CBSA dragging its heels on reform

Four years on, many of inquest’s key recommendations remain unmet

Four years after a coroner’s inquest led to recommendations around the treatment of immigrant detainees, the Canada Border Services Agency remains noncompliant with some of the most crucial calls for change.

The death of Lucia Vega Jimenez — a Mexican woman who hanged herself at Vancouver International Airport’s immigration holding centre in 2013 — prompted the inquest and later calls for the CBSA to halt its subcontracting practices.

This came after evidence revealed the private firm operating at the time of Vega Jimenez’s death did not have adequate training and often failed to fulfil contract duties.

Postmedia has learned that last year the CBSA subcontracted another private firm, Securiguard, to watch the holding cells at YVR — a facility below ground level, with no natural light and poor ventilation.

“Having these detainees in government care is such a sensitive kind of work, we don’t think that the state should be contracting that out,” said Josh Paterson, executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.

Paterson, who represented the civil liberties association at the inquest, said progress on the jury’s 19 recommendations made to the CBSA in October 2014 had been sluggish. The federal agency did not respond to Postmedia’s repeated requests for comment.

It’s not known if CBSA staff are monitoring surveillance video systems at random to ensure staffing levels and contract commitments are made, which was another recommendation from the inquest. The coroner’s jury heard that Jimenez died after a contract employee was unable to perform a room check due to staffing issues.

Paterson said detention conditions remain a concern, and it has been difficult to track the agency’s progress despite numerous attempts to get updates.

“I have not heard anything to suggest there’s been a significant improvement,” he said. “I continue to hear as recently as last week from refugee lawyers that conditions in there are not good.”

Zool Suleman, a Vancouverbased immigration lawyer, also confirmed that conditions in the facility remained “unacceptable.”

“There’s very little privacy, and it’s very hard to access for counsel. It’s also hard for those who are detained there to call out to counsel,” he said.

Canada’s immigration laws permit officials to detain individuals if there is worry that they won’t show up to future hearings, if there is concern they may be dangerous or to figure out their identity.

“We need to remember that people who are in breach of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act are not criminals,” Suleman said. “These are people making refugee claims, people awaiting hearings, people awaiting deportation.”

In 2016, after the death of two migrant detainees in provincial facilities in Ontario, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale announced a new National Immigration Detention Framework that included replacing the current Vancouver holding centre with a new facility in Surrey. It is expected to open by November in a retrofitted RCMP building on 76 Avenue. But questions remain as to whether CBSA will adopt all the recommendations at the new facility.

“For CBSA to not provide clarity, several years after there was a request for such clarity, is a real source of concern,” Suleman said.

Paterson pointed to Ontario’s Bill 175 that expands the mandate of civilian oversight for the Ontario Provincial Police as an example of what many want to see for the CBSA.