Public safety minister admits border security promises unfulfilled

The Liberal Public Safety Minister has admitted that the 1,000 new Canada Border Services Agency agents and 1,000 Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers promised in April have yet to be hired.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

The Liberal Public Safety Minister has admitted that the 1,000 new Canada Border Services Agency agents and 1,000 Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers promised in April have yet to be hired.

As part of a campaign pledge, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal party promised to hire and train 1,000 more RCMP personnel and 1,000 new CBSA officers as part of a plan to secure the U.S.-Canada border. No deadline for accomplishing the goal was provided.

The feds restated their commitment in June to hire new officers to tackle drug and human trafficking, foreign interference, cybercrime, and organized criminal gangs. However, the $1.3 billion border security fund was announced in December 2024, while Justin Trudeau was still prime minister.

During a House of Commons’ public safety committee on Thursday, Conservative MP and public safety critic Frank Caputo grilled Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree, asking how many of those officials have been hired six months later.

“So right now, as you’re aware, we are in the process of ensuring that the 1,000 new CBSA officers will be trained,” Anandasangaree said.

But Caputo pressed the minister, saying he just wanted to know how many CBSA officers had been hired so far. Anandasangaree retorted, saying he was there to answer questions and not to be a part of Caputo’s “TikTok videos.”

Caputo asked how many RCMP officers were hired, but Anandasangaree attempted to delegate the answer to the RCMP before claiming that he’s “not responsible” for hiring the RCMP.

“I’m asking the minister these questions. The buck stops with him. I’m not asking for him to defer to anybody if he doesn’t know the answer, just say it,” Caputo said. “Just the other day, on the recording. He said, ‘Don’t ask me to explain the logic to you.’ He was perfectly capable of saying it then; he’s capable of saying it now.”

Caputo once again asked for a yes or no answer from the minister.

“The RCMP are preparing to hire 1,000, including ensuring that training facilities at Depot (RCMP training academy) are equipped, because this will be solely for federal policing, and the work at Depot to ensure that the right modules, the right level of training is in place, is currently being prepared,” Anandasangaree said. “And as soon as they’re able to recruit, they will be hired, and they will be on our street.”

Caputo stated, “ok, so that is a zero.”

In an answer to questions from Liberal MP Jaques Ramsay, RCMP commissioner Michael Duheme said the training programs and curriculum for the planned additions to the force are currently being reviewed at the Depot Academy in Regina, Saskatchewan.

He said the planned additions will include 750 police officers and 250 public service employees specialized in border security. Once trained, their credentials will be valid anywhere in Canada.

“There are about 150 to 176 officers who have a deal of experience, and that’s very good if they have frontline experience, and they can help us, and they can help train the new officers that are coming on,” Duheme said. “If we need a second training center for people, then we’ll be able to evaluate that based on who we’ve hired and how we reviewed the curriculum, but the standard is unchanged.”

Erin O’Gorman, the president of the CBSA, said 80 per cent of the new CBSA officers are expected to be armed, with 20 per cent trained to be “operational employees,” who will be responsible for “intelligence targeting and training.”

She said the Canada Border Services College in Rigaud, Quebec, can train about 250 agents in the first two years and 300 in the “final year.” She stated that there are currently 300 “qualified people” enrolled to train at Rigaud “within six weeks.”

“There are 400 students for this year’s cohort, and they are our best candidates for training. I am not worried about the source of agents, and we’ll be working with other departments to make sure that people are operational so that they can do the targeting and intelligence,” O’Gorman said. “We have the capacity at the college. In fact, our attrition numbers this year are slightly lower, so our capacity right now is higher than we calculated for.”