OTTAWA: Lax controls by border agents and police mean Canada is allowing dangerous people to enter the country, posing a risk to security and safety, a report from an official watchdog said yesterday.
Canadian Auditor-General Michael Ferguson said systems to collect, monitor and assess data to prevent unlawful entry often don’t work as intended. For example, airlines do not always provide enough advance information about passengers, the report said.
“As a result, some people who pose a risk to Canadians’ safety and security have succeeded in entering the country illegally,” the report said.
Preventing people from sneaking into Canada has been a priority for successive governments since the September 11, 2001 suicide attacks in the United States.
Canada and the United States have tightened border controls, to the alarm of businesses worried about impediments to the huge trade flows between the two countries.
Ferguson said the Canada Border Services Agency has failed to keep an eye on all known high-risk travellers — including those connected to terrorism and organised crime — and did not try to monitor people who managed to slip through the system.
“The agency does not have the information it needs to know whether it is securing the border by decreasing the number of people who enter the country illegally,” he said.
The agency failed to spot eight percent of suspicious people based on information from airlines and 15 percent of other people who had been flagged as being risks, Ferguson found.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are responsible for catching people who try to sneak across the land and water border Canada shares with the United States.
Ferguson cited sources as saying the police only detected about 50 percent of people trying to cross the border by land and 80 percent trying to gain entry over water.
REUTERS
