CBSA prepares for their duties at Fairview

Once those containers start to arrive in the Port of Prince Rupert a team of Canadian Border Services Agents will step into action to make sure that all is as it should be.

The debut arrival at the container port in October will set in motion some state of the art equipment and a large group of CBSA personnel to get to the task at hand, from the early days of but five CBSA agents working in the city the number has jumped to over 40 with more expected to be hired on as the port grows.

The Daily News provided some background into the duties of the Border Services personnel and how the process works from the time a container ship leaves its original port and arrives in Prince Rupert.

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PORT CHARTING NEW COURSE AS NATION'S SAFEST FACILITY
By Kris Schumacher
The Daily News
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Pages one and five

The Fairview Container Terminal marks the first time a Canadian port of entry has been built from scratch in the past century, and obviously a great deal has changed in that time.
Looking at all the developments in the last 100 years, it's easy to see why Prince Rupert may be destined to be Canada's most secure port.

Canadian Border Services Agency Chief of Operations Trevor Baird knows better than anyone the advanced processes and technology being used at Fairview, and what they mean for national security.

"In terms of our other ports of entry, if you look at Vancouver or Halifax, or Montreal, they have developed over a very long period of time, and all of the components of their operation have been built on incrementally as technologies advance," said Baird.

"Essentially, in Prince Rupert, we have the advantage of developing a port of entry from scratch, and putting to it all of our most current and advanced technologies."

Does that put Fairview ahead of the other ports in terms of security? Baird confirmed that in some areas it does, because the Rupert port will get the latest generations of in imaging and x-ray technology upfront.

Today, there are safety concerns with post-9/11 security and the international shipment of contraband, many of which played a role in shaping the security of Fairview.

"From a CBSA perspective, our objective always has been national security, and within that there are concerns regarding terrorism and concerns regarding contraband," said Baird. "So our goal as an agency is to identify those high-risk shipments that we believe contain those things we're looking for, but that's balanced against the facilitation of trade."

The CBSA's goal is ultimately to allow legitimate and honest trade to occur with as little bureaucracy as possible, while at the same time using intelligence, information and high tech tools to isolate high-risk shipments and intercept them.

Baird explained that the starting point for Canada's security actually begins while the shipment is still overseas.

Baird said much work is done prior to a vessel leaving its point of origin. Regardless of the intended point of entry in Canada, the shipping country must submit their declarations about the cargo in advance of the ship even leaving. The CBSA then reviews all of that information, and in that process determines which shipments are high risk for an array of unwanted cargo, which identifies the containers that are later selected for examination.

Once the shipping vessel arrives, all containers are screened by radiation portals located on the docks, which containers are driven past before they are stacked. If there is a concern about radiation within a container, it will be put aside for further examination.

"There are reasons why we select containers. There's a whole methodology," said Baird. "[The term] random suggests it's more guessing, and we don't guess at this. There's a targetting methodology we use to select the highest risk containers for examination."

While the exact methodology CBSA uses must remain secret, the basic parameters and procedures that will be used are public knowledge.

When the vessel arrives, there are two types of examination that containers may be screened with. The first is a dockside examination, which is used for shipments the CBSA pre-determines are higher risk. In the dockside examinations, officers use what's called a VACIS machine that uses x-rays to take an image of the container. That image is then compared to the original declaration of the cargo, and agents then determine if the container does in fact have what's been listed. If there are anomalies in the image, the container may be taken to be de-stuffed and searched at the Container Examination Facility, which will be temporarily located at Watson Island

The second examination process applies to containers that are not selected for dockside examinations. Those containers are simply slated to be taken to the search facility where they are de-stuffed by teams of CBSA inspectors, and examined using a combination of contraband detection tools and x-ray technology. It's obvious this entire security operation will require many more CBSA officers than Prince Rupert had before, and just how many more is quite substantial.

"At present, I believe we're up to 42 officers, plus the five that already existed," said Baird. "The payroll is going from $300,000 to $3 million by the time all the inspectors arrive here at the end of this month. It's a sizable jump in staff, and the payroll is a good indication of that."