How to strengthen the CBSA and the IRB.

[Machjo]

News in the last few months has revealed the Vancouver transit authority breaking its ties with the CBSA, the Ontario Ministry of Transportation breaking its ties with the CBSA, NGO's increasing pressure on the police to break their ties with the CBSA, and Lawyers criticizing the CBSA for seemingly arbitrary detentions and manifesting a culture of the presumption of guilt and with no oversight.

More recently the Federal Government has expressed concern for the decision of various provincial government departments breaking their ties to the CBSA and thus weakening its effictiveness.

Presumably the CBSA was originally designed to overlook the presumption of innocence and due process for reasons of efficiency, but with so many innocents getting caught in its web, provinces broke ties now causing the pendulum to swing in the opposite direction of probably many guilty being more able to go undetected in Canada.

It would seem to me that the simplest solution would be for the Federal Government to adopt a law guaranteeing that anyone charged with an offence requiring extradition shall be protected from arbitrary detention, shall have his presumption of innocence protected, and shall be informed of his right to counsel among other things.

Once the Federal government can guarantee the presumption of innocence and due process and protection from arbitrary detention of those believed to be inadmissible to Canada, then maybe provincial governments would be willing to consider re-establishing their ties to the CBSA. Never should a foreign national be arbitrarily detained and extradited without having had so much as a chance to get a fair and impartial hearing just because he happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, on mere suspicion of guilt, by simple association, or maybe even because the CBSA officer had an argument with his wife the night before and needs to take it out on someone, anyone.

[Michael Hardner]

You need links and examples, Machjo, otherwise this is speculative.

[Machjo]

Proof that it is commonly accepted that Charter rights do not apply:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/the-difficulty-of-due-process-in-the-age-of-counterterrorism/article24579232/?service=mobile

http://m.thestar.com/#/article/news/canada/2014/11/02/does_canada_border_services_agency_need_oversight.html

http://www.news1130.com/2014/01/28/cbsa-detention-can-be-a-political-no-mans-land/

Proof that provincial departments are breaking ties with the CBSA:

http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/canada/british-columbia/metro-vancouver-transit-police-end-controversial-agreement-with-cbsa-1.2965863

http://m.thestar.com/#/article/news/canada/2014/08/29/ontario_reviewing_relations_with_border_agency.html

I can't find the article of the feds criticizing the provinces for this, but I'll keep looking maybe.

[Michael Hardner]

Interesting articles. You need to click on each link as they relate to different areas of CBSA activities.

[Machjo]

http://www.law.utoronto.ca/news/canada-border-services-agency-s-imprisonment-migrants-mental-health-issues-arbitrary-cruel

Another interesting article concerning the mental health of detainees.

My fiancée told me what was enotionally more disturbing than the arrest and detention was the fact that the CBSA just presumed her guilty and wouldn't even listen to her.

She felt good at the bond hearing for finally having had the chance to prove some statements to be false.

But she was enraged when the CBSA lawyer asked her the same questions again at another hearing for her to have to remind the lawyer that those statements had already been proven to be false at the bond hearing!

She blew up when the CBSA lawyer asked her why the officer wrote what he wrote, since she wanted to know the answer to that too but that he wasn't there for questionning. The judge had to calm my fiancée down and chastised the CBSA lawyer for such a stupid question!

It seems like the process purposely aims not to prove a person guilty but rather to just try to break them down maybe figuring they'll eventually give up and say you know what, I'm sick of this and just want to go home.