PACP Committee News Release
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Standing Committee on Public Accounts |
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Comité permanent des comptes publics |
For immediate release
NEWS RELEASE
Systems to Prevent Illegal Entry Into Canada Could Be Improved
Ottawa, April 2, 2014 -
OTTAWA – The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) should make additional improvements in their efforts to prevent illegal entry into Canada, according to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts’ report presented today in the House of Commons by Committee Chair David Christopherson.
Failing to prevent illegal entry could compromise Canada’s border, the immigration system, and the safety and security of Canadians. Within the federal government, the CBSA is responsible for preventing illegal entry at Canada’s ports of entry, while the RCMP is responsible for enforcing the law when people cross illegally between ports of entry.
In its Fall 2013 Report, the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) released a performance audit on whether selected federal government systems and practices prevented the illegal entry of people into Canada. As the Committee notes in its report, the OAG concluded that the CBSA had made significant improvements since the previous audit with the development of a National Targeting Program. The OAG also noted that as a result of inadequate information provided by air carriers, the CBSA was missing some data for about 95% of air passengers, and that the CBSA did not have a consistent process to measure and monitor the performance of lookouts, which are notices designed to identify high-risk individuals.
With respect to the RCMP, the OAG found that the Integrated Border Enforcement Teams had not systematically gathered information on the number of apprehensions between ports of entry and the number of known illegal entries where the individuals were not apprehended. Also, the RCMP did not use performance information to guide resource allocation, and it did not systematically keep records of resource allocation decisions.
In its report, the Committee commends the employees of the CBSA and the RCMP in their efforts to minimize the risk of illegal entry and observes that the CBSA and the RCMP have taken concrete steps to address the OAG’s findings. The Committee recommends that both organizations provide the Committee with progress reports on the actions they have taken to respond to the audit in order to ensure that Canada’s border continues to be safe and secure.
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