Canada suggests armed agents at border
 

http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/inter...=international

TORONTO (AP) — A Canadian Senate report released Wednesday said customs agents should carry weapons like their U.S. counterparts to prevent terror threats, and blasted Ottawa and Washington for not doing more to secure the shared border.

The arming of the Canadian border agents has long been opposed by the government.

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Canadians are currently allowed to import up to $600 in duty-free goods from the United States if they have been outside of the country for at least a week. The Senate committee is calling on Ottawa to increase the limit to $2,000 by 2010, to free up customs agents to focus on potential threats to security rather than acting as tax collectors.

^

It might not be a bad idea to have a few high powered assault type weapons locked up for emergencies but arming every CBSA and CCRA agent would be just plain wrong. All of the guns would just raise the stakes in an already dangerous game. Didn't anybody see Bowling for Columbine???

Personal body armor and perhaps pepper spray or tazers used for personal defence of the agents might be a better and safer use of funds. I'd be interested in hearing from the Customs agents on the board how they would feel about carrying guns!

DF

But tax collection is the #1 priority of all our governments. How very UnCanadian of the Senate to use this logic.:D But seriously it's about time. ^

Long overdue, especially considering the number of terrorist threats that have been successfully carried out due to the lack of munitions on the part of customs inspectors.

Uh, C$750, actually.

Senate out to lunch!
 

What a ridiculous conclusion. When I worked at the border I never felt threatened or unsafe and was very happy that we didn't have guns...and that was at Queenston Bridge. In Alberta it was not even a topic of occasional discussion even though we seized nearly a gun a day :eek: Having guns just raises the stakes. This has been a long-standing non-issue and they should promptly shelve this nonsense. Officers now carry pepper spray, have body armour and take self-defence courses. Plenty IMHO. Oh, and given some of the people that work at the border I would be a bit more nervous knowing there are guns there!! :eek:

As for de-emphasizing duty collection goes this is a positive. I thought it was insane to have to collect $3.48 for a 12 pack of beer - give it up and focus on what's important!

^

http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/E/pub/cp/...tml#P181_22269

After each absence of seven days or more
You can claim up to CAN$750 worth of goods without paying any duties. With the exception of tobacco products and alcoholic beverages, you do not need to have the goods with you when you arrive. Although you can include some tobacco products and alcoholic beverages, only a partial exemption will apply to cigarettes, tobacco sticks, and manufactured tobacco. You may have to pay a special duty on these products.

BTW, there's more info on CBSA, including the 1069 firearms it seized for the year ending 31 Mar, here:

http://www.cnw.ca/fr/releases/archiv.../15/c2312.html

BTW, anyone other than resident civil servants know this was National Public Service Week? ;)

This being an AP release, they're probably giving it, in round figures, as USD.

Misleading thread heads
 

From what I have read, and seen reported on TV news, "Canada" has suggested nothing of the kind. In fact, "Canada", in the form of Deputy PM "landslide" Annie, has resisted and continues to say the Government [i.e. "Canada"] will not be arming its border guards/customs officers. This is only a recommendation of a Senate committee, and we know what happens in the Red House.

Surely the element that affects us here most is the recommendation that the per trip exemption be raised to C2K$.

This review was partially brought about by an incident at a small, rural border BC crossing. I believe it to be the Eastport.

It is a one person border shack, isolated area, nearest backup is 45+min away. Their were shots fired at the border shack, the customs officer took cover and called for help. The call was answered in the Ops Comm Centre in Kelowna BC where it was then dispatched to the nearest RCMP detachment, this is a cumbersome process at the best of times, with many calls being delayed for whatever reason.

From the time of the call to the time of back up arriving, the border guard could easily have been killed ir injured. In this particular case he was not physically harmed.

Border guards at land crossings are open to serious harm IMO, they deal with all types of people and situations. A nasty situation does not normally come with a warning that gives time for armed back up to arrive. Personally, I think the guards at land crossings should be armed, like the police, one hopes they will never have to fire their weapon.
The other side of this, I find it odd that the border guards/customs officers at YVR where their bullet proof vests in the customes hall, where all the pax have come off a plane, and they were screened for weapons prior to boarding. The vests are hot heavy and sweaty, not nice to where.

Have a look at page 21 on the Senate report, (pdf) released today. It reccomends a $2000 allowance for LESS than a 24hr visit to the US. A welcome change!

http://www.parl.gc.ca/38/1/parlbus/c...intjun05-e.pdf

EDIT: Replaced my non-working sarcasm detector

It was sarcasm.

=aw

Armed agents are available at border crossings...
 

They are called the police.

Canada Customs agents do not need guns

deleted for no good reason

Great in theory.Try being the guy/gal who needs armed back up, you are in some remotish place, nearest back up is a while away. When a gun is required for self defence, you usually have seconds to react. Unless of course you say "excuse mister bad guy, you are not playing fair, please put down your weapon until by armed back up arrives, then we can go back to playing guns"

Knowing numerous police officers and a handful of customs officers, knowing what they deal with on a regular basis, knowing how often the police are called to the border crossings, the customs officers at many land crossings do need to be armed.

Just something for you all to ponder....those "remotish" Canada Customs locations are conveniently located right next to US Customs. If things got SEVERELY out of hand I am pretty confident they wouldn't just watch ;) Its one of those "just do it and ask for forgiveness later" situations. Having worked at both remotish and very non-remotish ports of entry I can honestly say everyone that I worked with did not express concerns about not having firearms.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...l=968350116795

Against 90 million travellers, 30 Criminal Code infractions a year — none involving serious injury — are hardly reason for alarm, much less for a sweeping change of culture along the world's longest undefended border.

...and some of those, in more recent years are probably drunk driving offences which albeit serious are not likely threatening to the point of requiring guns! Also, if you require guns then be prepared to pay police officer wages and offer equivalent training, at least so far as it relates to similar duties.

Maybe wwe should decrease the other wages of gun carriers, to match the new ones :D

http://www.thetimesherald.com/apps/p...605080303/1002

Canada's Conservative Party, which has assumed majority in the country's government, put campaign promise into action Tuesday when it allotted $101 million in the next two years to arm the border.

Good point. Happens all the time. They definitely need guns :rolleyes:

Given that they had to evacuate the Peace Arch border crossing because an armed convict was thought to be trying to get through, about time!

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...0&refer=canada

Aug. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Canada will start arming guards along its 3,145-mile border starting next year, as part of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's promise to bolster national security.

The plan to issue guns to more than 4,000 border officers will take 10 years to implement, the prime minister said today at a border crossing in British Columbia, according to Harper spokesman Dimitri Soudas. The Canada Border Services Agency will begin arming officers as early as September 2007 and 150 will carry guns by March 2008, Harper said.

Wow, that's a bristling defence of our border don't you think.

As a former Canadian Immigration Inspector who, in the course of five years, had a knife pulled on him and got into at least two additional altercations where force had to be used to subdue someone, I would have felt much more comfortable knowing that I would have the ability to protect myself and my colleagues by having a firearm - it's no different than for any police officer. I can think of numerous other instances where Customs located firearms in a vehicle belonging to individuals travelling up from the US who had numerous warrants out for their arrest and know of at least one case where a fleeing criminal presumed that Canadian Customs officers WERE armed under their winter gear and said afterwards that if he had known they were unarmed he would have tried to shoot his way across the border. Bear in mind, too, that I was not on one of the more notorious crossing points such as the Windsor Tunnel.

Bullet proof vests are fine - I wore one every day - but given that most of the people I was dealing with were no more than 10 feet away, it would have taken nothing for them to put a bullet into my head if they had had the inclination, thereby rendering the bullet proof vest useless. Tazers and CS spray may work (although query the issues surrounding tazer related deaths) but again, that is not an effective means of protection against someone carrying a loaded and drawn firearm in all circumstances.

The issue is not protecting Border Services people from terrorists but rather from all of the other kooks, wackos, nutters and fugitives who decide to make a run for the Canadian border.

I will readily acknowledge the statistics that say the vast majority of law enforcement officers shot in the line of duty are shot before they even have a chance to draw their weapon but when the border which these people are protecting is with one of the most armed nations in the world and where there are numerous instances of individuals with malicious intent trying to cross that border, we owe it to those in that line of work to allow them all the protection they can have. Why should they be in any different a position than the police? The public's perception of Customs and Immigration (at least on here) may be based primarily on images of people sitting in booths at airports scanning passports. I can assure you that life at 2 am on a land border is a very, very different creature.

I see your points DJC, but that's what the RCMP is for. Put more of them along the border. CBSA agents do not need to be armed -- this is not for safety and security, but rather gives the union another bargaining chip to argue for significant wage increases in the future. I believe the PMs renegotiate in a couple of years, so you can bet that this will become news at that time.

Heck, police officers working the streets and customs officers at the UK don't have guns, but batons, no?

That's the way their union sees it. From the Globe this morning, "When border guards, who earn up to $55,000 in base salary, are armed, Mr. Scott [a union vice-president] said he anticipates that their wages should rise to be more aligned with RCMP officers, who make $70,000 after their first three years of sservice."

You've never worked a remote border crossing at 3 in the morning have you...

This is what happens when we give the option of arming front line officers to pencil neck bureaucrats in Ottawa.

And from a friend in the inside that sat on CBSA-Union discussions over the arming issue, it's the EMPLOYEES who want more pay. They can work in a prison doing less work for more, but now that they have the added responsiblity of getting qualified and re-qualified, not to mention the additional burden of higher use of force, they feel they need more money. A lot of CBSA employees hate the CEUDA because they didn't give them wage increases when they received batons and OC spray.

I suggest all white-collared naysayers terrified of guns to give this a read, specifically page 28 (paragraph one), page 74 (tactical communication), page 87 (2nd line), page 98 (1st paragraph), page 99 (2nd and 3rd paragraph),
http://www.ceuda.psac.com/english/pu.../Northgate.pdf
http://www.ceuda.psac.com/english/ca...Northgate.html

No, have you? BTW, how many Customs & Immigrations officers have been shot in the line of duty over the last 139 years?

well one guy working alone was found dead the next day during the changing of guard
http://www.ceuda.psac.com/english/pu.../Northgate.pdf (pp136 paragraph 4)

ah, so we should wait for one to get shot at before we arm? what does it say about canadian sovereignty when the first line of defence for canadian border guards is the (armed) american border guards?
(pp145), pp147, and for a really good read, paragraph one, pp148.

considering the number of seized firearms, you'd be stupid to believe that there's no risk.

There are plenty of jobs "you'd be stupid to believe that there's no risk" but they don't carry firearms. So you quote one death in 139 years? Harper would be better of arming convenience store clerks!

what a stupid argument you make, especially considering how intelligent you are and the ability for you to piss out a better rebuttal.

convienence store clerks don't make decisions that deeply affect people's lives, potentially causing them to get extremely upset. they're not in between a criminal and this country. you'd be stupid to measure the gun issue with no more depth than how many people were killed. how about how many were (embarasingly) held hostage? how many used tactical communication (withdrawl) in situations? how many times did the americans bail us out?

Actually that is $750 Canadian currently.

That sounds painful, is that like passing a stone?

I'd wager convenience store clerks are more likely to be assaulted then border officers. How many times have the incidents you hypothesize happened at border crossings? I don't recall any border guard hostage takings, or are you anticipating a mass criminal assault? You'd be stupid to confront a border guard when there are so many undefended areas to cross the 49th in the dead of night.

According to your argument we should be arming gov't workers who deeply affect people's lives? You're right - sidearms for all hospital workers now! Closely followed by EI claims officers, Revenue Canada employees etc. :rolleyes:

Gun might just put border guards at more risk.... it will put the families at a much higer risk if they take the guns home at night... :td:

taking..the guns home at night put families at risk...

you have no knowledge of gun laws or gun owners. when guns are taken home, they must be carried in a secure box not easily breakable, and they must be carried directly from A-B. then they must be stored in a locker which has to be locked and cannot be easily moved. playing lesabre, how many families of law enforcers died when guns were stored?

Actually, whyfly has very good first hand knowledge of this topic. Your theory of secure boxes et all is theory only.

To answer your last question, hopefully zero.

To the topic at hand, I think the border guards at land and sea crossings should be armed, not so sure about airports.

Border guards should have much lower life insurance premiums than convenience store clerks.

I actually have worked at a border crossing at 3 am and it may as well have been remote since the PIL (booth) was certainly quite the hike from anyone else on shift. At no time was I afraid for my life and frankly I will say again that having guns may indeed cause more problems than it potentially solves.

Some officers may feel more safe and that's fine. The Union is doing this for the MONEY - its 90% about the money. Also, having worked with some officers it frightens me to think they will be carrying guns :eek: