Ministerial transition 2021: Transition letter

Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6

Dear Minister:

On behalf of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), congratulations on your appointment as Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and welcome to the Public Safety portfolio. I look forward to discussing how we can best support you in implementing your priorities for the current mandate, including those related to firearms and irregular migration. I am eager to work with you on matters that will contribute to Canadian post-COVID recovery efforts in these uncertain times and support the continued sustainability and modernization of the CBSA.

The CBSA's broad mandate both supports Canada's economic prosperity and helps protect national security. The Agency protects our ports of entry (POEs) while also managing the flow of people and goods into and out of our country. At any given moment, we are facilitating travel and trade; collecting duties and taxes; enforcing customs; protecting human, plant, and animal health; and dealing with national security issues. We also play a significant role in supporting the temporary and permanent residence programs and in upholding the integrity of our asylum system in accordance with Canada's humanitarian tradition. This includes operational, program, and policy responsibilities related to the security screening of immigrants, refugees, and visitors; determining their admissibility; and representing the Minister before quasi-judicial hearings at the Immigration and Refugee Board. It is also important to note that as Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, you have primary policy responsibility for immigration at POEs, immigration enforcement at the border and within Canada, and for serious inadmissibility grounds, pursuant to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. The CBSA is the primary portfolio organization that supports you in exercising these important responsibilities.

The Agency has been a key player in protecting the health and safety of Canada throughout the pandemic. I am proud of our personnel who have worked tirelessly at land borders, marine ports, postal facilities, airports, inland offices, and overseas in various Canadian missions around the world to implement border restrictions in response to the pandemic, while also maintaining Canada's vital supply chains. I look forward to introducing you to them.

The CBSA's efforts to respond to COVID-19 have not only demonstrated the importance of strong and adaptive border management, but have also underscored the need to move to a more touchless and automated border experience. The dynamics of the pandemic have magnified pre-existing information technology (IT) and infrastructure deficiencies within the CBSA and have exacerbated volume pressures related to the rapid raise of e-commerce volumes. A modern, adaptive border is needed not only to address the challenges of this pandemic and the next, but also to manage long-term challenges and trends. Globalization continues to transform how goods, services, capital, and people move more and more seamlessly across borders. Groundbreaking technological advances have raised the expectations of traders and travellers for better border service, while also providing the Agency with new avenues to tackle evolving and complex security risks such as contraband, illegal migration, transnational crime, and terrorism.

To meet these challenges and seize on these opportunities, the CBSA has a vision of a modernized, automated Border of the Future that will help us become more responsive, agile, and sustainable. While our plan is ambitious, its success will be critical to enable us to help advance a safe and secure Canada. Major Border of the Future projects are currently at various stages of implementation, including initiatives to address e-commerce volumes, which have continued to increase under pandemic restrictions; streamline traveller processing to support the recovery of travel and tourism; pilot preclearance operations in the United States (US) to push out the border for commercial processing; and renew and replace legacy IT and physical infrastructure to ensure our operational readiness and long-term sustainability. We look forward to seeking your views on these initiatives, and on the specific priorities of this new mandate that we can help support.

As we strive to strengthen global border management and simplify the border experience, sound relationships with key domestic and international partners have never been more important. Global economic, social, and health changes are equally challenging for Canada's closest allies, such as the Border Five (Canada, the US, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand). Your relationship with your international counterparts is vital to our effective collaboration with these allies, and in particular the US, as we share a highly integrated border. We recommend early and sustained engagement.

With over 14,000 employees (including over 5,000 uniformed officers) at 1,200 service points in Canada and abroad, the CBSA is a vast, 24/7/365 operation, and the nature of our business has a high profile in the media and the lives of Canadians. We will work closely with you and your team to ensure that you have the required information to respond to issues—whether national security, smuggled guns, drug seizures, irregular migration, customs, or anything else related to border enforcement and management. I look forward to working with you in support of Canada's security and prosperity.

The enclosed briefing material presents a strategic overview of the CBSA as well as background material on the Agency and its priorities, including proposals for potential modernization opportunities such as supporting Canada's economic recovery by simplifying and digitalizing import and duty collection processes; streamlining and modernizing the traveller experience; and exploring options for a renewed Canada-US Safe Third Country Agreement. Briefing binders that include a more detailed synopsis of our current programs and initiatives are being shared with your office concurrently. Should you be interested, we would be pleased to arrange a program of visits to some of our front-line facilities, which would allow you and your staff to experience our operational environment first-hand.

Yours sincerely,

John Ossowski  October 07, 2021

Enclosure