The Beyond the Border Action Plan

Opening Statement to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts

The Beyond the Border Action Plan

(Report 1—2016 Fall Reports of the Auditor General of Canada)

6 February 2017

Michael Ferguson, CPA, CA
FCA (New Brunswick)
Auditor General of Canada

Mr. Chair, thank you for this opportunity to present the results of our Fall 2016 report on the Beyond the Border Action Plan. Joining me at the table is Martin Dompierre, the Principal responsible for the audit.

In December 2011, Canada and the United States released the Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness Action Plan—better known as the Beyond the Border Action Plan. The Action Plan consisted of 34 initiatives aimed at establishing a long-term partnership between the two countries to enhance security and accelerate the legitimate flow of people, goods, and services across the border.

We estimated that these initiatives had a total planned spending of over $1.1 billion, of which approximately $585 million had been spent as of March 2016.

The audit examined the progress made by departments and agencies in meeting the commitments set out in the Action Plan, and in achieving results toward the intended benefits. We also looked at how Public Safety Canada reported on progress, performance and costs in their annual reports.

The Action Plan had 19 initiatives that focused on enhancing security. Of the $700 million that departments and agencies had planned to spend on them, approximately $410 million was spent as of March 2016. However, departments and agencies faced challenges in completing a number of the initiatives, and they could not demonstrate that they had improved security at Canada’s borders.

For example, the Entry/Exit initiative is intended to allow the Canada Border Services Agency to track who enters and leaves the country. This initiative, which has a budget of $121 million, was initially planned to be completed by June 2014. As of March 2016, $53 million had been spent, but the initiative could not be fully implemented without a change in legislation. Until such a change is made, the Agency cannot achieve and demonstrate the initiative’s security benefits.

We looked at the 15 initiatives that focused on facilitating trade and the legitimate flow of travellers. We found that for trade, some initiatives had not moved forward significantly, were not working as intended, or had low adoption rates.

The Single Window initiative, which is led by the Canada Border Services Agency, provides an example. The initiative was intended to simplify border processes for regulated goods. As of March 2016, almost $80 million had been spent on Single Window, which had been in place for one year. However, we found that this initiative was being used to process less than one percent of shipments entering Canada.

Another example is the Canada Border Services Agency’s initiative to build a system to allow trusted traders to apply only once for both the Canadian and US programs. Through this initiative, the Agency aims to double the Canadian program membership. The system was launched in August 2015, but was soon taken offline because it was creating significant problems, including duplicate records. As of March 2016, $31 million had been spent on this initiative, which had a total budget of $50 million.

We also found that departments and agencies were experiencing challenges for initiatives focused on travel. In many cases, there were either no performance indicators to measure the intended benefits or no results to report.

For example, Transport Canada was able to implement its border wait-time technology at only 1 of 14 crossings identified in the Action Plan. Furthermore, even though the border wait-time technology had been installed at 6 other crossings before the Action Plan was released, the Canada Border Services Agency had not assessed whether it had made a difference for travellers or had helped them better manage its operations.

As mentioned earlier, we examined how progress on the Action Plan was reported and whether this reporting was complete and accurate. Overall, we found that in the 2014–15 Report on the Beyond the Border Action Plan Horizontal Initiative (also known as the Horizontal Report), Public Safety Canada provided an incomplete and inaccurate picture of progress and costs. In addition, although the report provided information on annual achievements, it did not convey a consolidated view of progress.

As an example, for the initiative on deploying border wait-time technology, the report stated that seven crossings had been completed. The report did not mention that six crossings had been completed years before the Action Plan was released. For the Shiprider initiative, the report did not mention that the second main commitment to expand pilot projects on land had not been started, or that there were no plans to pursue them. For the initiative on enhancing benefits to trusted trader programs, the report stated that there were 83 new members in the 2014–15 fiscal year, but it did not mention that the long-term goal was to attract 1,700 new members.

Finally, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat did not give departments and agencies specific guidance on costing and measuring program results, which led to different interpretations and inconsistent financial information.

We concluded that although departments and agencies met many of their commitments under the Action Plan, they achieved limited results toward the intended benefits. They also had few performance indicators to use in assessing results.

We are pleased to report that all entities have agreed with all of our recommendations and have committed to take corrective action.

Mr. Chair, this concludes my opening statement. We would be pleased to answer any questions the Committee may have. Thank you.