[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Wednesday, April 26, 1995
.1620 
[English]
The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Barnes): Order.
We will continue today the study of Bill C-68, an act respecting firearms and other weapons.
Our witnesses from Revenue Canada, Customs, Excise and Taxation are Ian Bennett, Associate Deputy Minister; Allan Cocksedge, Assistant Deputy Minister, Customs Border Services Branch; Bill Ledrew, Director-General, Enforcement; and Marc Connolly, Director, Enforcement Operations.
Please commence.
Mr. Ian Bennett (Associate Deputy Minister, Revenue Canada, Customs, Excise and Taxation): I have a short opening statement and I will try to keep it as brief as I can. Then I will be happy to take questions.
[Translation]
Today, I am pleased to have the opportunity to explain how Revenue Canada supports the government's effort to prevent violent crime, to crackdown on the criminal use of firearms, and to provide Canadians with safer homes and streets.
Our mandate at the border is to help protect Canadian society by controlling the movement of goods and people while providing quality services for tourists, travellers, and commercial importers.
Each year, more than 100 million people cross our border.
We process more than 44 million commercial shipments.
Revenue Canada shares responsibility for managing the border with the RCMP.
We are responsible for ports of entry while the RCMP is responsible for enforcement between ports of entry.
[English]
By virtue of its mandate, Revenue Canada will play an important role in the successful implementation of the proposed legislation by doing a couple of things. These include the control and registration of all firearms as they cross the border, and the prevention of firearms smuggling into Canada through customs ports of entry.
While we recognize that there is firearms smuggling, an accurate assessment of its extent cannot be made, partly due to the lack of information in current systems. However, it is important to note that smuggling is only one dimension of the firearms control issue, one we take very seriously.
The firearms control issue touches on virtually every aspect of our business at the border, whether through the processing of travellers, the processing of imports and exports, or the in transit movements of commercial shipments in Canada.
Before I focus on Bill C-68 and the role Revenue Canada will play in its implementation, I think it would be helpful to the committee if I were to spend a couple of minutes briefly outlining the recent steps the department has taken to strengthen our enforcement capacity at the border.
In February of last year the government introduced a comprehensive strategy to reduce tobacco and other contraband smuggling. We have strengthened our frontline enforcement activities by 25%, or the equivalent of 350 additional staff, to combat smuggling of all types of contraband including firearms. We did this by increasing by 25% the rate of examinations for commercial shipments into Canada and by increasing by 50% the rate of examinations of travellers.
We extended the hours of service to 24 hours a day at 16 high risk border crossings and provided for the early implementation of what we call the PAL system, the primary automated lookout system, which uses state of the art technology to scan licence plates and passports and to search computer databases to screen for criminals and known smugglers.
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Finally, as part of the initiative last February, we increased the use of specialized units such as flexible response teams to conduct increased examinations targeted at high risk shipments and travellers.
As a result of these measures we seized some 1,889 firearms in 1994. Of those, 1,540 were handguns permitted in the United States but illegal here in Canada. That is an increase of about 16% over the previous year. We also seized in 1994 more than $800 million worth of drugs, tobacco and alcohol.
Last November, in support of the government's firearm control initiative announced by Minister Rock, Revenue Canada introduced additional measures to strengthen customs monitoring and control of the import, export and in transit movement of firearms. We have bolstered our inspection program.
We examine 100% of all firearms shipments at the border. We validate the accuracy and integrity of all documentation for firearms shipments. We limit the number of locations where firearm shipments can be processed, and we tightly control their movement from the border to inland warehouses.
We are also conducting thorough security audits on warehouses licensed by Revenue Canada to store firearms. Every year our auditors visit each and every licensed warehouse to ensure that they meet our strict requirements.
In February of this year Prime Minister Chrétien and United States President Clinton signed an accord on the management of our shared border.
The accord commits the two governments to an ambitious and innovative program designed to provide border services that will promote international trade, facilitate the movement of people, and provide enhanced protection against drugs, smuggling and the illegal movement of people.
Important elements of the accord provide for the sharing of technology, the exchange of information and intelligence, as well as enhanced cooperation to interdict contraband.
The use of state of the art technology will allow us to reallocate resources to enforcement activities. Customs officers will be able to focus their efforts on high risk people and shipments, thereby minimizing delays of legitimate travellers and commerce.
With both countries working together, we will be better equipped to respond to the growing sophistication of concealment techniques used by smugglers. At the same time the sharing and application of new technology will open the door to more streamlined clearance of goods and people, thus supporting tourism and trade.
For Revenue Canada Bill C-68 is another step toward better control of the movement of firearms. Bill C-68 will allow us to collect considerably more data at the time of importation, which will provide better control of the movement of firearms and assist in enforcement measures. Bill C-68 will deter smuggling as a result of the new offences and strengthened penalties attached to these offences. Finally, it will provide customs officers with powers they do not have now to detain firearms for offences committed under this proposed legislation, thereby preventing illegal firearms from finding their way to our streets and cities.
The current firearms registration system requires only that restricted firearms be registered. Under Bill C-68 all firearms must be registered.
Those entering, leaving and in transit through Canada will be registered in the firearms registration system by customs at the time of their arrival at the border. In addition, all commercial importations of firearms will require pre-authorization.
At the first point of entry into or exit from Canada, commercial importers or exporters will have to provide Revenue Canada with firearm data such as make, model, serial number and calibre. All this data will be entered in the new firearms registration system and verified through physical inspections.
Non-residents, such as hunters or individuals entering gun competitions, will require a temporary firearms possession certificate to bring a firearm into Canada for personal use.
Customs will screen all visitors to determine their eligibility to possess a firearm in Canada, and this will include a criminal index check.
Residents importing or exporting a firearm will have to complete a customs declaration form, which will be used to confirm the exit or entry of the firearm and update the national firearms registry.
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For us to be ready to implement this legislation, we are working, first, with the Solicitor General, the RCMP, Foreign Affairs and the Department of Justice to establish a more rigorous firearms permit system; second, with the RCMP and the Department of Justice to develop a national firearms registration system; and, finally, with the RCMP and other law enforcement agencies to share intelligence and combat the illegal trafficking of firearms.
It is also essential to keep costs and the administrative burden to an absolute minimum. Funding is based on a cost recovery fee system to recover all implementation and operating costs. This is in line with our commitment to actively pursue cost recovery in relation to new services.
Revenue Canada will consult extensively with its clients and stakeholders prior to the introduction of fees and cost recovery.
[Translation]
Ladies and gentlemen, any initiative to control the movement of firearms across the border will require a concerted effort.
Revenue Canada, the RCMP, other law enforcement agencies and governments are continually working together to combat the illegal trafficking of firearms.
Our 3,500 customs officers will continue to work on preventing the entry of illegal firearms at the more than 200 ports of entry without unduly inconveniencing honest carriers and travellers.
Our enforcement activities enhanced by the initiatives undertaken in the last year and a half, will continue to target high-risk shipments and people.
And Revenue Canada will continue to do its part to assist the government's efforts to give Canadians safe and peaceful streets, neighbourhoods and cities in which to live.
Thank you.
[English]
We will be pleased to field any questions, Mr. Chairman.
The Chair: I apologize for being late for the meeting. As a matter of fact we were all late for the scheduled hour of beginning.
As most of you know, we have another vote scheduled for about 5:30 p.m. My whip advised me that because the meeting was delayed in starting he would agree to our continuing the meeting during the vote, if members wished to stay in a small number, to permit the completion of questioning as long as we were paired. It depends on what members might want to do. Otherwise, if there were a lot of questioners left, we would have to delay the meeting again and come back after the vote.
[Translation]
Mr. Langlois (Bellechasse): Since I'm already paired, I would not have to go to the vote.
I would like to know what can be done at the border under the present system when an American citizen arrives at the border with a weapon, in order to ensure that this visitor is able to use it properly, etc.
[English]
Mr. Bennett: We discussed this very point earlier. Maybe I could ask Mr. Cocksedge to take us through exactly what the procedure is now. If you wish, we could describe how the new regime would operate, to show the difference.
[Translation]
Mr. Allan Cocksedge (Assistant Deputy Minister, Customs Border Services Branch, Revenue Canada, Excise, Customs and Taxation): At present, when someone who is not a Canadian arrives at the border, let us say an American citizen, he may already have seen, whether the part of entry is an airport or a road point, posters indicating clearly that it is prohibited to import firearms into Canada. At that point, the individual must, according to the law, declare the firearm in his or her possession, whether it is a rifle or a shotgun.
If it is a shotgun, which is not prohibited in Canada, the individual must nonetheless make a declaration. After an exchange with the customs officer, when it is obvious that the visitor indeed intends to hunt, he is usually authorized to enter the country without a secondary exam and without being required to produce some documentary evidence.
If the visitor does not have the permit or the relevant documents which have to be produced for prohibited or restricted weapons, the firearms cannot be introduced in the country.
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If the individual who carries a weapon is not familiar with the Canadian law, and this is often the case when dealing with American tourists, he or she will often declare it to comply with the American law with which they are better acquainted; the visitor may explain that he or she was not even aware that Canada had passed such an act.
In most ports of entry, but not in all of them, visitors have the possibility of leaving their weapons at the customs office, in a secure location. The weapons will be handed back to the visitor when returning to the United States.
[English]
Briefly put, the current situation calls for a non-Canadian to declare any firearm but there is no registration process as such. If the firearm is prohibited it is not allowed into the country.
[Translation]
Mr. Langlois: Let's now consider a Canadian citizen going to the U.S. and buying a weapon that is not a restricted firearm in Canada, a shotgun or a hunting rifle that could have been legally bought here provided the buyer has the necessary permits and licenses. What does happen when this person declares having such a firearm at the port of entry?
Mr. Cocksedge: You're talking about a person buying a weapon in a foreign country, in the United States, for instance?
Mr. Langlois: Yes.
Mr. Cocksedge: First of all, there must be a declaration.
[English]
Bill, the registration is done.
Mr. Bill Ledrew (Director-General, Enforcement, Revenue Canada, Customs, Excise and Taxation): He would have to acquire a FAC which he would have to get from a firearms office, not from us.
[Translation]
Mr. Cocksedge: I will say it in English.
[English]
He would have to get possession of a firearms certificate from a firearms officer on the Canadian side. That firearm would not be allowed into the country until such time as that was obtained.
[Translation]
Mr. Langlois: Therefore, the situation would be the same if a firearm has been obtained through a mail order based on an advertisement in an American magazine, for instance. The weapon would be held at the border?
Mr. Cocksedge: That's it.
Mr. Langlois: It would be held by Customs and Excise?
Mr. Cocksedge: For a mail order, it would be held in our postal centres and the addressee would have to have a firearm acquisition certificate in order to pick up the parcel.
Mr. Langlois: On page 2, you say: ``To conduct increased examinations targeted at high risk shipments and travellers''. What is a high risk shipment?
Mr. Cocksedge: Quite often, either for commercial reasons or, in the present instance, because the item in question may be controlled or even prohibited, we target a truck that might contain other products. We make sure that everything transported by the targeted truck will be thoroughly examined.
Whenever firearms are imported, and I'm talking about legal firearms, all imports are identified in our system and when the truck - shipments are mostly by truck, but they might also be by air - arrives at the border, the full contents of the truck are examined by a customs officer in order to ensure that the documents describing what is transported do indeed reflect the actual contents of the truck.
Mr. Langlois: I'm looking at page 5 of the French text, point 5, where you say: ``Customs will screen all visitors to determine their eligibility to possess a firearm in Canada; this will include a criminal index check''. So, you're telling us that you're going to proceed with a thorough examination of that truck and yet, on the following page, you tell us: ``Our...customs officers will continue to work on preventing the entry of illegal firearms...without unduly inconveniencing honest carriers and travellers''. How can you, on the one hand, proceed with a serious screening, and, on the other hand, do so without inconveniencing anybody?
Mr. Cocksedge: When anybody, for whatever reason, is questioned by a customs officer, this individual may feel somewhat inconvenienced. Our approach, first of all, is to ensure that this is done with courtesy and a positive attitude, not in an aggressive manner.
.1640
Also, one must proceed very quickly. For people arriving at the border, whether it is an airport or an inland port of entry, time is of the essence. We are attempting, inasmuch as possible, to ensure that the examination proceeds very quickly.
Mr. Langlois: I am looking at the French version of your text, page 4, where you say, under the heading ``Bill C-68'' at the second bullet: ``Bill C-68 will deter smuggling as a result of the new offences and strengthened penalties attached to these offences...''
Please explain to me what is presently done to deter smugglers, more particularly at the traditional port of entry we know of, and how Bill C-68 will have a greater deterrent effect on people who do not at present conform with Canadian laws.
Mr. Cocksedge: Currently, at the main ports of entry, we can impose administrative penalties, for instance, you may have to pay a $500 fine if you have omitted to declare a firearm, even if it is a legal weapon. In such a case, you are subject to fines.
Now, what the bill provides is for criminal penalties, not just civil penalties. Traffickers will therefore be subjected to ciminal penalties.
Mr. Langlois: If I understand correctly, for a penalty other than a statutory one, when you're dealing with criminal law, regardless of the penalty, the individual must appear before the court. Do you have a port of entry or customs control in Akwesasne, or Kanesatake, for instance, or at other points in Quebec where, obviously, and this is general knowledge, weapons are introduced in the country? Do you have customs officers at those locations?
Mr. Cocksedge: We first have to take into account the fact that management of the border is shared between Revenue Canada and the RCMP. Revenue Canada has jurisdiction over the ports of entry where there are customs officers under our care and supervision.
However, under an agreement signed in 1931, it is the RCMP that manages the border between ports of entry, including the locations you mentioned. Therefore, the RCMP is responsible for controlling the border between ports of entry.
Mr. Langlois: I'm glad to see that no Revenue Canada employee is in danger to lose his life in the locations I just mentioned. Only the RCMP would be exposed to such a risk, or could be if it was present there.
Mr. Cocksedge: That is correct.
Mr. Langlois: Thank you. I have no more questions.
[English]
Mr. Abbott (Kootenay East): I am the revenue critic for the Reform Party. Therefore I have had some dealings with the customs side of this matter.
One of the concerns I think many of us have is that we do not really have an idea or we have not been able to quantify the problem. I am referring specifically to the problem of smuggled guns.
Mr. Cocksedge might recall that in late February, I believe, I asked him to find me some statistics on gun smuggling. As a matter of fact that came about as a result of a conversation I had with the deputy minister, Mr. Gravelle, in December.
We then made the request in writing on March 3. Again we were reminded on March 22, March 29, April 6, April 11 and April 21. We have not received those statistics yet.
I was wondering if you could give me an idea. Are the statistics simply not available?
Mr. Cocksedge: The statistics on the number of seized firearms are available. In fact I think we actually discussed those at our meeting. The information you were interested in having was on the broad scope of our enforcement activities, as well as information on what we thought the smuggling problem was.
.1645
You will perhaps recall our discussion. There are gaps in our information for understanding the nature of the problem, because we do not have all the intelligence we need. Since the anti-smuggling initiative was launched a lot of our effort, with the help of the RCMP, has been to gather information on the nature of the problem.
We are in the process of packaging that information to share it with your office. I think there were some discussions with your office earlier today.
Mr. Abbott: I do not mean to imply anything for a second. You are a civil servant and the person who is charged with the responsibility of carrying these things out, so I do not want to come across as having any policy discussion with you at all about this policy.
I wonder if you would agree with me that the difficulty is that the problem of smuggling is simply not quantified at this time.
Mr. Bennett: Maybe I could jump in. That is exactly the case. We will never know precisely the size of the problem because we do not have certificates for smuggled weapons. They tend not to show up at our door.
To the extent that the new regime under Bill C-68 is going to require that all firearms are registered, it will arguably enhance the capacity, when people discover where firearms are made and discover that they have never been registered, to draw some conclusions from that data to help better quantify the extent of the smuggling problem.
I would not disagree with you at all that putting a precise figure on it is exceedingly difficult in the current circumstances and probably always will be to some extent.
Mr. Abbott: Not wishing to be confrontational, I would probably leave out the word precise. In other words, I do not think there is any real appreciation of what it is.
The other question I had was with respect to page 3 of the English translation of your speech:
- As a result of these measures, we seized some 1,889 firearms in 1994, 1,540 of which were
handguns.
Mr. Bennett: I think that is right.
Mr. Cocksedge: I think that is quite accurate.
Mr. Abbott: Looking at Project Gunrunner as an example, there were six very firm recommendations, none of which included the registration aspect of this legislation.
But they did note - I am reading from a paragraph in the report - that:
- There are numerous methods of smuggling weapons into the country. One of the most popular
methods is concealment within a vehicle. False compartments, wheel wells, door panels,
quarter panels, and dashboard sections are only some of the ways. In addition, boats, trains and
airplanes are also utilized.
Mr. Bennett: I think one of the ways in which it probably would do so is with the increased penalties. If you engage in that activity now, I won't say the penalties are inconsequential but they are certainly very much less than those that will be faced by someone caught in that sort of activity in the future. There will be criminal sanctions and jail terms. There will be very much more serious sanctions.
Mr. Abbott: Yes.
Mr. Bennett: The other point I would make - it is more difficult to understand how important this will be over time for any of us - concerns the extent to which all firearms in the country are in the national registry. It will make it easier for police and customs officers to readily identify firearms that clearly have not been properly registered in the country. The risks, I suppose, are a bit high with respect to a smuggled weapon.
Mr. Abbott: Do I have a wrong focus? In other words the problem in my mind - correct me if I am wrong - is with respect to the so-called Saturday night specials that blow people away in after hours clubs and so on. According to Project Gunrunner the vast majority of them are coming through in concealed fashion. That really seems to be the problem that the customs should be addressing.
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I can understand the increased penalties and all the other things that are the good aspects of this bill, but with respect to the registration aspect I do not have a clue how in the world registration will be able to overcome the problem of these concealed weapons coming in, in door panels.
Mr. Cocksedge: I think part of the problem, Mr. Abbott - and you and I have discussed this point before - is that we have to understand where we need to concentrate our resources. Part of our problem now - and it is not only through the registration system but through better intelligence - is to what extent arms ultimately used in the commission of some crime are sourced from domestic sources, be it theft of arms from gun shops within Canada or private homes or coming in through smuggling means.
Given that we have some resource decisions to make as to where we put our efforts, we need to have a better understanding of that problem. Where the registration system can be helpful is in contributing to that understanding of where arms are moving within the country legally and where in the ultimate commission of crimes arms are being smuggled in and obviously not being registered. That will help us understand that. It is no more than that but it is a step in the right direction. That plus better intelligence will help us in our efforts.
Mr. Abbott: In referring to Project Gunrunner it was learned that 77% of the crime revolvers and 91% of the crime semi-automatic pistols had been smuggled. So we know that; that is a quantified fact.
Mr. Cocksedge: I think there is some debate about some of those facts and that is what we need to understand better.
Mr. Gallaway (Sarnia - Lambton): Mr. Chairman, I understand that there previously was an agreement - and perhaps it is still in effect, I am not certain - that dealt with the movement of guns and perhaps other goods between Canada and the U.S. called the Hyde Park Agreement. I wonder if you could tell me about that.
Mr. Ledrew: I can provide you with some details but they may be a little bit sketchy. That was an agreement that essentially allowed the movement of military arms across Canada's border with the U.S. with minimum control and documentation. The agreement is still in effect and it still affects the movement of military weapons into Canada, through Canada and from Canada in terms of export.
On an administrative level we have certainly tightened up our controls on the in transit movement of these weapons, even under today's regime, through closer scrutiny of the documentation, physical verification and control on export. I apologize for the lack of detail on that, but that is the general background on it.
Mr. Gallaway: That is fine. Does the new Canada-U.S. agreement that you discussed in your presentation impact, then, on the Hyde Park Agreement?
Mr. Cocksedge: No, not directly.
Mr. Gallaway: To your knowledge, then, will Bill C-68 impact on the Hyde Park Agreement?
Mr. Ledrew: Again my understanding is not directly. Any decision on the Hyde Park Agreement would have to be taken between Canada and the U.S. in regard to that agreement. In effect the agreement is administered by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. I would be reluctant to comment further on the process that might be followed to deal with that.
Mr. Gallaway: Maybe you could just confirm for us that under the new Canada-U.S. agreement you will in fact be involving frontline workers in the consultation process to implement it. Is that correct?
Mr. Cocksedge: Yes, very much so.
Mr. Gallaway: So the customs officers who are actually dealing with the travelling public from any country then will be part of the implementation process.
Mr. Cocksedge: Certainly, as we both try to enrich our exchange of information with the Americans. It is our intent to coordinate our efforts, share in the purchase of technology and share more intelligence so that both management and customs officers on both sides will be involved in what are turning out to be about 20 projects.
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Mr. Gallaway: I would just like to move on to a comparison of what is referred to as the PALS that is being implemented in Canada and what I understand to be the existing American system. I live on the border and often there are Canadian based truckers entering the United States. They will find out that they have a criminal conviction, something that we would regard as being rather insignificant, perhaps an assault long in their past or possession of marijuana 20 years ago when they were quite young, and the American system picks them off. They nab them at the border and they won't let them in. Will PALS be something equivalent to that? If I am an American and I have a criminal conviction in my background, will PALS pick that up?
Mr. Cocksedge: Indeed it does that now.
PALS has been implemented in about 70% of our operations. The technology used in PALS reads both licence plates and passports. If there is information on the criminal background of anybody in that system then the customs officer can detect it when PALS is queried.
Mr. Gallaway: Let's assume that I am entering Windsor from Detroit and I am an American citizen. I am travelling in a stolen car and I have some weapons concealed in it. Will PALS pick up on the fact that it is a stolen car and it has been reported, assuming it is not a half an hour after I have stolen it?
Mr. Cocksedge: I think you answered the question there. If it is reported it will be in the system. If the police have reported it and entered it into their system, PALS will connect to that and it should come up in our system.
Mr. Gallaway: Living on the border as I do, I know there are times when there is increased inspection. Do you enter the names of those individuals entering Canada into the PALS computer or whatever this system is?
Mr. Cocksedge: I can perhaps let Bill give the details on that.
Normally entry into PALS is triggered by a source, either ourselves if we have done a seizure or a police authority if some of the activities you have described have occurred. Yes, we would enter and others would enter into that system.
Mr. Gallaway: Under this system, if anyone is travelling in a car that is registered to an American resident who has a criminal record, this will trigger something in PALS?
Mr. Cocksedge: Yes, I believe so.
Mr. Ledrew: As Mr. Cocksedge has pointed out, if details about the car are entered into the system. At this point we do not automatically have access to the U.S. criminal records. It is input into the system when it is provided to us, and that has served to be very effective. In the Niagara Falls area there has been a lot of sharing of information where the Americans have provided us with information either on stolen vehicles or on people who they were looking for. If it is in there and if we query.
You need to bear in mind that PALS queries on the basis of the licence plate, which identifies the registered owner. The system itself does not query the names of the people in the car.
Mr. Gallaway: Obviously. I understand that.
Mr. Ledrew: Depending on the extent to which that information is in the system, we will get a positive hit and on that basis a referral is made to secondary for further examination.
Mr. Gallaway: I know that the American system has existed for a longer period of time and is very sophisticated in terms of the amount of data in it. It is a very good system. They are nabbing every truck driver, certainly in Ontario, who has ever had a minor skirmish with the law resulting in a conviction.
I also want to ask you about the whole issue of Bill C-68 as an anti-tourist or an anti-business initiative, if I can phrase it in that way. If I am an American hunter today coming in with some sort of a rifle, do I have to declare it?
Mr. Cocksedge: Yes.
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Mr. Gallaway: What sort of additional time do you envision in terms of a person coming to Canada for the purposes of recreational hunting?
Mr. Cocksedge: As has already been mentioned by others before you, we are in the process of designing that system now. We are very conscious, because we deal with over 100 million entries a year, of the impact of any amendment to a system in terms of time.
What we hope to do and what we will begin doing when the actual system design is clearer is work with the American tourism system, specifically outfitters and other associations that primarily focus on the hunting and fishing adventure tourists and have them very informed about what the requirements are. We hope to design through the tour operators who are often involved in setting up these kinds of hunting trips a way of having the registration and all the other administrative detail done before people get to the border. At that point the documentation would be done.
We do the very same thing with commercial importations now. We feel it is quite feasible to do the same thing with individual travellers. When they come to the border they would have their documentation completed. It would be a fairly straightforward matching of the firearm the individual is carrying and the documentation that has already been completed, which would be in our system at that point.
Mr. Gallaway: I can make the analogy that as a Canadian I go to the States for the day and buy $500 worth of whatever goods on which there is some sort of duty. When I return I have to go through customs and pay the duty and tax on the goods.
What do you envision in terms of an American who for whatever reason is not aware of the requirements of the pre-registration, if I can call it that? Do you see it involving any more time if someone is coming in with a rifle because he is going hunting in northern Ontario? Do you see it being any more onerous in terms of entry into the country than for me as a Canadian citizen who has gone out and purchased goods in the United States? I am talking about time now.
Mr. Cocksedge: If someone has not planned the registration prior to getting to the border, I do not think there is any question more time will spent at the border processing the registration of the individual and the arm.
Mr. Gallaway: What do you envision for the hunter who is coming in from Kentucky? What sort of checks will you be doing, assuming the individual first contacts you by mail?
Mr. Cocksedge: Do you mean someone who is coming to hunt and has not done any previous planning for the trip?
Mr. Gallaway: No. I mean the person who pre-registers or whatever we are going to call it. What kind of checks will you be doing?
Mr. Cocksedge: Nothing will change from the current arrangements for the declaration of arms. As I said earlier that will remain. The documentation will be checked. There will be a physical examination of the arm to make sure the documentation and the particular firearm are one and the same. Then the person will be admitted into the country.
Mr. Gallaway: You have admitted you do not know what percentage of arms coming into Canada is smuggled. It is very difficult to identify. Do you also know, for example, what percentage of running shoes is smuggled in at any border crossing? Do you have any statistics on any of that? Is it special? Is there some way firearms are different from groceries being smuggled or running shoes or whatever?
Mr. Cocksedge: There is obviously a difference in the nature of the product.
Mr. Gallaway: I realize that but I am talking now of quantification.
Mr. Cocksedge: We do what we call both commercial and traveller stints at ports of entry. Just to explain what that is, on a random basis and at times on a target basis we will move a team into a port of entry and do extensive secondary examinations of both individual and commercial shipments. That gives us a snapshot, and a fairly accurate one, of the state of compliance with our law on the part of travellers and commercial importers.
We find on the traveller side that the non-compliance varies a lot with the exchange rate between the two countries. I am obviously talking primarily about the United States. It will vary to a certain extent with the particular port of entry and it will vary with the time.
.1705
We have statistical information that helps target our activities by shifting resources between ports to do more secondary examinations or not.
On the commercial side we have commercial intelligence that helps us understand from the domestic side where there may be a certain product being smuggled, for example, and thus competing with a domestic product. We will have intelligence there from either our own domestic producers of final product or retailers who are competing with those products to tell us if there is a particular product we need to target.
The Americans do exactly the same thing. We hope under the accord to exchange intelligence in a much more systematic way where either travellers or commercial importers are not complying with the laws of both countries.
[Translation]
The Chair: Mr. Langlois, you have five minutes.
Mr. Langlois: I would like to follow up on what Mr. Gallaway said, not about running shoes and sneakers, but about hunters.
Let's take the example of an American hunter who comes hunting in Canada. The Justice Minister of the Northwest Territories told us Monday night, I think, that an American hunter who comes in the Northwest Territories could spend more than $30,000 U.S. to bring back his hunting trophy or would go back very sad if he were empty-handed.
I understand that this hunter who is ready to invest $30,000 U.S. or even more, will probably be very careful so as to be able to properly carry out his hunting party.
However, the hunter who lives in Vermont, Connecticut, New Hampshire or Massachusetts - I'm taking examples of States close to my riding - or in Maine, and who wants to hunt moose or deer and thinks he might have a problem at the border, whether his fear is justified or not, would probably stay on the American side. He will spend his dollars in the U.S. at the expense of the Canadian tourism industry in border regions where wildlife could be more accessible to the American hunter.
We have seen in the last few years, I would even say in the last decades, how some publicity has been detrimental to Canada. Let's see how the publicity made in New England about hydro-electric power produced at James Bay, among other things, has impacted on the sale of contracts to New England. Some contracts have even been cancelled. There also has been a very strong lobbying outside of Canada about the way English-speaking minorities are treated by francophone Quebeckers. It was suggested that the francophone Quebeckers were mistreating their minority, denying them their right to an education and the right to control their own institutions. There was even a resolution from the United Nations or one of their committees blaming Canada for this.
I'm wondering how it can be that right now, even outside of Canada, negative publicity is made about Bill C-68. Certain magazines even say that if Bill C-68 is enacted, people shouldn't go hunting to Canada. Notwithstanding the knowledge of customs officers, civil servants and Revenue Canada officials, notwithstanding the knowledge that they will have of the law, how can we counter the negative effects in the United States, effects that have probably already started to be detrimental to tourism in our country, because a few Americans don't even probably know what stage C-68 is at? They don't know that it is being reviewed by a House of Commons' committee, and that it hasn't gone through the legislative stages. Will there be amendments? They don't know that.
What preventive measures, if possible, do you envision for now?
Mr. Cocksedge: As a former Deputy Minister of Tourism Canada, I am very sensitive to the need for publicity. What we will do, as soon as the rules of the game are clearer, will be to launch a positive marketing campaign to counter the negative rumours that could be circulating within some American associations. We have already seen that situation, as you have said, about other issues.
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We have now started discussions with the U.S. tourism associations through colleagues dealing with Canadian tourism, in order to make sure that the new rules are properly explained.
At the present time, we are participating very actively into most U.S. and European conferences on tourism to explain the customs rules. We are making contact with the same people in order to explain what the new rules could be, so that there be no false expectations and that people have precise information on the Canadian requirements.
As you said, this is a marketing issue and we are facing it.
Mr. Langlois: I would like to make a comparison with the GST. As you know, U.S. citizens can be exempted for certain goods and services bought in Canada if they fill out a form and send it to Revenue Canada.
I want to use that as an example because the GST legislation has been in existence for six years now. Are you able to establish the number of foreign citizens, especially Americans, who claim the reimbursement of the GST they have paid on goods and services both in Canada? I am asking this question because this situation is similar to that of illegal weapons. If you cannot trace them, those who don't ask anything can go through the holes.
[English]
Mr. Bennett: We will have to get some numbers to you on that. We can get some estimates.
Generally we have found that it has been useful, to a limited extent, as a marketing tool in Canada to demonstrate that tourists coming to Canada can get relief from some of the taxes paid. We have also found that few people, except maybe some tax practitioners, decide on their location for a vacation on the basis of the sales tax treatment in that location. People are coming here for reasons other than escaping a sales tax. We have found that it has not been particularly significant in people's decision on where to travel for a vacation.
Certainly there are those who do take advantage and tourist agencies do market it as an advantage in Canada that they can obtain relief from the GST when they vacation here. We will have to see if we can get something for you on exactly how much.
Ms Phinney (Hamilton Mountain): About page 20, which is on clause 35, you mentioned that the permit of anybody importing arms into Canada is valid for 60 days and if they were here any longer they would have to go to a chief firearms officer.
They can come across the border in Hamilton and go somewhere in northern Ontario for four months because it is their summer vacation. They could have a lodge up there and want to go to it for four months. They might be 400 miles from the border. Will there be some list available for such persons somewhere in northern Ontario that might be within 50 miles? Will there be anybody in northern Ontario who will be a qualified chief firearms officer and can renew it for another 60 days? Or, do they hunt for 60 days and then stop? What happens?
Mr. Cocksedge: I can't answer whether there will be a firearms officer available. We are very conscious of the particular issue of someone who may extend his or her hunting trip beyond the 60-day period. When we work out the system we have to figure out the least onerous way of allowing for extensions for properly documented registered arms. We have not done that yet.
Ms Phinney: But you will be looking into that.
The Chair: There are provisions in law that chief firearms officers can delegate their authority to local firearms officers for these and other purposes. There could be a local firearms officer in northern Ontario who could renew the permit.
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Ms Phinney: If I go to the border and I am going shopping, I say I am going for a couple of hours to a shopping centre that is half an hour away and I will be back. The requirements on me might be quite different from when I say I am going live somewhere in the United States for a couple of months.
The Chair: Sorry to interrupt you, Ms Phinney.
This is a 15-minute bell. We still have six names on the list of questioners. We need four people to stay, including one member of the opposition.
[Translation]
Mr. Langlois: I can stay but I don't have any more questions.
The Chair: Are you willing to stay to help me?
Mr. Langlois: Yes.
[English]
The Chair: Fine. The meeting can carry on.
I am sorry to interrupt you. Carry on.
Ms Phinney: I have done this with people who go shooting at a club across the border. We left Hamilton and it took us five minutes over two hours to go down there, compete and come back. These people who went across already have an FAC. Their guns are already registered. In the future if it is a restricted one it will be registered and they will have two papers.
The individual must have a paper to carry the arms to the border. All the people I know, and most people who go across for hunting, have green slips from customs.
If they said they were just going down for an hour and a half, would they have to fill out this form? Is this something that is very important to you? If you know they are going down to the club and will be back in an hour or two hours, do they have to fill out that the new customs form you are talking about?
They already have four pieces of paper they filled out to get to the border. They get to the border and now you are asking for one more piece of paper. They feel this is an imposition. Maybe you feel you want to know every single one, and I can understand that, but I have been asked to ask you that question.
Mr. Bennett: I think the answer will be that we would probably tend to believe that they are only going down for an hour or an hour and a half. However, once they are beyond the border point they are totally beyond any controls we might have. To distinguish the regime on the basis of the amount of time someone may be down across the border would probably be very difficult to do administratively. I can understand the concerns they would have.
Incumbent upon us in this case, as it is in other cases that have been mentioned as well, such as the hunter from Kentucky or Maine, is the extent to which we can make the system operate in a way that is as user friendly and as accommodating to people as possible, the better off anyone will be including our customs inspectors.
It is not something we relish, to devote more of the customs inspector's time to a particular task when he could be doing other things. There is a great deal of incentive on our part to make sure the regime operates in as quickly and as user friendly a way as possible.
Ms Phinney: I have a question on page 92, the proposed section 117.06. There are two parts to the question. In the first part which says ``shall be returned to the person from whom it was seized'', would you have any objection to adding in its original condition?
Mr. Bennett: It really does not affect the customs department.
Ms Phinney: A firearm that has been kept at the border.
Mr. Bennett: I guess I would like to take that under advisement. It seems quite reasonable on the surface of it, but I would like to take that suggestion back and discuss it with those people who drafted the law to see whether they have any particular concerns about it.
Ms Phinney: Could you explain proposed section 117.07 in ordinary English? I am not a lawyer and I am afraid I do not understand that. Most people using the bill are not lawyers. I do not understand that whole thing. It sounds to me as if every public officer can do whatever he wants and is exempt from everything he does that is wrong.
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The Chair: Maybe they do not understand it either.
Ms Phinney: You may not.
If you think I should ask somebody else, tell me whom I should ask. Somebody in the department? Whom should I ask to get an answer to that question?
Mr. Cocksedge: I would suggest the Department of Justice.
Ms Phinney: All right, I will ask it another time.
The Chair: We will have the minister back. We should save all these things for when he comes back before clause by clause and put them all to him.
Mr. Ramsay (Crowfoot): Your testimony so far has been very interesting to me.
I would like to pick up on a point that was raised by Mr. Gallaway. I understand that to facilitate a U.S. hunter coming to hunt in Canada he would have documentation sent to him and he could fill it out on the firearm he is bringing to the border. Is that right?
Mr. Cocksedge: What we would hope to do - and we have not worked out the mechanics of it yet, Mr. Ramsay - is to have in place a system for the hunter who knows well ahead of time that he is coming to Canada for an extended period to hunt. We would encourage either directly or through the tour operator that all the documentation related to the registration be completed beforehand and whatever fees are required be paid with a view to making his stop at the border as hassle free as possible.
Mr. Ramsay: When he gets to the border of course he hands the documentation over. What do you do then?
Mr. Cocksedge: We would verify the documentation against the actual firearm. He would have some personal identification as well. We would make that examination there.
Mr. Ramsay: You would not just let him drive through after producing the documentation.
Mr. Cocksedge: No.
Mr. Ramsay: Why not? It would expedite the process.
Mr. Cocksedge: Indeed, but if the movement of firearms is the overall objective we are trying to achieve I do not think it is unreasonable to ensure as we would on the commercial side - and all commercially documented firearms that come in are physically examined against the documentation - that we do the same thing at the primary inspection line with an individual traveller. It does not necessarily have to involve a secondary examination.
Mr. Ramsay: When the U.S. hunter comes back into the United States does he have to check with the Canadian authorities to ensure that he is not leaving his firearm behind?
Mr. Cocksedge: He has to check with the port of entry to ensure that the firearm is deregistered so that it is out of our system when we know he is heading out of the country.
Mr. Ramsay: When he comes back there is another check of the firearm against the documentation.
Mr. Cocksedge: Yes, correct.
Mr. Ramsay: That is very interesting because the deputy commissioner told us yesterday that the system of registration we were to adopt under this bill was simply sending in a card with the information on it. I question that for the very same reason that you would want to examine the documentation against the identifying features on the firearm to make it valid. Is that why you do it, to validate the information, the identifying features on the documentation, against the firearm?
Mr. Cocksedge: As we now do and would do under the registration system at the border, if I can just switch to the commercial side for a second. Right now the documentation we have is on shipments of firearms. We have a manifest that describes an entire shipment. What would be envisioned under the future system would be an identification of the firearm right down to the individual arm, the registration and other identifiers related to the arm. We would see the same process going on, on the travellers' side.
Mr. Ramsay: The point I am making is that when he hands over the documentation with the serial number, make, model, calibre and any other identifying feature on it, it is all on the documentation. You are not prepared just to accept that and let him through without verifying it.
Mr. Cocksedge: That is right.
Mr. Ramsay: The purpose of the verification is to ensure that the make, model and serial number are accurately recorded on the document.
Mr. Cocksedge: That is right. In effect both with the individual coming into the country and the individual exiting the country we have to ensure, because it will be maintained on the system otherwise, that the particular arm is being registered officially as it enters the country.
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Mr. Ramsay: You are not prepared to rely simply on the expertise and the honesty of the person coming through. You are checking it against the documentation. You are checking the identifying features against the documentation?
Mr. Cocksedge: Mr. Ramsay, let me qualify my comment by saying we are in the middle with the RCMP and other partners of working through the details of how we will actually administer the system. At the present time, even though there is not a registration process, we are doing that kind of verification with individuals who declare having firearms.
Mr. Ramsay: When the individual comes from Canada, finishes his hunt and goes back into the United States, he checks with you and you go through the same process so that the firearm he is taking back is actually the same one that he brought in. The only way you can do it is to check the rifle against the documentation.
Mr. Cocksedge: That is correct.
Mr. Lee (Scarborough - Rouge River): Let me ask you a general question here. I am curious about your view of whether or not the new procedures that would be required for import and export under the bill will help or hurt business transactions and in what way. What will it cost? Do you have a general answer to that question?
Mr. Bennett: What do you mean?
Mr. Lee: Will the new procedures cost business more money in business transactions? I guess that is what I am asking.
Mr. Bennett: They will but I do not think in the context of the value of the shipments they will be particularly significant.
Are you thinking of a commercial shipment of firearms coming into Canada for resale at Canadian Tire and the fees that would be associated with the verification of that shipment?
Mr. Lee: Yes.
Mr. Cocksedge: To be frank, there will be a more intrusive system to the extent. As I mentioned to Mr. Ramsay a minute ago, there will be a request in the registration system for information on individual arms which currently is not provided. Yes, that will generate some administrative cost plus transaction fees for certain commercial shipments.
Mr. Lee: Which will be passed on to the users.
Mr. Cocksedge: Yes, presumably.
Mr. Lee: What about export?
Mr. Cocksedge: If I may, user fees for commercial importations under certain circumstances are a way of life with many importers, going both ways, I might add.
Mr. Lee: What about export of firearms from Canada? Presumably costs would be entailed there with the additional procedures. Is that correct?
Mr. Cocksedge: Indeed.
Mr. Lee: Could we walk through what those procedures are now under the bill? If the employees of a Canadian manufacturer of a firearm all have firearm possession permits with the new counterpart of the FAC, what would that exporter have to do to get the shipment moved to the border?
Mr. Cocksedge: Bill, could you walk us through that?
Mr. Ledrew: Do you wish to go through the commercial importation?
Mr. Lee: Export.
Mr. Ledrew: Given the authorizations that are required, and the business licensing, etc., all exports will require the pre-authorization. That is the first step.
The exporter will have to report those weapons to the customs office at the border or at the seaport at time of export. We will verify the validity of the authorization. We will examine the goods. That is the position at present. We would do a 100% examination. At times that is subject to a number of factors depending on the circumstances, but the goods would be examined. The fee would be paid either at the time or depending on the arrangements made. Then we communicate to the registrar the fact that these weapons have been exported. That is the general process.
Mr. Lee: Are there any special procedures in getting the firearms to the border?
Mr. Ledrew: Not from our point of view in convoying them, other than the requirements that would be in place for the safe handling and shipment of firearms.
Mr. Lee: You are not aware of that at the moment, as I read the bill there is a requirement that you have a specially licensed carrier to carry firearms.
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I assume it would entail an additional cost to have a specially licensed carrier.
Anyway, the goods reach the border and will be looking for an authorization to export.
Mr. Ledrew: That is correct.
Mr. Lee: Would it be one authorization or more?
Mr. Ledrew: The exporter has to obtain the pre-authorization for the shipment now.
Mr. Lee: What about the export of goods act?
Mr. Ledrew: The Export and Import Permits Act?
Mr. Lee: Yes.
Mr. Ledrew: That act requires permits for certain goods to be exported from the country.
Mr. Lee: Not to the United States.
Mr. Ledrew: No, to certain countries and for certain designated goods -
Mr. Lee: So there are two documents. Am I correct in inferring that two documents are required for that?
The Chair: Let's not have questions and answers rolled into each other. Let Mr. Lee finish his question and then one of you can answer. Let them answer the question, Mr. Lee, so everything will go into the record.
Mr. Lee: Have you completed your previous answer?
Mr. Ledrew: I think I lost my place.
Under the Export and Import Permits Act permits are issued. There are blanket permits. There are different types of permits depending on the nature of the goods.
In this case a permit is required under that Export and Import Permits Act. That is an established requirement. The authorization under the firearms bill is an additional requirement.
Mr. Lee: Therefore you will require two authorizations or permits, not one.
Mr. Ledrew: Under certain circumstances, yes.
Mr. Lee: How less certain could we be? We are exporting a firearm or a shipment of firearms. That is specific enough. Is that circumstance certain enough for you to reply as to whether we need one or two permits or authorizations?
Mr. Ledrew: The export permit requirements of the Export and Import Permits Act will require a permit for firearms, depending on the location or the destination of the goods and the nature of the weapons.
I do not have a clear answer on the precise circumstances that would require a separate permit under the Export and Import Permits Act.
I guess the bottom line would be that there will be a requirement under Bill C-68 that does not exist today.
Mr. Lee: I assume you intend to have full cost recovery of fees. Would that be a reasonable inference on my part?
Mr. Ledrew: The principle of full cost recovery for not only the export process you are discussing but others is the intent, yes.
Mr. Lee: A manufacturer of firearms exists in my riding. It is the only one I know that exports from Canada in any volume. I assume this particular business - you tell me whether you think I am right or wrong - will have to foot the bill of full cost recovery for all the carrier paper and all the export paper for the one area of business that company is in. That is because they are the only ones doing volume exports of firearms. Do I have that right?
Mr. Cocksedge: In principle I would say you are right.
Mr. Lee: Would you agree that is a fairly significant passing on of fees?
Mr. Cocksedge: The issue of fees and how they will relate one to the other is not settled at all yet because there are a lot of factors to consider in terms of the costing at this point, not the least of which is the system itself which is still being designed. In principle, though, you are quite accurate.
Ms Meredith (Surrey - White Rock - South Langley): You said that stiffer penalties will be a deterrent. Are you aware that the penalty for possessing an illegal weapon or even unauthorized importing or exporting is a summary conviction which is only a fine? The courts have an option there. Do you feel this is a deterrent?
The Chair: Ms Meredith points out that there is an option of having an indictable offence or a summary offence. The crown would decide to use one or the other. Then the court could deal with that in turn.
Mr. Bennett: The legislation, as I understand it, would now as an option available to the crown allow for more serious charges to be proceeded with, which would attract much more serious penalties if a conviction were obtained.
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To the extent this is an option for the crown, this is utilized and those things have deterrent effects it is available to us.
Ms Meredith: Do you know whether or not a person who has in his possession an illegal weapon or is charged with illegal importing will be treated any differently under the new legislation?
Mr. Bennett: That is the expectation, yes. The law will provide for it. I think Mr. Rock made the point in his appearance before the committee on Monday that it is the government's intention to proceed in a more aggressive way by using the provisions available under the bill.
Ms Meredith: Has there been any explanation as to why it would also have a summary conviction as an option? If it were planning to be more aggressive, why has it allowed this to also have a summary conviction instead of a criminal conviction?
Mr. Cocksedge: I can't answer that question. I think we would have to verify this with the Department of Justice.
Ms Meredith: There is another point I want to raise because it has come up in discussion with some of my friends south of the border.
I also have a border constituency. I have Pacific crossing and Douglas crossing. There is some concern that the Whatcom County sheriff's department is going to be severely hampered in its duties. They look after Point Roberts but to go there they have to go through Canada. As I understand it there is, shall we say, an understanding right now that they will properly secure their weapons in the trunk of the car while they pass through Canada to stop the fighting and problems in Point Roberts.
How will they manage with this system of checking in and out as they go back and forth across the border? Is there an exemption classification for the police force or United States sheriff's officers?
Mr. Bennett: As someone who used to go to Point Roberts in his university days, I am not sure which side of the issue I should be on.
As a matter of practice we will have to take into account circumstances like those. It comes back to a point Mr. Ramsay made about checking each and every firearm against the documentation. Yes, that is how we have set out our procedures as we now see them. I think it is very important for us, as we consult with interest groups out there and hunters who will have to go through these procedures, to see whether we can reasonably make accommodations and under what circumstances we might make those accommodations so we can streamline the process.
As I said before, Mr. Chairman, it is important to us for this not to become a series of checks that are unreasonable and not deliver the real goods. The real goods are to make sure that the registration we have is accurate and that we can satisfy ourselves that it it accurate. If over time we find that we do not need to check every weapon, the pattern of compliance is so high among so many groups that we can relax the requirement somewhat, that is something we are certainly prepared to examine.
Ms Meredith: Do you ask Canadian travellers who are coming back whether or not they are carrying a firearm in their vehicles? Is that a common question when you are going back and forth across the border and you are coming back into Canada?
I know from experience that one is asked whether one has any liquor or alcohol in one's car. Will you start asking whether there are any firearms in the car? Unless you ask that question how will you know whether people are smuggling? You have not asked them.
Mr. Bennett: Of course the smuggler won't answer yes.
Ms Meredith: But if you have not asked the question...
Mr. Ramsay: Even the honest ones.
Mr. Cocksedge: It os fair to say that we generally do not ask Canadians that question in the locations you are very familiar with. I can't speak about Point Roberts because I have not been there for a while, but there are clearly indicated signs directed more to U.S. citizens who operate under a very different regime, as you know.
Ms Meredith: Can I interject for a minute? Those signs - by the way, I have had complaints from Americans - are right beside the window. Unless you look down when you drive up you cannot see the sign that says firearms are prohibited in Canada.
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I would suggest you move the signs further out.
Anyway carry on, please.
Mr. Cocksedge: We will make a note of that for sure.
My only point comes back to your issue about the U.S. police. We have to use common sense. If, as Mr. Bennett indicates, there is reason to believe sufficient are controls in place, we have no intention of having our customs officers waste their time doing wasteful work if we know compliance is there. We have some choices to make.
Mrs. Barnes: It is excellent that you pointed out there is a difference between border control, where you are responsible for the legitimate border crossings, and what the RCMP has to do between the points you have stationary sites at. We have to keep that in mind as we are going through this legislation. It is a difference for you and the RCMP. There is only so much you can control through your own officers.
I commend you for the strategies you have put in place since 1994 on tightening up, with some success. It is a far cry from what we are looking toward as an objective through this legislation and other measures.
I wanted to clarify something for my own information. Mr. Ramsay said something about the RCMP. He talked about the registration system. Yesterday they were here. In my mind I thought,Mr. Ramsay, that meant the registration for a person in Canada having possession of a gun right now, not a new one, and that was the mail-in. I did not think we were talking about a mail-in at the border site. I wanted to clarify that because it was unclear from the exchange.
I see you nodding in agreement.
Mr. Ramsay: I am talking about the process of registration of guns.
The Chair: We can clarify these when the the minister and the officials are back.
Mrs. Barnes: I want to pick on another point that Mr. Ramsay was talking about. The proposed new section under the bill will have a stopping point that it would be very easy to drive by. If I am leaving the country and I have had a good vacation - I have been hunting or fishing - the last thing I will be thinking about is remembering to pull into Canada Customs before zipping across the bridge or flying out at the airport, unless there is a pre-clearnace system like the one some of our airports have. That is what I am after. Are you examining pre-clearance where you have a Canadian official at the U.S. border crossing site?
I have some follow-up questions on that.
Mr. Cocksedge: It is an excellent point and one that obviously preoccupies us, because our primary interest is the importing process. We have some controls on export but it is much less.
Our thinking at this point - and the accord with the U.S. has been helpful in this regard - is to go even beyond having a Canadian official work in an American port of entry in a pre-clearance mode and have American officers doing that for us.
Mrs. Barnes: Are they thinking of doing this?
Mr. Cocksedge: Yes.
Mrs. Barnes: What came to mind when we were talking about this when I read about it was the situation of checking out of a hotel and ending up back home with the hotel key in your pocket. I would hate to see this happen. We are doing this for control measures and I see the need for it.
Let's just pretend right now that somebody did slip out of the country. We know he had a 60-day permit. It is now 90 or 120 days. What type of follow-up do you envision? You would have the name and address; you would have the gun. Do we go looking for this guy or girl in his or her home town?
Mr. Cocksedge: Again I think we have to be reasonable and we have to apply common sense to what seems to have happened. If, as you say, the hotel key analogy seems to be the situation, we may contact the individual either directly or through the local police force just to ensure that all is well. Arrest warrants would not be issued or anything like that. We may do that in certain circumstances, but it is not envisioned that we would do that where it is clearly an oversight or error.
Once again these are things we are sorting out with common sense.
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Mrs. Barnes: Common sense and obviously cooperation with other authorities.
Mr. Cocksedge: Yes, indeed.
Mr. Bennett: Just to build on this point, and it is a point I keep coming back to, our interest is not in putting administrative burdens on people just for the sake of it. Our interest is to make sure Canada has a national registry that is as accurate as we can possibly make it. Anything we can do to foster compliance and make it easy for people to make sure they keep our system up to date is in our interest, and that is what we will pursue.
I think that is behind Mr. Cocksedge's reference to our possibly exploring with the Americans having them do the deregistration when the hunter leaves. That is a perfectly acceptable alternative for us to explore and is very consistent with the proposals in the Canada-U.S. accord.
Mrs. Barnes: My next question has to do with theft from legal shipments. We have been told many times that arms often come into the country, go through the proper process at the border point, and then by whatever means such as leakage or stealing they never arrive where they were supposed to be going. Then we have in essence smuggled firearms but they are not smuggled into the country. It is seepage from those that entered legally at the point of entry and then disappeared who knows where. This bill is designed to alleviate that problem. I would like your analysis of how that could be so.
Mr. Cocksedge: The basic enhancement the bill anticipates is that we would, as Mr. Bennett was saying, have information on the individual firearm as opposed to information on a shipment that would indicate on a document that there are 100 or whatever firearms in a particular shipment.
To the extent that there have been thefts from the warehouses of firearms dealers, they are often not discovered until well after the fact because there are no systematic inventory controls and bases for doing so. The leakage you are referring to often occurs and it is only discovered well after the fact if pilferage or whatever has gone on.
We would have information on individual firearms in a registry which we can track on a regular basis to know where particular firearms should be. That would help us track that movement which is more difficult when we do it only on a shipment basis. This would pertain to firearms that are imported and that may be kept in a warehouse. They may be released or not released into the economy but are still stored in a warehouse. It could also pertain to firearms that are in transit movement through the country to some third country. We would have a better handle on what is going on.
The Chair: I have a few questions. Let's say you have an American who lives near the border in Vermont. He is accustomed to going across, let's say from Island Pond, Vermont, into the Eastern Townships to hunt and comes frequently to Canada.
Once he is in our computer system is there any saving of time? The first time he comes with the temporary permit they go through the process. Then he comes, let's say, next weekend and the following weekend. Is there any saving in time? In other words does the retention of information in the computer help save time the second, third and fourth times?
Mr. Cocksedge: Indeed there would be savings in those subsequent entries into the country because the authorization would already have been given. We are essentially managing the subsequent transaction in and out of the country. There would not be as much data gathering and so on going on at that stage.
The Chair: All right.
Do you have any figures on how many Americans who arrive with guns for hunting are now turned back at the Canada-U.S. border as opposed to those who are admitted? In other words how many people cross the Canada-U.S. border from the south, Americans, to hunt with their weapons? How many were turned back of those total numbers in any one year, recently?
Mr. Cocksedge: We will try to get the specific information for you, Mr. Allmand.
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It is fair to say that the overwhelming majority of Americans who come with a legitimate hunting rifle, for example, are for those reasons, unless there is some other issue related to the individual, admitted to the country.
The Chair: If you can get it conveniently that is fine. If it is will cost a lot of money, don't bother. However I would like some assurance that the answer you are giving me is more or less correct.
A lot of concern has been expressed this afternoon that the more stringent rules of Bill C-68 could deter tourism and so on. Are there other commercial products that have similar stringent rules when the products arrive at the border that require more paperwork, more checking? For example pharmaceuticals and medicines when imported into Canada in bulk, do they not require because of our laws more stringent checking and identification?
Mr. Cocksedge: Yes, they do and so does alcohol. We have another product that is in the same category, where more documentation and more physical verification of the goods are required. Quite frankly the companies involved in the businesses dealing in those products are quite accustomed to them because usually the same rules apply in other countries.
The Chair: My colleague, Mr. Lee, raised the point that exporters and importers would soon be accustomed to the additional paperwork. It must be done with pharmaceuticals because even the strength of drugs in some countries is different from the strength in Canada.
Mr. Cocksedge: That is right.
The Chair: We won't allow in certain drugs or certain types of things that do not comply with our Food and Drug Act and so on.
Mr. Cocksedge: I was recently in Europe where the same kinds of differences in the standards for pharmaceuticals and in some cases for food products pertain. Even in a European type of setting for goods destined into the territory of the European union or outside controls are applied.
The Chair: You said that between border stations is not your affair. I lived in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. I knew all the little roads that crossed the border without customs stations down near Knowlton Landing. There was always a sign on the road to please report to the customs at Masonville, at Stanstead, or wherever. I always did, of course.
I want to know about that sort of thing, the checking on that. If one really wanted to smuggle, one could use country roads crossing the border, especially at night when there are no lights. The signs are there. I do not know whether they have a sign on firearms but there are quite extensive signs going both ways.
Then there are also waterways. I am thinking of Lake Memphremagog, where it would be quite easy. I think the RCMP has a boat there. Do you have customs officials on those boats, or is it totally the RCMP checking for customs violations?
Mr. Cocksedge: Normally it is only the RCMP, although we occasionally join the RCMP if it is on a particular operation where it is using information we have provided. We are there sometimes to gather further intelligence on what is going on, but normally it is only the RCMP.
The Chair: I understand that a lot of the smuggling of this kind might take place over water.
Mr. Cocksedge: Yes.
Mr. Ramsay: Just so we are clear on the issue of the registration, at the border a gentleman passes over documentation he has filled out on a shotgun buried in his trunk. You have to issue him a temporary registration certificate, don't you?
Mr. Cocksedge: Yes.
Mr. Ramsay: Would you requote your answer, please. What did you say?
Mr. Cocksedge: Are you talking about what is proposed?
Mr. Ramsay: Yes. Under the proposed legislation you would have to issue him a temporary registration for the firearm.
Mr. Cocksedge: Yes, that is right.
Mr. Ramsay: That registration then authorizes him to have that firearm in Canada. If he is stopped by a police officer he has to produce the registration certificate to justify having the firearm. That means the identifying features on the registration card must match the firearm.
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Mr. Cocksedge: Yes.
The Chair: You have to get everything on the record.
Mr. Ramsay: If you did leave the shotgun in the trunk of the car and just processed the temporary registration from the documentation, and if the information were wrong, perhaps wrong in the serial number or whatever and you issued a registration certificate that did not match the information or the identifying features on the shotgun, you would be subject to having your firearm seized for not having a valid registration certificate. Is that not fair to assume?
Mr. Cocksedge: In pure legal terms I would agree with you. In practical terms, if it was clear that a clerical error was made - and this happens now obviously in documentation on a number of imports including controlled goods - some discretion would have to be used.
Mr. Ramsay: If the hunter 400 miles north in northern Ontario is checked by a wildlife officer or a member of the OPP and does not have a registration certificate that matches the firearm he carries, he is subject to the penalty under this new statute.
Mr. Cocksedge: The scenario you describe is obviously possible. We hope unlikely, but obviously possible. This underlines the need for us in the next couple of years, as we work with our partners, to introduce systems that anticipate precisely that kind of eventuality so inappropriate action is not taken.
Mr. Ramsay: That is not my point. My point is that if you do not verify the information on the documentation by inspecting the firearm, it is possible these kinds of situations can occur. In other words you must verify the identifying features on the documentation by examining the firearm. Is that not reasonable to assume?
Mr. Cocksedge: Yes, as I indicated earlier, that would be our intent. Where it is clear that the individual or the circumstances over time are lower risk we might relax that somewhat.
Mr. Ramsay: That is the point. If you do that, you are running the risk of issuing a registration certificate that may not accurately reflect the firearm. Therefore I would suggest it is imperative that when you issue a registration certificate you check the documentation against the firearm itself through a visual inspection to ensure the registration certificate contains the accurate identifying features of the firearm. Otherwise the registration card is useless to the individual because it does not register the firearm.
Mr. Bennett: The point you are making is bang on, in that our interest here is to make sure the registration system has accurate data. If we find that unless we visually inspect and verify the weapon right down to the last digit of its serial number all the time we run the risk of seriously jeopardizing the integrity of the registration system, we will have to continue to verify each and every weapon.
If through our experience we can satisfy ourselves the risks we are taking with the integrity of the system are minimal in our choosing to be more relaxed in the percentage of times we have to do that, we are quite prepared, working with our partners, to look at those possibilities.
Mr. Ramsay: You are saying that you are prepared to run the risk of issuing a registration certificate that does not accurately register a firearm.
Mr. Bennett: I am saying that we are not prepared to run any significant risk of that happening. The fundamental principle here is to maintain the integrity of the registration system.
If we were to move to a more lax regime that jeopardized that in any significant way, we would think twice before we moved.
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Mr. Ramsay: How can you depend upon the reliability of a system that does not require visual inspection to ensure the information within your system has been verified by a visual inspection of the firearm?
Mr. Bennett: Exactly, and that is the reason for our starting position. That is how we are will proceed. We are will verify each weapon. If through our experience in the lead-up to the implementation of the regime we can satisfy ourselves that there is a better way, one that reduces significantly perhaps the intrusiveness of the regime on the part of the hunter but does not appreciably alter the risks we might be taking with the registration system, bingo. We think we might be able to have a different regime that is less intrusive.
Ms Phinney: I would like to know whether customs officers are considered peace officers in this bill.
Mr. Cocksedge: Customs officers are considered peace officers for the administration of the Customs Act, and for the purposes of this bill they would also be peace officers.
Ms Phinney: That is where they would get their power in this bill to search and to seize, etc.
Mr. Cocksedge: And detain, yes.
Ms Phinney: Are customs officers considered police officers?
Mr. Cocksedge: No, they are not. They are considered peace officers. By that they have the power of arrest, detention and seizure in the administration of the Customs Act only and not in the general administration of the Criminal Code. It therefore distinguishes them from police officers.
Ms Phinney: There may have to be some clarification of that because I am not 100% sure it indicates that they are not police officers or that they could not at some time be called police officers.
In clause 99 and in other clauses it does not say it does not mean customs officers. If only means this type of person. Perhaps I will be able to get clarification from the authors of this on the question of police officers, peace officers and how much power the customs people have, particularly when you have been asking for more powers. Is this where they will get them or are they to come from some other act?
Mr. Bennett: That issue is still under review. We will register the points you are making with our justice colleagues whom we will put on notice to be prepared to explain this to you further.
Ms Phinney: Thank you.
Mr. Lee: Given that Canada sits next to the United States, which probably has more guns per capita than any other country in the world, over 100 million guns, I understand; and given that the border is so open, so porous and there is material movement of illegal, prohibited, smuggled guns across the border, what is the rationale for imposing strict documentation on guns that are manufactured and sold directly into the export market?
I am thinking of a Canadian handgun manufacturer that does about $20 million in export. What is the rationale from the point of view at Revenue Canada for documenting with precision every single handgun that is manufactured and sold into export when there is this huge potential for leakage of illegal guns all along the border?
Mr. Bennett: Maybe I can start on that. It all comes back to the fundamental premise here, the desire on the part of Canada to maintain a registry system that is as accurate as humanly possible. Once a gun becomes a gun in your constituent's plant it needs to be registered so we can satisfy ourselves that all guns in the country are in the registry.
The point you might be driving at is that, to the extent arrangements can be made to satisfy ourselves that the registry is up to date with a minimum amount of intrusiveness on the part of the government requiring additional forms and complexity, that is something we should do.
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Your constituent is someone with whom we need to work. If there are things we can do to explain the proposals in a way that is user friendly and perhaps make administrative arrangements with the individual so as to minimize the burden on him, that is something we are certainly prepared to explore.
One thing we do not want to jeopardize is the integrity of the registry. If it can be maintained in a rigorous way in a less intrusive manner for a particular person in particular circumstances, we are prepared to look at it.
Mr. Ramsay: Will the information you will record in your registration system as the American people come into Canada with their firearms be shared? Will it be a permanent record or a temporary record?
Mr. Ledrew: The authorization is provided for a period of time. It is a good question.
I am not sure we have the answer today as to whether it would be a permanent record. We would retain that information on the individual's weapon for the period of time it is required. If it is a five-year authorization or permit for the individual, it would obviously be maintained in our system for the five years.
Frankly we can't answer the question now as to whether it would be permanent, but I doubt it. I do not know why we would need to keep it permanently but it may make sense - and I am speculating somewhat now - to retain that information in case after the expiration the individual comes back and wishes to obtain a new authorization. It may make administative sense that we do to access the file.
Mr. Ramsay: I understand from one of the other questions that you may set up a system in which someone coming back into the United States may not have to stop at the Canadian portal but would go right through, stop and have it cleared there. That means you will share the information with the American authorities.
Mr. Ledrew: Their role in this scenario would be to collect those forms for us and to provide the documents to Canadian customs so we can cancel or deactivate the permit. That would be the intention.
Mr. Ramsay: If you share the registration information with the Americans, one side effect is that you will, in a sense at least, be registering American firearms and you will be turning the information over to the Americans.
Mr. Cocksedge: No. If I could clarify, we are only asking the Americans to obtain from the returning U.S. citizen the documentation. Once it is provided to us it will allow us to deactivate the registration and the registration system. No information is being given by the U.S. citizen to the United States. It will be the customs office for any purposes other than that.
Mr. Ramsay: To satisfy Canadian requirements they will have to inspect the firearm to make sure it is leaving Canada, and to make sure the firearm accurately matches the description on the forms.
Mr. Cocksedge: To be frank, Mr. Ramsay, given the relatively short time we have had to raise this matter with the American authorities under the accord that was just signed, we have not gone into that level of detail so I can't answer your question.
Mr. Ramsay: Is that not what you would require of them to ensure the firearm has left Canada? If you will allow them to go through to the American portal and clear the firearm from Canada, not only must they take the documentation that they will pass to them but they must check the documentation with the firearm to ensure the firearm has cleared Canada. Is that not reasonable?
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Mr. Bennett: The point you are driving at is quite reasonable, but whether or not it would constitute a record for the purposes of the United States government is certainly for the United States government to determine.
They would be acting on our behalf. In this scenario they would acting as our agents, not as agents of the United States government. The reason they would be doing this is location. They will happen to be in the booth at which the hunter will stop. The hunter has to stop for reasons quite apart from the deregistration of his firearm. It would probably always be an option for the individual to stop on the Canadian side if he had some concerns about divulging information to an agent on the American side.
Mr. Ramsay: This is what will cause the American hunter concern. I have received letters from sporting groups about their apprehension that they will be registering their firearms at the Canadian border, but this information will be shared with the Americans so they will in fact be registering their firearms.
Ms Cohen (Windsor - St. Clair): That will keep the Michigan Militia out of Windsor.
Mr. Ramsay: This is a concern. This is one of the concerns that will keep the hunters out of Canada.
Mr. Bennett: I think we will have to deal with their concern. I have heard it expressed. It is certainly not the intent of the legislation or the way we administer it to provide information to the United States government.
The Chair: In answer to Mr. Ramsay, you said if they felt so concerned that they wanted to leave their papers at the Canadian customs station, which might take them only another 10 minutes, they could do so.
Mr. Cocksedge: Yes.
The Chair: We can pursue this further. I want to thank you once again.
The meeting is adjourned.