John Ossowski
John Ossowski spoke 476 times across 1 day of testimony.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Morning.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Affirm, please.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
John Ossowski. J-O-H-N O-S- S-O-W-S-K-I.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I do.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I confirm that.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I have.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
It is.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I believe so, yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's correct. I retired.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Amongst ---
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
-- amongst 90 pieces of legislation and regulation, yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
They have -- well, if there was something happened with respect to the Quarantine Act, if there was something that officers suspected was offside, they would refer that to a Public Health official for how they would decide to enforce that particular provision.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's correct. They're not peace officers. They have very limited Criminal Code powers under the Customs Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
No. Well, in the case of an immigration enforcement inland, they might ---
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
--- yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
But not -- otherwise, no.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I assume so.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Well, we certainly saw the first slow roll activity on January 17th in Emerson.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Not yet, no.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That would have been put together by the operational folks in the field with the supervision of the leadership in Ottawa, yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
It would vary by port of entry, but certainly one of the things that we started to do was, and very unusually, apply cameras facing back into Canada so that we could be aware of what was coming from behind. Obviously the officers are facing the United States. We have lots of cameras facing vehicles and passengers coming into the country. But this was done so they had situational awareness of what might be coming at them from the Canadian side.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Not -- that was probably the most significant piece that we started to do.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes. It was called the Enhanced Vigilance Exam.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
It means that either they declared something during the primary inspection during the initial interaction with an officer where the officer suspected they weren’t being truthful and they went to secondary for a complete exam to make sure that they were eligible to enter the country.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah. Proof of vaccination.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I believe so, yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s right.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Sure. So a border alert is just something that we would have sent out to the travelling public or to the commercial side so that they’re aware that they might need to choose another port of entry to come into the country. service disruption just means that for some reason the port of entry isn’t accessible, and/or there’s some -- it could be an IT outage, for example, if there’s a disruption, or it could be that there’s an excessive backlog of traffic. We try to maintain a 60-minute service standard, no longer than 60- minute border wait time. And if that’s not the case, then we’d send out an alert for traveling public and commercial entities to know.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Like maybe -- very -- I don’t remember we actually closed the port of entry, except for a very short period of time, for example around flooding in Manitoba.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
But we would -- we actually had the ability to suspend service at a port of entry. This is what actually happened in Coutts at the request of the RCMP.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
So the officers are still there, but they’re not processing vehicles or people anymore, except in exceptional circumstances. So you might have the situation where you’re not providing the service but if somebody came and there was a need for an emergency vehicle to get across, then they would facilitate that.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Right.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
M’hm.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Emerson.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Not that I’m aware of.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Certainly. So as you mentioned in your opening remarks, there’s 117 land ports of entry. Twenty-two (22) of them are designated commercial ones. And they are specifically set up to receive and process commercial traffic, including livestock and/or time sensitive goods that need to sort of pass expeditiously. Often they’ll have the presence of a CAF food inspector. And importantly, it's set up with our friends to the south in terms of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. They would have a similar processing capability to mirror the Canadians at those ports of entry. So for example, Coutts is the only designated port of entry that does commercial processing in the Province of Alberta, and the next available one would have been either in Saskatchewan or in British Columbia. There were other ports of entry, but they weren’t designed or set up to process commercial traffic, which is what made it so impactful.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
It’s quite a drive, yeah.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Not feasible in the winter, especially with livestock.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I believe Kingsgate, but I don’t have the list in front of me.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Sure.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Absolutely. So we would have redistributed officers to help with any traffic that chose to go those routes. But they’re not set up, for example, if we had to do an enforcement action, there’s no facility there to offload the vehicle and inspect it completely. So there -- they just weren’t set up to deal with that type of full commercial operation.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Exactly.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
The Regional Director General, yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I believe so, yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
The RCMP arrested four individuals and laid criminal charges.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I believe so, yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I believe so, yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes, it is.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes, it is.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Well, as you can see from the preceding days and it’s -- there’s a very sort of predictable weekly pattern here in terms of the movement of goods, so obviously less on the weekends, and more as you build towards the end of the week. So, for example, February 1st, on Tuesday, we had 4,982 commercial conveyances, so that’s the truck and trailer across the border, and on February 8th as a result of the disruption, five passages were recorded.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I believe so, yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah, it’s about 400 kilometres away.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I would disagree with that. So the difference is -- if you look at, again, the Tuesday before, the Blue Water Bridge processed 2,800 vehicles and there was 2,000 more vehicles on February 8th, so that’s only part of what would have normally gone through at the Ambassador Bridge.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Well, again, if you look at the numbers, the difference is only about 250. So it’s not the 5,000 or so that would have normally come through on that day.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes, again, but if you do the math, it wasn’t fully absorbed in terms of what would normally pass at the Ambassador Bridge. And I think the important part to remember here is even though they might have gotten across, it depends on the nature of what they were bringing across. If it was for the auto sector, driving four hours away, and then coming back another four hours would’ve had impact, and it obviously did. And certainly for livestock, it would’ve been not feasible to do something like that either. So it really depended on the load, but if you do the math, there was not a complete replacement, despite the fact that these other ports of entry were potentially available for them to use.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
No.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
No. We just -- we just simply tracked the passages through our systems.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I couldn’t speculate on that.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I guess it depends on how you define “Most”.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
So if you go day by day and look at the numbers, I would say a portion of them, but I wouldn’t say most.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I think, if the -- when I looked at the data for the Prairie Region, so Coutts and what would have gone through some of the other ports of entry, I think there was a higher level of substitution there, if you will, in terms of finding another way to get across.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
But it’s less so in southern Ontario.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s my understanding, yeah.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes. Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct. And, in fact, we -- neither Tolstoi or Gretna are designated commercial ports of entry and if -- we actually included pictures of them in the Institutional Report; you ---
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
--- can see that they’re actually very small operations without the appropriate facilities to conduct ---
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
--- normal commercial operations.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct. And making sure that they had the staff there that were trained and to do that type of function.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I believe so, yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I don't believe Aldergrove is, but I could be wrong.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Okay.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah, they might not have had a same number of lanes available for ---
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
--- processing.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Absolutely. So I think it's closer to 200 kilometres away from Ambassador Bridge to the Bluewater Bridge. The Bluewater Bridge has 7 commercial lanes compared to the Ambassador's 15. You know, given the fact that processing time takes the same, you're trying to squeeze more volume through a smaller sort of sieve, if you will. And at one point, I heard reports that the traffic lineup was 10 kilometres long at the Bluewater Bridge. So that had a significant impact.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Absolutely, just because of the just in time manufacturing sector in southern Ontario where the whole process is set up to not have inventory on hand, but have it delivered as it's required, so it's very finely tuned.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I think it was February 14th we reopened.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I was very proud of the way the organization responded to it. I mean, I think that -- I can't emphasize enough how unpredictable and escalating this was for us, and it was more than just the ports of entry that you're referring to, and certainly, when you look through our institutional report, this was literally from coast to coast. And obviously, some suffered more severe disruptions than others, but it really kept us on our toes in terms of trying to anticipate and work with our American colleagues and the local police of jurisdiction to make sure that we continue to manage the border effectively.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Absolutely.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That and as well worked with all police of jurisdiction. If they were going to set up a command centre, we would embed ourselves in there, so we had good situational awareness, to the point, you know, the Port Harding that we talked about earlier in terms of installing cameras to make sure that officers were safe in their operating environment ---
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
--- working with their U.S. colleagues, so they could understand what they might need to do in terms or reallocating their resources. So it was a very busy time.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's true.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I reported to the Minister of Public Safety.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
All of the Deputy heads report directly to the Minister.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes, so CSIS, RCMP ---
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
--- CBSA, Correctional Service.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Emails, text messages, oral briefings, written briefings, yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Very frequently.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
DMOCC?
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I don't recall exactly which ones but ---
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That sounds right.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I did.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I believe so, yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I think most of them, but I don't think that was all of them.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah, Ted would have went.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah, just to sort of give everyone situational awareness of what we were seeing and hearing and what potentially might happen.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
No, and in fact, when I saw this read out, I looked at that and I was looking at the plural of that. And I think in the context of the call with FPT meeting that we were having. We were talking about provincial emergency powers that could be brought to their -- to compel tow trucks.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I wasn’t sure who had them. I understood afterwards that Alberta actually had that power, but I wasn’t sure who else might have that power.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Under their Emergency Act.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
No, I think that’s another Act that they have the ability.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
And that -- I think that’s what we were trying to discuss here, was how could we get these tow trucks into action.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Not that I'm aware of.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
To make it clear, we had no authority to procure tow trucks at the CBSA ourselves, and ---
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
--- had a very limited role that we'll probably discuss later with respect to helping tow trucks come in from the United States because of an agreement that we have with U.S. CPB for emergency vehicles.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah. So normally there would be -- you would -- to bring a vehicle like that in to work in Canada, you need a work permit, and so what we would do is say we would waive that requirement in the sense of the emergency agreement that we have and allow them in and make sure still that they weren’t, you know, unable to enter so that they didn’t have any serious criminality issues, weren’t bringing in guns with them, or anything like that.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
We did in Windsor, yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
They did, yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
No.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
M'hm.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Well, just whatever we had within our authority to sort of deal with the situation and collectively with respect to all of the partner departments. You know, I was just -- I don’t recall seeing this language before, but I would say that I was referring to the fact that we were looking collectively as deputy ministers at the time in terms of any authorities or asset gaps to resolve the situation.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
It's current in my report here, so I think it would have been the Ambassador Bridge, Emerson ---
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes, Coutts.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
It's on page 54 of our institutional report, all of the disruptions on February 12th.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Generally at these meetings I would have provided any situational updates in terms of what was happening at ports of entry and/or what we might have gathered in terms of potential disruptions that would be happening in the near future.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah, we would have, and/or reports that we would have shared with the minister's office and public safety, as well as other departments.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
We provided a number of different reports, situational update reports, called the BLUFF reports, Bottom Line Upfront reports that were very real time in nature.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I believe so, yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I don't think it was the first time, no.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I would assume so.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Well, I think we ended up dismissing the Trusted Trader Programs because these are administered bilaterally with the United States, and so we just weren’t sure that we could do something very expeditiously here in terms of what's referenced above as the Good Tariff or clause for these purchase events in the program and try and leverage that so that we would -- they would be aware that there was consequences for their participation in the protest. And then as well, the designated international trade corridors, there, I think, I would just point out that ports of entry up until the invocation of the EMA and the regulations was not a critical infrastructure, and certainly the trade corridors, the highways, were not federal, they also are provincial responsibilities. And so the designation of the routes to and from the ports of entry were an important aspect.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Well, except for the trade corridor piece.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
No.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I simply provided advice from the CBSA perspective in terms of managing the corridor.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Well, the one thing, we identified a gap in the sense that as we were starting to get to the point of declaring the protest a prohibited protest, that there was no ability for us to stop people from coming in and foreign nationals from coming in and participate in that protest if they were otherwise able to enter. So they met all the other program requirements, the Quarantine Act requirements, whatever else may be involved, but we identified that as a gap.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Well, through -- first through, obviously, through the deputy minister ---
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
--- colleagues and then ultimately to Cabinet, yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
No.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
No.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
No.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Correct. I was surprised to know at that time that we couldn't do that, that a foreign national could enter the country for the purpose of participating in a protest.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Well, I think collectively, when you look at the tools that we were discussing, at that point in time we were trying to de-energise the situation, and obviously allowing people to continue to come into the country for the purpose of participating in a protest was inconsistent with that.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Well, certainly, as part of the enhanced vigilance exam process that we invoked before the Emergencies Act, we turned away people that intended to come and participate in a protest or we suspected were going to participate in a protest, but it was only because they weren't vaccinated or didn't meet up with some other program legislation requirement.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I don't quite understand the question because, like, it's not a prohibition on entry under the Immigration Refugee Protection Act to come and participate in a protest. So what the EMR added to was to our abilities under both the Customs Act and the Immigration Refugee Protection Act for a new prohibition on entry.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Certainly, if the officer felt that they weren't here for a lawful you could turn them away.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
But -- if someone, you know, showed up at the border today and said "I want to come to Ottawa to protest something" that's not a reason to prohibit their entry if they're otherwise admissible.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
In an unlawful protest. In a -- what was defined in the Act as a prohibited protest I believe is the language.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Not specifically, because it wasn't a specific prohibition on entry into the country.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
It -- it's not -- it wasn't part of -- there are tools that were available to officers to exercise. So we don't know where you're going to go once you come in.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I believe so, but you're assuming that they're going to tell us the truth about where they're going.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Well, as I said, yeah, I think it was -- we were fortunate in that we had these other prohibitions on entry at play to prevent people from coming in and participating, but there were people that came in that met all the requirements and could have gone to the protest.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I think we might have given some factual inputs that were used later on in the document with respect to sort of the situation at the border.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
No, absolutely not.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I believe so, yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I believe so, yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes, the buildings, yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Well, the officers, in the case of Fort Erie, locked down the building because they were trying to get access to the building, and I think the building was locked down for 12 hours. And I would just actually make a correction here that at Pacific Highway, there was a vehicle that you may recall there was pictures of in the media that had sort of military camouflage paint that breached a barrier, but I don't believe that they actually locked down the building in the Pacific Highway region.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I couldn’t speculate without reading them, yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
No.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct. We just simply track the number of conveyances that cross the border and, as well, we do something else called “value-for-duty”, but that’s -- wouldn’t be used for and kind of real economic value impact analysis.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
All of that data is provided as a matter of course to other government departments, Department of Finance, Statistics Canada, other entities that sort of track these types of things.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I assume so.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Okay.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Ossowski.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I still feel like I am.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
No, at the time, it would have been Vice President Scott Harris that was in charge of the Intelligence and Enforcement Branch.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
So what that branch was responsible for is giving the frontline the situational awareness in terms of targeting, for example -- so we have a targeting centre -- and where we do -- and try to add value to officers on the frontline in terms of things that they need to be aware of. So, for example, if law enforcement partners want lookouts on the system, they’re the ones that would sort of manage that type of thing. If somebody’s of interest coming into the country or leaving the country, all -- they would be the relationship lead with all of the other national security partners on intelligence that would be important in terms of the day-to-day functioning of the border. They’re also responsible for the removals of the people that are found to be inadmissible to Canada after they’ve gone through due process. So it’s a complicated job.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
The branch?
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes, it is.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Well, they -- I would say that in term of the national security apparatus, we’re largely a consumer of intelligence, so they would do, as I said, the liaising with other partners domestically and abroad to create products that would be useful to the frontline in terms of how they’re managing the border on a day-to-day basis.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Correct.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Correct.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Absolutely.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct, yeah.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Bottom Line Up Front.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah, and this was an evergreen document and so it was just so you don’t have to scroll through the entire thing every day. You can get to the - --
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Very quickly.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah. I don’t think it ever changed from low. And I would say overall, we’re looking at the entire national picture here, right, as opposed to little things that might be happening at individual ports of entry. But overall, the threat was low throughout the entire period.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
And if I just may add, what I’m really referring to here is, and it says officers and infrastructure, that is our domain; right? So there’s obviously a duty of care responsibility to the officers to make sure that they’re trained and operating in a safe environment, and as well that the infrastructure itself is properly protected.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s my recollection.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
M’hm.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I’m not aware that it’s exactly the same language, but if you say so.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
So I can tell you at the time that I didn’t even pay attention to that new language in the report. And after the fact, and this was brought to my attention, and we looked into it, and what I understand is the Acting Director General of the Border Operations Centre at that point in time decided of their own volition, given all the events that had happened up to that point in time, to put this in. And I’m -- I want to be very clear that I’m satisfied that they did that in no way trying to provide any tacit or implied support for the Emergencies Act. I believe they just did this on their own volition. And that’s what I understand to be true.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
So this would have just been something that sent to a very long email list that shows what has transpired and whatever the current situational status is of the various ports of entry.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I do.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Correct.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Not specifically, no. But I can say in general, when events like this happen, one of the things that, as a national security -- part of the national security apparatus is that you’re always concerned that that might tilt somebody from just being an online sort of person thinking about this type thing, that actually moves to action and does something. And that actually happened later on, after this, on February 17th. I can describe an event where something like that potentially happened.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I see that, yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I believe that to be true.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Correct.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I don't disagree with that.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I believe that to be true, yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I did, yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I believe so, yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
It was all virtual.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
It was probably me reporting this.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes. So February 19th, there wasn't an end in Prescott where 2 people were turned back using the Emergency Management Regulations.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
So on February 19th, in Prescott, at the Prescott port of entry, 2 individuals, 2 foreign nationals attempting to come into the country for the purpose of participating in the protest, who were otherwise not prohibited from entering, were turned back using the EMR powers, and that's what that refers to.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That was the first time I reported on that, I believe.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's correct.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's correct.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Good morning.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
The Five Eyes is Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, and it's a term that's been used to -- the allied relationship since World War II.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
If the information is relevant to the border, yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I wouldn't be aware of that exactly. I think you'd probably better talk to those like Communications Security Establishment and/or CSIS to ---
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
--- find that out.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's correct.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I believe that to be true, yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
It wouldn't have been my purview to refer to a CSIS Act threat.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's correct.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
You'd have to talk to the Director of CSIS about that.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Again, you'd have to talk to the Director of CSIS about that.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I’m not aware of who may have provided that advice.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I believe so, yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I believe so, and it’s provided to us under Section 6 of the Customs Act ---
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
--- for us to use that facility.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Several. Yes, there’s several, what we call, Section 6 operators that provide us the facilities in order for them to provide that availability for travellers and commercial vehicles to cross. So the Peace Bridge, for example, is another example of that.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I am.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I wouldn’t say it’s unique but I would say that there’s -- every port of entry is different in terms of the infrastructure leading to and from them, but that is a different situation, for sure.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I believe so, yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I’m familiar with that particular route.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I agree. And in fact, there was a fair bit of activity after the bridge reopened to put Jersey barriers up there to make sure that other protests didn’t manifest along those intersections.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I don’t believe so.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
So this is briefing material that would have been prepared for me to participate in a meeting. I’m not sure which one.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes, for sure.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Absolutely, although ---
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
--- our responsibilities are just the port of entry.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I’m sure it did.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
The ferry?
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I’m not aware of a ferry.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah, unfortunately, I’m not even aware -- I wasn’t aware that there was a ferry aspect to the Windsor-Detroit bridge.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Absolutely. So I -- I mean I think it’s -- I can’t overstate sort of how tied together these -- all these events are, and that when one slows down, people -- we would send out a border alert or people would go to our app to see where the border wait times are the shortest and they would reroute themselves. And so if there was a disruption or a planned disruption, then we would try and reallocate officers and/or provide situational awareness to our American counterparts to make sure that we could manage whatever flows might materialize. So it was a very dynamic time for us.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I believe so. I’d have to go check my notes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Again, I’d have to go back and look at the reports, but yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Absolutely.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Sure.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah, so we have limited -- our authorities are limited, generally, the arrest authorities under the Criminal Code for what happens to -- under the Customs Act, sorry, and the Immigration Refugee Protection Act. So an example might be if we would detain somebody that is suspected of drinking and driving or drinking under the influence, then we would call local law enforcement and then they would proceed with whatever criminal charges of that. So we’re circumscribed through the Customs Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protections Act.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Only with -- I’d have to defer to the lawyers, but I believe that it’s only with respect to the Customs Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protections Act.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Not that I’m aware of, unless they were under -- you know, they were listed as, you know, an open warrant for their arrest, for example.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
No, but looks like it was one ours, yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes, because CBSA officers are not peace officers, so they wouldn’t be able to enforce those provisions under the Act.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
We’ve always worked with the police of jurisdiction for matters that we don’t have the authorities to deal with ourselves.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct. Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I wasn’t aware of the exact location, no.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Not in any great detail. I was aware of the extent of our authorities, which are, you know, limited to the port of entry itself.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
She’s the Deputy Clerk of the Privy Council.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I see that, yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I’m reading it as you’re telling me this. Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s what it appears to be, yeah.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I do.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I do.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I think that would apply to many ports of entry that saw disruptions like this, based on their unique geography and/or access routes to and from the ports of entry, yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I think we saw that across the entire country, and I think that, you know, from my perspective of trying to run the border in a nationally consistent manner, and seeing the variations in response across the country, either how law enforcement chose to respond to it, or what the particular infrastructure was, was problematic for us.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I agree.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
If I were to be so bold as to offer a potential recommendation of the Commission is, is that I think that that is something that should be done, and as well, in terms of how police of jurisdiction choose to respond to something like this should be exercised regularly so that this type of thing doesn’t, you know, take root and be so hard to disentangle, as was the case in January and February.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Well I can’t speak to costs, but I can certainly speak to coordination of responsibilities would make it a lot easier, I think, for all parties to manage these situations in the future.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I believe so, yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's correct.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
The suspension, yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's correct.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Carway, yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I believe that to be true, yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Correct.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I think there was some reference in my materials, and if I may, I would just refer to my -- the end of my institutional report that shows the day-to-day. So I think on February 21st, I reported in the institutional report on page 58: "The RCMP was monitoring assembly of protesters at Milk River." (As read) So yeah, I recall these more sort of skirmishes that were happening after the arrests were made when essentially the blockade came down, but there was still activity happening.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
No.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
You're referring to the report from the FPT meeting?
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I think I was just making a general reference to what provincial powers could be used to compel tow trucks.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
And I found out after the fac that Alberta, I think, has that power under its emergency powers.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's what I believe to be true, yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I believe so, yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes, it is.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Anything relevant, yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I would say I generally remember that happening, yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Well, I think that, as Mr. Harris states in the notes here, like maybe we wouldn't have -- I was aware that OPP was producing intelligence from other tables that I was sitting at, but generally, in a situation like this, what we would be getting from law enforcement partners was situational awareness so that we could actually figure out how we were going to make any adjustments at the border in terms of the management of the border. So I wasn't aware, and if Mr. Harris said that we didn't receive any direct intelligence from the OPP, then I believe that to be true.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
No.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
No, I don't.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
M'hm.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
No, I'm not.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's what it appears to be.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
M'hm.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Before or after the ---
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Well, it wasn't an unlawful protest at that point in time, before the Emergencies Act; right?
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
If it was not for a lawful purpose, yes, they can turn somebody around.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Known or suspected.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Well, a standard question for a foreign national is what's the purpose of your visit to the country; right? And so that would just lead you down a line of questioning that the officer then would decide whether or not the person was prohibited from entering or not.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
A little bit broader than that, but essentially, yeah. So basically, with the agreement with the United States for emergency vehicles where we got many communities that share access to these vehicles to help each other out is we would facilitate the entry of those vehicles to participate in whatever the event was, notwithstanding the fact that they didn't have a work permit.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Well, under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, you have to have a -- one of the requirements for entry would be a valid work permit.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I believe it's just a ---
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
--- memorandum of understanding that we have with our American counterparts, to facilitate emergency vehicles for the purpose of participating in resolving whatever the issue is.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Well, I don't know that the individual officer would do that. I think that would probably take -- it would go a little bit further up the command chain in terms of saying, yes, this is where we're going to invoke this memorandum, for lack of better words, to facilitate the entry of the emergency vehicles.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
So, yes, officers had discretion.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I'm not aware of that.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's fine.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Okay. Perfect. Thank you.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I do.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Correct, where we actually put out a border alert ---
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
--- I think was the context of that.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Correct.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Absolutely. And in fact, if you look at the institutional report, I believe 22 different ports of entry had varying degrees of disruption throughout the protests.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Correct.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Not always, because there we're load limits, so an example that pops to mind is at Coutts, there was a side road that the BSOs were able to use to drive to and from the port of entry while it was functioning, but that would not have been appropriate for a large commercial vehicle to go on.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
It is. Its placement is not at the first point in landing in Canada which makes it very inconvenient for the members of the Mohawk Akwesasne Band that live on the island.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yeah. So the actual international boundary is to the south of the island, but port of the entry is on the mainland to the north of the island.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Very much so.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I believe so.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Several disruptive activities continued well after the invocation of the Act.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I believe the cameras stayed up, yes, that I referred to earlier, the CCTV cameras.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I do.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I believe so, yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Likely.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I agree, yeah.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Correct.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I think events like this, they feed off each other’s energy and their successes and defeats, so I think even -- it might not have been direct but certainly through social media channels, I would say that there was an implicit link between what was happening all across the country with all of the different activities.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Border Information Service.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes. And they’re obviously inspiring each other in that same way.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That’s correct.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes, it was.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Absolutely, and we referred to that in the institutional report as well, where people were asking for information particularly on amour piercing and Teflon-coated bullets and what it would take to import those into Canada.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
No.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Controlled delivery is when we pick up something at the border, usually in courier or postal mode, that is prohibited and we'll work with the local police of jurisdiction to deliver the goods in order to ascertain the extent of if it's an organized crime ring, or whatever, to sort of instead of just holding back the good, to actually see what - - if there's any further criminal activity that needs to be investigated.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
At the time it was reported to me, yes.
-
John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes, it is.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
M'hm.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes, it is.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Absolutely not.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
As I testified earlier, it was not able to accommodate all of the volume that would normally have gone through the Ambassador Bridge.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Well, it would have made it very unfeasible for traffic that was hoping to cross in that part of southern Ontario to do their particular trade, because the next available ports of entry were 400 kilometres away at Queenston/Lewiston or the Peace Bridge.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I don't have the volume of the actual number of vehicles involved there, but, you know, essentially, the process takes say on average a minute per vehicle to do that and you only have 7 lanes available to you at the Bluewater Bridge, and so I think there -- you know, the math could be done in terms of how long that -- it was certainly well beyond an hour.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes. (VIDEO PLAYBACK)
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
That's correct.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I don't know why they decided to put it there, but when we were made aware of this additional sentence the colleagues at CBSA went and made some enquiries, and my understanding is what they found out is the Acting Director General at the Border Operation Centre decided to add that line in.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Yes, we did.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
I don't understand or have any intel -- understanding of what their motivation was to add this in, but I think that what was reported to me was is that with all the activities that had escalated to that point in time, they decided to put that particular language in. I also believe they said that this was not an attempt to provide any tacit or implied support for the Emergencies Act. So that's all I know about it.
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John Ossowski, DM (GC-CBSA)
Thank you very much.