CBSA EMPLOYEES TEMPORARILY REASSIGNED.

Largest influx in Quebec, Manitoba

OTTAWA • More than 100 employees of the Canada Border Services Agency have been “temporarily assigned” to deal with irregular asylum seekers in almost any given month since November 2016, with a peak of 544 temporarily assigned to the file at the height of the influx in August 2017, a document tabled this week in the House of Commons shows.

The numbers give a sense of how the agency responded to the waves of irregular asylum seekers that began to make headlines in Manitoba and Quebec in the winter of 2017. The majority of these temporary assignments have been to Quebec, where most irregular asylum seekers have entered the country through an unofficial border crossing near Lacolle, Que. Several dozen have also been assigned each month to the Prairie provinces, where a much smaller number of asylum claimants have been crossing in Emerson, Man.

In a statement to the Post, however, the CBSA said that “the deployment of staff from across the country to support the processing of irregular migrants had no impact on the agency’s daily operations.”

In the document, tabled Monday in response to an order paper question from the Conservatives, the CBSA provided a monthly breakdown of employees assigned to handle illegal border crossing cases in each region of the country from January 2016 to November 2018. It reports that it has 13,500 employees and “regularly reallocates resources as needed.” The agency says those reassigned to deal with irregular asylum seekers can include “border services officers and administrative support staff handling cases on initial entry, inland enforcement officers undertaking investigations, hearings officers, removals officers and regional staff directly supporting these efforts.”

Until November 2016, the Prairies were the only region where CBSA personnel had been tasked to handle illegal border crossings. That month, 55 employees were assigned to Quebec and 64 to the Prairies. But as more people began arriving at Roxham Road, a rural road near Lacolle, the numbers quickly ramped up. In August 2017, when 5,530 asylum seekers arrived in Quebec, the CBSA assigned 364 employees to deal with the influx in that province, and 180 across the rest of Canada, including some in every region of the country.

Since then, the numbers have risen and fallen with the number of people crossing the border, but have not dropped below 100 in any month, and hit 230 in August 2018. In November, the last month numbers are listed, there were 153 CBSA personnel tasked with handling irregular asylum seekers across the country, including 86 in Quebec.

“Our government will never compromise the safety of Canadians and we have the utmost confidence in the extraordinary work performed by the hard-working women and men of the CBSA, in partnership with the Department of Immigration and the RCMP,” said Marie-Emmanuelle Cadieux, a spokesperson for Border Security Minister Bill Blair, in an email. To avoid major delays at the border, the agency regularly responds to changes in the volume of travellers through temporary reassignments, hiring summer students, using overtime and restricting employee leave, Cadieux said.

Last spring, it was reported that the CBSA had sent out memos advising that some agents would be diverted to Quebec for the summer to help deal with the influx of refugee claimants. At the time, Jean-Pierre Fortin, national president of the Customs and Immigration Union, raised concerns that the reassignments could cause delays at major airports and land ports of entry. But the agency insisted that regular operations wouldn’t be affected.

“The agency issued a call letter to identify officers from across the country … who would be mobile and ready to assist our operations,” a CBSA spokesperson said Wednesday in an email. “This is a key part of maintaining a dynamic and flexible workforce that can readily respond to emerging issues.”

About 19,400 irregular asylum seekers entered Canada in 2018, down from 20,600 the year before. They are crossing the border between official ports of entry because of the Safe Third Country Agreement signed by Canada and the U.S., which requires refugee claimants to make their claim in the first of the two countries where they land. Asylum claimants attempting to enter Canada from the U.S. can be turned back under the agreement, but only if they try to enter at official border crossings, which is why so many are crossing at Roxham Road instead.

A recent report from the parliamentary budget watchdog estimated that irregular asylum seekers cost the government $340 million last fiscal year, and will likely cost nearly $370 million this year.

OUR GOVERNMENT WILL NEVER COMPROMISE THE SAFETY OF CANADIANS.