Liam Gerofsky
Imagine it’s the summer and about 50 per cent of your local police force is made up of young students who, at best, have completed two weeks of basic training.
This means that they have no in-depth knowledge and no experience. They are called upon to perform 95 per cent of police officers’ duties.
The students wear the uniform and the badge like a police officer. And to the general public, this is exactly what they appear to be — full-fledged, fully trained police officers.
Obviously, this is not the case in police organizations across Canada. Regrettably, this is exactly what is happening across the country at Canada Customs.
While customs officers’ duties vary greatly from police officers’, their role in protecting Canada from security threats is just as important. Customs officers exercise control over the movement of goods, vehicles and people entering Canada.
They intercept drugs and firearms, and identify and examine people who may present a high risk to security.
The job requires keen observation, quick analysis and the knowledge of over 70 different pieces of legislation ranging from the Customs Act, agriculture laws, and citizenship and immigration laws, to a series of other laws regulating firearms, importation and drugs.
Full-time customs officers go through a rigorous eight-week program at Rigaud College in Quebec. That’s just to get the bare-bones training. This is followed by weeks of on-the-job training.
Yet, despite this intensive training process, each summer the Customs and Revenue Agency hires university and college students, gives them two to three weeks of training and then sends them — during the year’s peak travel period — to perform 95 per cent of the duties of a full-time customs officer.
With such a limited amount of training, how can these students possibly be expected to perform all the duties expected of them?
Serge Charette, national president of the Customs Excise Union which represents Canada’s customs officers, is opposed to the hiring of students as customs officers.
“We feel that by allowing students to be working on the line with what is basically bare- bones training, its highly unlikely that they have all of the information they need to make the right call every time they deal with individuals or goods coming into the country,” he says.
This is not the vote of confidence Canadians are looking for, especially in the post-Sept. 11 world where the vulnerability of our borders is of grave concern.
Canada Customs defends the hiring of students by stating that after their training, students continue to get on-the-job instruction, and they work under the supervision of experienced, full-time customs officers.
But how much supervision can a student really be expected to rely on when working alone in an inspection booth?
According to Canada Customs policy, as long as a student has access by telephone to a superintendent then an adequate level of supervision is being met.
But this job requires identifying risks to security through observation and the analysis of responses to questions.
It doesn’t seem likely that a superintendent by telephone would be much help to a student.
Marnie Majeski was a student customs officer for four summers between 1996 and 1999 at Sarnia’s Bluewater Bridge.
In her first summer, she only received five days of training, including half a day learning how to disarm and unload twenty different kinds of guns. Then she was supposed to shadow a full-time officer for two weeks.
“Actually, I shadowed someone for a week,” says Majeski. “I was given the option to shadow someone longer; however, it reflected poorly on your work evaluation.”
More unsettling was that in subsequent years, Majeski actually helped train other students.
She says it’s not realistically possible, with half the full-time staff taking time off during the summer, to have enough officers to train students.
“I was picked because I had been there for so long, and I was flattered, but I had no business doing it,” she says.
Colette Gentes-Hawn, a spokesperson for Canada Customs and Revenue, is not concerned with the employment of students as customs officers.
“Our students are a very, very important part of our workforce,” she says. “We have nothing but praise for the work they’ve done for us.”
This is probably true. But, it avoids the more important issue of whether or not students with very little training can be expected to effectively safeguard Canada against possible risks to the country’s security.
Two weeks of training is simply not enough.
Charette met with Customs and Revenue minister Martin Cauchon late September and asked for the permanent removal of all students working as customs officers.
Cauchon stated that students will remain as long as he’s in charge, explaining that he feels they are adequately trained for the job.
Why, then, must full-time customs officers complete more than eight weeks of training? There appears to be a breakdown of logic.
Student customs officers need to be replaced by more full-time, fully trained personnel, immediately and regardless of cost.
The security of Canadians is too important to be put at risk.