Letters to the Editor

2006

Mr. Malcolm Fox
Executive Producer
W-FIVE, CTV
P.O. Box 9, Station "O"
Toronto, ON M4A 2M9

Dear Mr. Fox:

I am writing in response to the W-FIVE report entitled Criminal immigrants: Who stays and who goes which aired Saturday, March 4. It is my understanding that the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) worked closely with your producer, since April 2005, to ensure that Canadians were presented with the most current facts, figures and policies of the Agency's enforcement program.

My staff spent numerous hours researching facts and figures for the W-FIVE research team during the last 9 months. We provided a technical briefing on removals that gave ample opportunity for your producer to ask questions if there was any ambiguity in our role with respect to removals. We facilitated W-FIVE's visit to the Greater Toronto Enforcement Centre and Detention Holding facility. It is also my understanding that W-FIVE was given an opportunity to attend an Immigration Refugee Board Appeal Division hearing. I was therefore disappointed by the one-sided, sensationalistic coverage in your program.

As conveyed to your producer, Canada Border Services Officers removed over the past five years over 8,400 foreign nationals on the grounds of being inadmissible to Canada for criminality. This fact was ignored by W-FIVE.

I will not comment on the particulars of any case; however, I will say that the CBSA is not currently in a position to remove the three individuals facing criminal charges highlighted by W-FIVE. In keeping with Canadian laws, due process must be respected and an individual's rights must be protected. The CBSA must await the conclusion of court proceedings initiated by the applicant before it can execute a removal order. The segment did not even address the important roles played by the Immigration and Refugee Board or the courts.

The segment alleged that immigration enforcement, and specifically removal, is guided by a quota system endorsed by senior management. This is categorically untrue. The report that provided the basis for this allegation was commissioned more than 10 years ago by Citizenship and Immigration Canada. The relevant portions of the report cited by W-FIVE were based on employee and non-governmental organizations perceptions rather than empirical analysis of policy.

The CBSA and its predecessor agency responsible for removals have never used quotas to remove people. It is unfortunate that you chose not to report on the most recent initiatives undertaken by the Government of Canada to keep our country safe and secure.

As indicated in the documents that we provided to W-FIVE, our first priority is to remove those who are a threat to Canada's security, and serious criminals. The Immigration Task Force is just one of many teams brought together to enforce the laws of this country. We take these cases seriously and remove as expeditiously as possible within Canadian laws and international conventions.

Our Canada Border Services Officers are professionals who work hard and take great pride in the important role they play in ensuring public safety. The gratuitous and inaccurate comment about the work habits of our enforcement officers by one of the persons interviewed on the segment, who clearly is not an objective observer, was not what one would expect to see in a professional journalistic effort.

Yours sincerely,

Alain Jolicoeur
President