Union raises alarm over ‘port runners’
NOTHING WE CAN DO, OFFICERS SAY
Border officers at one Ontario port of entry are becoming increasingly alarmed by the number of drivers coming into Canada without clearing customs first and are frustrated because they can’t do anything when it happens, says the union that represents them.
Jean- Pierre Fortin, president of the Customs and Immigration Union, shared with the National Post several emails he’s received in recent months from staff at the Cornwall, Ont., port of entry expressing concern about drivers who either speed through the port of entry without completing inspection or drivers who bypass customs altogether.
“We have had two more port runners this evening,” said one email in early March. “Travelling northbound in tandem at a high rate of speed, a passenger van and a full- size sedan crossed into the southbound lane … evading the POE (port of entry), and driving in to Cornwall.”
Another email, in February, said: “It is frustrating and unbelievable that we can actually see vehicles running into Canada and nothing we can do to stop them.”
An internal Canada Border Services Agency briefing document appears to support the union’s concerns. The document, dated Feb. 9 and obtained by the National Post through an access-to-information request, says, “there are regular occurrences of drivers accelerating away from primary inspection,” posing a “significant safety and security issue.”
Fortin said an “absurd” policy forbids border officers from chasing after port runners. Instead, they have to call local police for assistance.
“Although it may be difficult to control an impulsive behaviour when officers believe that they are acting in good faith, the practice of pursuits using any port vehicles or on foot is not permitted,” the policy reads.
Fortin maintains that the no- pursuit rule is a policy choice by CBSA management and not a legal restriction.
“We should be able to intervene and chase the port runners,” he said. “We can’t even deal with problems taking place at our own port.”
A spokeswoman for CBSA president John Ossowski said border officers do not have the authority to chase port runners, as that “remains the jurisdiction of our law enforcement colleagues.”
“We each have very distinctive responsibilities and each play a very important distinctive role in protecting Canada,” he said in an email.
“It is important to ensure clarity on our respective roles and responsibilities … and imperative that we not perform each other’s duties for the safety of officers and the public.”
In a separate statement, the CBSA also noted that Ottawa has given the agency $63 million to spend on infrastructure improvements at ports of entry and that some of the money will go toward installation of gates, closed-circuit cameras and improved lighting. About $ 83,000 has been spent installing plastic, sand- filled barriers to slow traffic that leaves the primary inspection area in Cornwall.
The border officers’ union has been vocal in recent months about security gaps along the Canada- U. S. frontier. In March, amid growing concerns about asylum seekers who were bypassing ports of entry and entering Canada by foot through unguarded roads and fields, Fortin compared the unmanned parts of the border to “Swiss cheese.”
At t he t i me, he called f or a 300- person mobile patrol force led by the CBSA. Such a force, he said, could also respond to port runners in vehicles.
The port of entry in Cornwall is located on the north side of the St. Lawrence Seaway. To get to it from the U.S. side, drivers cross the Seaway International Bridge. At the north end of the bridge, drivers have to pay a toll and then follow a road that veers to the right to get to the point of entry.
According to internal CBSA records, since 2014 there have been at least 21 cases of drivers “running the port” (meaning they sail past the primary inspection booth without stopping or fail to comply when directed to the secondary inspection area) and 108 cases of drivers who “fail to report in” ( meaning they evade the port of entry altogether, typically by crossing into oncoming lanes at the end of the bridge and driving straight through to Cornwall).
“These acts appear to be done deliberately and without consideration for the safety of our community members,” Lee Ann O’Brien, acting chief of the Akwesasne Mohawk Police Service, one of the police agencies serving the area, said in an email.
The CBSA declined to speculate as to what was motivating drivers to evade border officers.
But smuggling contraband is likely one reason.
A CBSA press release last October reported that a driver sped away from the Cornwall port of entry before her examination was complete. When police eventually caught up with the woman, who lived on the nearby Akwesasne Mohawk reserve, they found several bags of undeclared fine- cut tobacco weighing about 90 kilograms.
The CBSA did not respond when asked by National Post how many port runners it has documented at ports of entry elsewhere in the country.
WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO CHASE THE PORT RUNNERS. WE CAN’T DEAL WITH PROBLEMS TAKING PLACE AT OUR OWN PORT.