*** In addition to identifying individuals [4,500 estimated as extrapolated from the sample] with criminal associations, the RCMP identified 16 businesses operating at airports that were linked to criminal activity such as providing travel arrangements for organized crime, facilitating identity fraud, and selling stolen passes. The firms were associated with biker gangs, organized crime, and drug trafficking. ***
Canada has porous borders, porous ports, and porous airports. How many have security officers have been hired with the $7.7 billion? Is it possible that the money was used basically to bring up to standard the deteriorations and deficiencies that have crippled the security system for 10 years? Just look at some of what is excerpted below from the report.
[. . . . We] found that the government did not have a management framework that would guide investment, management, and development decisions and allow it to direct complementary actions in separate agencies or to make choices between conflicting priorities.
3.4 The government as a whole failed to achieve improvements in the ability of security information systems to communicate with each other. Consequently, needed improvements will be delayed by several years. Moreover, even as the government was launching programs that would create new needs for fingerprint identification, projects that would have helped it to deal with the increased demand were not included in the initiative.
That obviously would require more personnel and more funding.
3.5 We also found deficiencies in the way intelligence is managed across the government. A lack of co-ordination has led to gaps in intelligence coverage as well as duplication. The government as a whole did not adequately assess intelligence lessons learned from critical incidents such as September 11 or develop and follow up on improvement programs. Individual agencies have created new co-ordinating mechanisms, but some departments are still not participating in them.
[. . . . ] Lost and stolen Canadian passports not on border control watch lists
3.124 On average, more than 25,000 Canadian passports are reported lost or stolen each year. The RCMP believes that lost and stolen passports are a concern for our national security because of their potential use by terrorists or other criminals.
3.125 Border watch lists do not contain the list of lost and stolen Canadian passports. In April 2003, the Passport Office instituted a policy that once a passport is reported lost or stolen, it is permanently deactivated. However, the information system used on the primary inspection line cannot distinguish between active and deactivated passports.
3.126 Discussion of this issue among the Passport Office, Customs, and Immigration began in January 2003 and was ongoing at the time of this audit but had generated no solution or corrective action. We were told that privacy concerns had to be overcome before the Passport Office could share the list of lost and stolen passports with Citizenship and Immigration; then the list in the Customs primary inspection line system would be updated.
[. . . . ] 3.78 Problems in this area contribute to other deficiencies noted. Elsewhere in this chapter we discuss problems that could be defined as a lack of interoperability or of information sharing:
[. . . . ] 3.138 Over 110,000 workers in Canada's airports have access to the "air side." Transport Canada screens each worker to eliminate persons who are known or suspected to be involved in threats of violence against persons or property, who are known or suspected to be members of an organization involved in violence or "closely associated" with such a person, or who the Minister of Transport reasonably believes might be prone to interfering with civil aviation.
[. . . . ] 3.144 We examined persons holding clearances at five Canadian Airports -- Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Halifax, and Winnipeg -- and found that about 3.5 percent have criminal records. In the general population, 9 percent of Canadians have criminal records. However, based on our analysis about 5.5 percent of clearance holders hired between January 2001 and May 2003 had criminal records. While this is still lower than the Canadian average, the upward trend over the last two years is of concern.
[. . . . ] 3.149 Based on the results of the RCMP's database search on the 405 persons in our sample (generalized to the total number of people holding clearances to restricted areas at the five airports), we estimate that about 4,500 persons or 5.5 percent have possible criminal associations that warrant further investigation and possibly withdrawal of some security clearances. This represents a serious threat to security at airports.
3.150 In addition to identifying individuals with criminal associations, the RCMP identified 16 businesses operating at airports that were linked to criminal activity such as providing travel arrangements for organized crime, facilitating identity fraud, and selling stolen passes. The firms were associated with biker gangs, organized crime, and drug trafficking. No firms with terrorist associations were discovered. At the two airports where Customs and the RCMP had no active criminal conspiracy investigations, nine companies with criminal links were operating.
3.151 Recommendation. Where there is sufficient evidence, the Canada Border Services Agency should support the RCMP in conducting criminal conspiracy investigations at the two airports that had no active cases at the time of our audit. [. . . . ]
There is much more to read. It is almost as though those who are charged with provision for Canadians' security did NOT want Canada to be secure. NJC
