watch for that.

I mentioned that under Bill C-18 customs inspectors have new authorities. For a number of years we were concerned about alcohol when people were driving—drunk drivers. We had a lot of people who were crossing our borders intoxicated. Some went down the road and got into accidents, killed themselves, or injured or hurt other people. We responded to that under Bill C-18, so now when people cross the border, if we believe they've been drinking to excess, that there's a problem, we administer a roadside breathalyzer. If they fail that test then we call in our partners, the police department of jurisdiction, and they're taken away and given an appropriate test and arrested and charged and put through the court system.

That is a problem. We recognize that alcohol is a problem as well, but it is a legal commodity right now. We deal with it when it's smuggled into Canada.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. Davies.

Mr. Harb, we're just all waiting for your question.

Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre, Lib.): Okay.

I want to thank you, and I agree with you. Your department is an enforcement agency. In fact, you enforce the law. To a large extent, my questions will focus on that aspect.

At first I was able to see that over 53% of all of the drug seizures seem to be in hashish and hashish liquid, as well as marijuana. If all of those three components were taken off the table, what percentage of resources would that free up from your department?

• 1650

Mr. Mark Connolly: If those three were taken off the table, I don't think it would free up any resources for our department. The reason I say that, of course, is that what it would allow us to do is concentrate on doing more examinations, looking for other illegal commodities, or doing the other things we're mandated to do.

I was asked a question earlier about resources, and I said that obviously we can always use resources. One of the most effective ways we have of using the resources we have today is through risk management, determining what the risk is and trying to appropriately concentrate those resources on the areas of highest risk.

Drugs are the areas of highest risk. If you removed a type of drug.... We've seen drugs added, actually, as opposed to removed in the past. Khat, which was not a drug until a few years ago, was added to the list. The types of chemical drugs I mentioned to you earlier—and they are in the charts—the amounts of chemical ecstasy, MMDA, and so forth, are on the rise significantly.

Really what it does is free up resources only to look for additional contraband.

Mr. Mac Harb: So, in fact, it will help you focus on some other components of smuggling. I need a clear answer from you. Either it does help you or it doesn't.

Mr. Mark Connolly: No, it doesn't help me because, quite frankly, when we're looking for marijuana or hashish, we're looking for drugs. The same characteristics, the indicators quite often, and most of the time the things that lead us to search that package or that truck or that container, are the same indicators whether it's hashish, cocaine or heroin. The mode of transport sometimes varies, but if I could give as an example—

Mr. Mac Harb: Excuse me for saying this, I want to be focused in my question and I want a quick answer. I want to move, because I have a couple of other questions I want to ask you.

Obviously, when you make those arrests, when you have probably more than 50% of all the seizures focusing on those three components, surely you can tell me that to prosecute these people, to bring them to justice, to do the administration—to do all of that—must take some of your resources. It has to take some of your resources. You must spend some human horsepower in trying to do that. Wouldn't that be correct?

Mr. Mark Connolly: Exactly. I wish I could give you a positive answer in the sense that I could say, yes, it would make an impact, but it really won't. We struggle from time to time just to make the examination rates, the targets we try to set for ourselves.

Mr. Mac Harb: The second question I have is this. You don't seem to list Canada as one of the countries in terms of a percentage of the drugs we seize. Local growers, for example: there are no statistics on that.

The Chair: That's the RCMP, not Customs.

Mr. Mac Harb: So it will not be part of your mandate.

It strikes me as quite interesting that 40% of all the marijuana, in terms of seizures, actually comes through the U.S. Is that correct? It's on page 18, where you say at the bottom that 412 kilos of marijuana were seized by foreign customs and law enforcement agencies, mostly in the U.S. en route to Canada.

Mr. Mark Connolly: Yes, but it's the number of seizures. Those are small quantities. It's not the volume of drugs; it's the number of seizures. We'll get a large seizure, for example—a 10-tonne seizure of hashish—by container that will come from the Middle East or from the Far East.

Mr. Mac Harb: As a final observation, it looked as if the vast majority of all of those seizures seem to be coming from Asia and Africa. Where's Latin America on this chart?

Mr. Mark Connolly: Cocaine.

Mr. Mac Harb: It doesn't seem to be reflected in your....

Mr. Mark Connolly: I mentioned earlier that 40% of the narcotics that come in to North America, particularly from South America, flow through the Caribbean. There are transit points through there. It's very difficult for planes to fly direct now, from Colombia into Canada, with a load of coke on. So they use transit points to do that.

• 1655

Mr. Mac Harb: Okay. My final question is, if you were to ask this committee to do something in order to help find a solution, if you were to give guidance to this committee, what would it be? We are in the process of developing terms of reference, and frankly we wanted to hear from our law enforcement agencies, from different departments, what it is they feel this committee should look at to produce suggestions we can take to Parliament for action.

Mr. Mark Connolly: Obviously, in the future we have to look at technology and information-sharing and systems. That really is key for an enforcement program. The better our technology, and the less intrusive it is, the less we hold up legitimate trade and travellers and the more we can focus and concentrate on the high risk. So technology is an area that's quite important to us.

Legislation is another area. I've mentioned earlier that we have Bill S-23 in the House. Part of that bill.... There are two areas in particular that I can cite. One has to do with advanced passenger information, that is, getting information prior to a flight's arrival in Canada on passengers—who's on the plane, and so on. That will help us target those individuals who are criminals or possible terrorists. At the same time it will help us to facilitate legitimate travellers. So that's one piece in Bill S-23.

Another, of course, is the designation of customs-controlled areas. That's very important for us, because it allows us to control who has access to aircraft, to airside, to baggage—things of that nature.

This is particularly the case in airports. With all the new security obviously required as a result of the September 11 incident, having Customs-controlled areas just adds to the situation. Also, it fits the plan of airports that want to put in-transit mechanisms in place to allow people to move freely through our country to other countries. It allows us to put appropriate regimes in place, because it gives us the authorities we require to ensure that travellers using such facilities are legitimate, and that the people who access those facilities, whether airport employees or not, have a right to be there and are there for legitimate purposes.

Mr. Mac Harb: Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you. Mr. White.

Mr. Randy White: Mr. Connolly, I'm looking at that chart on page 19, and I'm wondering whether you're actually more successful as each year goes by, or whether the drug trade in ecstasy has increased 2000% since 1997. What is your comment on that?

Mr. Mark Connolly: I suppose it's probably a little bit of both. We believe ecstasy is on the rise and we also believe we're more successful in detecting it. We've had a number of cases where our partners have shared information with us that has allowed us to intercept fairly significant shipments.

I would suggest that ecstasy is on the rise somewhat. Certainly it enjoys a lot of media attention, particularly within the last year. I also believe that, because of training, because of some technology that we have introduced at airports, we're probably a bit more successful in finding it.

Mr. Randy White: My understanding is that a lot of it comes from Holland, the very place where they legalized marijuana and that is now the central city in Europe for the production of ecstasy. That's only for your own information, just in case you want to go to Holland and find out.

I'm curious, though. In my area, in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia, a number of very widely used trails come from the United States and go into the United States—I live right on the border. One is the Ho Chi Minh Trail, as it is commonly called by the police, but there are about eight such trails that I've been on, and the police tell me it is virtually impossible to watch all of those. They just don't have the manpower.

• 1700

I'm not sure whether or not your organization does any work on in-between border crossings. In a country this big, with a border this long, how does one go about doing anything about stopping B.C. bud, for instance, going south and cocaine coming back, and guns back and forth, and people back and forth, and so on and so forth? Do you play a role in that? Is it stoppable?

Mr. Mark Connolly: First of all, I'll try to answer your question. Yes, we do play a role in border protection. You're quite right that we fulfill our mandate primarily at ports of entry. We do service, of course, special reporting stations and other outposts, other locations where there is legitimate traffic.

The RCMP is primarily responsible for enforcement between ports of entry. In the presentation we talk about multi-jurisdictional teams. That's working with the U.S. authorities as well. In B.C., in that particular area we do have our IBET team, which is the integrated border enforcement teams.

There are lots of trails, all across Canada. There are farmers' fields that back up to each other. In Quebec there are a number of them, in New Brunswick...right across Canada. We have an 8,000-kilometre border that's virtually undefended in its truest sense. We don't have a fence up and people aren't linked arm to arm to prevent things from happening, and you're not going to catch everybody. You're absolutely right. People will use whatever means they have to move goods back and forth.

I guess we have to be smarter in our interdiction efforts. That's by working with others, sharing information and using technology. Unless the Government of Canada is prepared to spend a lot of money in that area to prevent those kinds of things, that would be very.... You can't prevent it, and that's why you manage it by risk.

Mr. Randy White: As a committee we should not, in my mind anyway, focus on futile recommendations that cover between formal border crossings, because even if you had the army on there they'd still find gaps between the people.

Mr. Mark Connolly: Well, the integrated border enforcement teams have been quite successful, particularly the one in British Columbia. It's been a very successful team. The RCMP, U.S. Customs, Canadian Immigration, Canadian Customs, U.S. INS, and others who have worked with other municipal police forces within the area have been fairly successful in their geographic approach through the integrated border enforcement team.

There can be trails all over the place, but some are really not accessible and not usable for some of these people to carry large amounts of drugs back and forth across the border.

Quite often the trails aren't that far from ports of entry. In fact intelligence and surveillance.... There are a number of mechanisms that are available, whether that be aircraft surveillance, land surveillance, or whatever, that are quite useful in detecting different kinds of contraband. I think it's a balanced approach and it's risk management.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. White.

Mr. Saada.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada (Brossard—La Prairie, Lib.): You may have already answered the questions I am about to ask in your initial presentation. I apologize for being late. I cannot seem to be everywhere at once.

First of all, you quote a figure of $7 billion to $10 billion for drug trafficking in Canada. If I remember correctly, those figures come from a study that was conducted in 1997-98. Do you feel that these figures are still accurate or can we reasonably extrapolate and say that there has been an increase in the total value of drugs in circulation here at present?

[English]

Mr. Mark Connolly: Thank you for your question.

• 1705

The $7 billion to $10 billion that we talk about is a number that probably comes from as far back as 1997. It's an estimate based on what we know. It's an estimate based on what we seize, what the police seize within Canada domestically, and what Health Canada tells us about the number of addicts, about what they see. Other criminal property crimes that take place and whether they are related to drugs or not.... One of the things police departments are trying to do and get better at doing is linking other crime, whether it was of a drug origin and so forth. So $7 billion to $10 billion is an estimate, and as I mentioned earlier, it's very difficult to know what the true figure is. I suppose one could say it could be less, and one could say it could be more, but there's no evidence that it is more. In order to know, you'd have to know every shipment that was coming and every drug user there was.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: The next question is a bit more complex, even to formulate. In the Netherlands, for example, when municipalities decided not to authorize but to tolerate the ad hoc distribution of drugs in defined quantities and so on, the decision created two main problems, based on my reading.

The first problem was that it enabled traffickers to identify their potential clients more easily.

Secondly, it created widespread international problems between the Netherlands and the rest of Europe, where there is free movement of people and goods.

That leads me to the following question. For the past few years, the assumption has been that marijuana produced in Quebec, for example Quebec Gold, is generally speaking of higher quality than marijuana produced elsewhere. Do we have any idea if the impact of drugs exported from Canada to the United States or elsewhere has led to a change in the type of drugs that are imported into Canada?

Secondly, is there any co-operation between the American authorities and Canadian authorities in order to know what kinds of drugs are leaving Canada and who is being arrested abroad?

[English]

Mr. Mark Connolly: Yes, it is a complex question.

We do know that marijuana is exported from Canada into the United States. Everyone hears stories about B.C. bud and stories of the exchange of B.C. bud for other drugs. From the information we have, the marijuana exports from Canada.... And it's not something we're focused on, obviously; we're focused a lot more on imports. We watch for the exports as well—it's part of our mandate—but we understand that the export of marijuana from Canada to the United States is a very, very, very minor percentage of their market. I think the figures are probably somewhere around half a percent or something like that of the marijuana market in the United States, if it's even that high. It's very, very, very low. That's certainly the information that we have about our marijuana going south.

There was a question there with respect to what's happening in Europe. Every country in the world has drug problems. I don't think there's any country that doesn't have a drug problem. The scope, size, intensity of the problem varies.

Mr. Jacques Saada: Sorry to interrupt. The question I posed was not very properly put, so I'm going to rephrase it.

Because we are producing marijuana in Canada of a quality that seems to be better than that produced outside, do we see a shift in the preference of consumers in terms of what drugs are coming more into the country now? Could that, for instance, explain the increase in ecstasy compared to what you had before?

Mr. Mark Connolly: I'm not sure that I can answer that question. From the information we have, we believe that ecstasy is on the increase, but if you look back at the sixties, of course, and into the early seventies, PCP was heavily used, as was LSD. So is it just a change when you're talking about chemicals or designer drugs, is it just a trend? I really don't know if it's a trend or it's not a trend. We believe the use of those particular drugs is increasing more. The use of marijuana...I think we probably seize as much marijuana as we've ever seized.

• 1710

I can't really answer that question. It's a very difficult question to answer.

[Translation]

Mr. Jacques Saada: Here is one last quick question. I apologize for asking you to explain this to me, but I am not an expert in the field.

When a drug enters the country, it is either in its final useable form or in an intermediary form that needs to be processed before it can be put on the market. Are the products that make up synthetic drugs also on the list of products that are the subject of search and seizure at the border?

[English]

Mr. Mark Connolly: I guess what you're talking about of course is chemical precursors. Chemical precursors are controlled by some conventions. There's a UN convention on chemical precursors.

We do look at shipments of chemical precursors going both into Canada and out of Canada. We work very closely with the RCMP, who also are involved in chemical precursors, particularly at the manufacture level. So yes, we do look at it. We look at who they're being exported to and we look at the imports that are coming into Canada to know what the end uses of those particular chemicals are.

Mr. Jacques Saada: Systematically, when you do find a shipment of that coming in, you notify the RCMP to follow it up in terms of who is going to use it at the end, or do you take care of it yourself? How does it work?

Mr. Mark Connolly: The first thing we have to look at is whether it's a suspect shipment or not, because there are legitimate importations of chemical precursors and people have the appropriate permits when they arrive to use chemical precursors—acetate, different acids that are used. They have the appropriate permits to use them in their chemical processing for that particular company, that manufacturing company. So in those particular cases, once we've done the verifications that we have to do, we don't notify the RCMP unless there's a problem or in fact it's a suspect shipment. Most of the shipments of chemical precursors coming into Canada are legitimate.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Saada.

Before we go to the final round, I just had a couple of quick questions.

Mr. Crichton, is it possible that you could give us a copy of your contraband risk assessment, or contraband strategy document? You might have to think about that and get back.

Mr. Michael Crichton: The document itself is rather large. I think what would be of real interest to this committee is the process we use to come up with our answers. I would be more than happy to give the process to you.

The Chair: A description.

Mr. Michael Crichton: I think that would really make clear to you the extent to which we focus on the risk posed by the various commodities.

The Chair: Okay. Thank you.

On page 3 you identify a number of statistics. There are 3,600 uniformed officers across the country. How many are on the Canada-U.S. border?

Mr. Mark Connolly: I don't know the exact breakdown of that number. I don't have it here.

The Chair: Can you get that for us?

Mr. Mark Connolly: I can. I would say approximately half would be on the land border, I would think. I will get that number, to be exact, rather than say there's half.

The Chair: It would be an interesting comparison, because of course we know the U.S. has 500 officers along the Canadian border. So it would be helpful to know.

You mention also on page 3 that you process $2.1 billion in daily trade, $357 billion in imports annually, and $411 billion in exports annually. So you clear exports?

Mr. Mark Connolly: Yes, we do. Yes.

The Chair: What's that process?

Mr. Mark Connolly: There are a lot of goods that are regulated or controlled.

The Chair: Like those chemicals.

Mr. Mark Connolly: Yes. And we have to make sure that the appropriate permits are there. We also do examinations on exports.

My program, which is contraband intelligence, is particularly interested in strategic exports. Those are exports that can aid countries that are maybe on controlled lists in the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction.

The Chair: Okay. So other countries would also have some of these types of export controls. When we identify ecstasy coming from Holland, is there some kind of extra control put on in Holland for those exports coming out to Canada? Do we know which companies seem to be having problems, and then is there a message sent through the shipping association saying, clean up your act or else all goods coming by your company will be subject to search in Canada? Do we do proactive things when we have that kind of intelligence?

• 1715

Mr. Mark Connolly: Yes, we do talk to shipping companies and to individual importers. Quite often the shipments that come in with ecstasy, for example, are going to fictitious companies with fictitious addresses. There could be internal conspiracies. In fact, one of our largest seizures of ecstasy involved a cargo handler involved in an internal conspiracy who was going to pick up that shipment from the warehouse and deliver it to the criminal groups.

When you're dealing with containers, legitimate companies are being used by criminals quite frequently, particularly in the case of containerized traffic where drugs are being put in the back of containers of legitimate companies. This situation usually involves internal conspiracies, where someone is involved in the process to take the drugs out. It's not the company, it's not the exporter, and it's not the shipper. It's somebody who's within that chain of export and import that's involved in the smuggling.

The Chair: That brings me to the issue you raised with reference to airport security areas. Are the people in the baggage handling area—for instance, from flights from overseas, whether from Jamaica, or wherever—are they all bonded? Are the areas secure? Is there something that could be done to improve the level of security so that you have some checks and balances? Are these people being watched appropriately, or is there something else that needs to be done to stop that kind of traffic?

Mr. Mark Connolly: That's a difficult question to answer. There are processes to security clear people who work at airports. Obviously there are criminals who work at airports, and others associated with criminals who work at airports. Some are known, some are not known. Investigations are conducted as the information is made available.

The Chair: So should we be doing more on pre-clearing those people? Perhaps that's something it would be more appropriate to ask the RCMP than you guys.

Mr. Mark Connolly: As part of our plan for Customs-controlled areas, there will be a requirement for certain clearances for people to work in those areas.

The Chair: Okay. On page 7 you mention that you have a couple of different spots where you work. You've got British Columbia, Washington, New Brunswick, Maine, Manitoba, Minnesota. Do you have nothing involving Ontario with New York, or Michigan?

Mr. Mark Connolly: Yes, the areas you mentioned have the three IBETs, the integrated border enforcement teams.

We have at any one time probably around 30 joint-force operations going on across the country. Many of those are in Ontario. An example is the provincial weapons and enforcement unit. We have people involved in that with other police officers from Ontario. We have the Cornwall regional task force, which involves the OPP, RCMP, Cornwall police, Customs, and Akwesasne police. There's a U.S. Customs element involved from time to time.

So there are any number of joint-force operations underway. Some are long term and some are short term. Short-term operations are projects you take on for a specific criminal activity for a short duration. Others could be long term, like the Cornwall task force.

The Chair: With the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor being the busiest bridge in the country, I wondered why it wasn't singled out for special mention.

Mr. Mark Connolly: Without getting into detail as to where we have joint-force operations and the types of work they're doing, we do have in that part of the country joint-force operations.

The Chair: Okay. Finally, or on a second last point from page 19, ecstasy is being concealed in the unusual manners. Beyond body packing and concealment in luggage, what else can people do with ecstasy? It's about halfway down:

Air passengers employed more diverse measures of concealment in 2000 as opposed to the body-packing concealment in luggage encountered the previous year.

You might have to get back to us on that. It was just something I—

• 1720

Mr. Mark Connolly: No, they hide it in food, in furniture, different things.

The Chair: Okay. Is there much attention being paid to the northern border? Certainly, with global warming there's a little more access to some of our northern communities. I know my colleague from Nunavut is quite worried about some of the ships that are showing up, and you'll probably find that increasingly that could be a problem. Do the RCMP handle the customs side of things in the north for you?

Mr. Mark Connolly: We have a customs office in Nunavut. Obviously they work very closely with the RCMP. We have an inspector there.

The Chair: In Iqaluit?

Mr. Mark Connolly: In Iqaluit.

The Chair: It's just that there are so many other small communities that have flights in and out.

On behalf of all members—and I'll do another round—if you could help identify for our great research team perhaps some spots along the border, the Ambassador Bridge or elsewhere...certainly Mr. White is interested in us visiting the Washington, D.C. area. But if there's something particularly unique that we could come and visit—obviously we'd be sworn to secrecy and all that kind of stuff.

Mr. Mark Connolly: When would you like to do that, Madam Chair?

The Chair: We have to get most of our work done by about April, so if you could figure out what a good time is, and if there are different spots and if you have suggestions for.... If April is busier in B.C. or in Atlantic Canada or something, we'd be happy to start gearing our plan around that.

Ms. Davies, I think you have another question.

Ms. Libby Davies: Yes. You said earlier, in response to a question from Mr. White, that it's a matter of a balanced approach, and I guess that's partly what we're struggling with: what are the balances? In Vancouver the city has adopted what's called the four-pillar approach, which is basically prevention and education, treatment, harm reduction, and enforcement. Enforcement is one of the four elements.

I think one of the questions is, where does the emphasis go? Often the emphasis has been on enforcement. In fact, I was very surprised to hear you say, in terms of the marijuana export...if I heard you correctly, you said it was .02% of what is going into the U.S. overall. It's actually a very small percentage from Canada, and yet the enforcement attention it gets is huge, just in terms of the media coverage, the grow ops, enforcement by RCMP, coordinated enforcement, and so on.

Even if you had all of these trails covered, or you had your information technology, if you had whatever resources there were, do you believe that with all of those measures that we will have reduced use, that we will have reduced the amount of addiction?

Mr. Mark Connolly: That's a good question. Again, I wish I had a crystal ball and I could forecast that. I would hope so, for the sake of our children, including my own, but it's very difficult to say.

I mentioned earlier that you do need a balanced approach. The four pillars you mentioned are important. Harm and supply reduction and demand, really, are the two issues for us. I'm in the supply reduction business. Obviously if the demand is still there, then I guess I'm still in business.

The difficult part for me, I suppose, is one of balance for us, in terms of trying to reduce the supply, because we have a whole bunch of supplies we have to reduce; it's not just drugs for us. It's other contraband, child pornography, guns, stopping terrorists, and other health and safety issues around agrifood products and things of that nature. Our job is protection at the border, but clearly, obviously, an effort has to be balanced on the demand side. If you don't reduce demand, it just makes my job that much harder.

I'm not sure you're asking me for my personal opinion, but I don't believe personally that you can do one without the other.

• 1725

Ms. Libby Davies: In terms of your overall mandate, where is the greatest risk posed to Canada in terms of the various contraband? If there's a hierarchy—

Mr. Mark Connolly: Drugs still pose the highest risk to Canadians.

Ms. Libby Davies: Based on the evaluation you do?

Mr. Mark Connolly: Based on our risk assessments, on our evaluations, on what we know about what happens within our country, and on what we get at the borders. There are other sides to drug smuggling. There is money laundering, and what money laundering does is a criminality that's related to drug smuggling.

Ms. Libby Davies: But then it gets into the question of criminality.

Mr. Mark Connolly: It's the criminality that's related to drug smuggling and what it does to Canadians, to families and homes.

Ms. Libby Davies: Is it the drugs themselves or is it the criminality? I think this is a very central question for this committee when we look at the harms that are coming about. Are you basing your work and your enforcement on the criminality and all of the harm that does, the money laundering, harm to individuals, communities being destroyed, organized crime, on and on it goes, or is it actually the drugs themselves?

Mr. Mark Connolly: I'm not sure I can answer that question.

The Chair: Let me just remind all committee members that this team is implementing policy that has been established elsewhere. So their job is the interdiction side, and that is what we're hearing. We'll be able to get fuller answers perhaps to your question, Ms. Davies, from some of the other witnesses, and we'll come up with our own conclusions.

Randy, you have one very quick question.

Mr. Randy White: All the ports police were cancelled a couple of years ago. Shortly after they were, an organization sponsored by the triads bought a very large warehouse on the Vancouver port, and we are certain it's not for club meetings.

What relationship did your organization have with the ports police across the country, and has that affected your investigative operations by the lack thereof now? In Vancouver in particular I know they are not nearly as coordinated because now you have to work through something like 20 different police forces to get much done on the ports at all.

Mr. Mark Connolly: In Vancouver we do have a joint forces operation that works in Vancouver and in the port of Vancouver. We have a very active marine unit in Vancouver.

I'll answer your question on Ports Canada police. When they were in the ports we worked as closely with them as we could, obviously. Their mandate was different from ours. They didn't have an interdiction mandate; they had a mandate for securing the ports and providing a service on the ports themselves, within the ports. We have always worked with the RCMP and other law enforcement agencies at our ports, and we continue to do so. We are just as effective today as we were before. That is not to comment really on the value of the Ports Canada police. We have a mandate to interdict at the border, and we'll work with whatever police force will work with us at that particular location in order to succeed in our mandate, whether that would have been the Ports Canada police or existing police forces today.

The Chair: Thank you.

On behalf of the committee, thank you to all the witnesses for your hard work. We wish you continued luck. You have some things you have to get back to us on.

Mr. Mark Connolly: Yes, we do.

The Chair: Should other information come your way that you think we would benefit from—you've heard some of the questions from some of the areas that colleagues are interested in—we would be more than happy to have unsolicited information come our way. If you have any, our committee clerk takes care of that.

Colleagues, we have another meeting at 6:30. It's in the Centre Block, 237-C, and it's the justice officials. We'll see you then.

This meeting is adjourned.