Gazette - Protecting Canada's Northern Border

COVER - REMOTE AND NORTHERN POLICING

A multi-faceted approach

by Caroline Ross

Sixty-four per cent of Canada’s total coastline lies in the Arctic Ocean. Melting sea ice means that the Northwest Passage shipping route could have seasonal ice-free periods in as little
as 10 years.

On August 23, 2007, a Norwegian sailboat with links to organized crime landed in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, a 1500-person hamlet 200 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle. The boat had originally cleared Canada customs in Halifax, then left Canadian waters, sailed to Greenland, picked up a suspected affiliate of the Norwegian Hells Angels, and re-entered Canadian waters without reporting to cutoms in nearby Gjoa Haven, Nunavut.

A year earlier, on September 18, a Romanian man linked to human smuggling and drug trafficking made his fourth attempt to enter Canada illegally — this time by sailing from Greenland to Grise Fiord, Nunavut. He was apprehended by local RCMP.

Incidents like these could become more common as rising temperatures and melting sea ice open the Northwest Passage — a shipping route through the Arctic Ocean — and expose Canada’s 156,029-kilometre Arctic coastline to international marine traffic.

Add in the fact that the Canadian Arctic is believed to contain several untapped oil and gas reserves, and it’s easy to see why Arctic sovereignty is now a priority for the Government of Canada. It’s also a growing concern for the RCMP, the agency that often provides the first line of defence across much of Canada’s frozen North.

Arctic first responders

Almost all of Canada’s Arctic border lies in the territories of Nunavut and the Northwest Territories, which together comprise 34 per cent of Canada’s land mass and less than one per cent of its population. Several federal departments and agencies share responsibility for protecting this remote coastline. The Department of National Defence co-ordinates military planning and response, and conducts sovereignty patrols. The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has a mandate to monitor incoming persons and goods, while the Canadian Coast Guard handles Arctic search and rescue.

The RCMP’s main role in the North is to deter activities that threaten border integrity or national security, and to ensure the legitimate use of inland waterways. But necessity often drives the force to act as a first responder for incidents that fall under other federal jurisdictions.

“The RCMP is the only (federal enforcement agency) that is in every community in the North,” says Supt Grant St. Germaine, criminal operations officer for the Northwest Territories RCMP.

Most other agencies provide a seasonal presence or send personnel and equipment north in response to an incident, but the RCMP has permanent detachments in every one of Nunavut’s 25 communities and in 23 of the Northwest Territories’ 34 communities, including all seven hamlets on the Arctic coast.

“If a ship under foreign flag suddenly shows up in the Arctic and there’s a problem with it — customs issues, immigration issues, a rescue — the RCMP are (usually) the closest ones out there,” says St. Germaine. “In most cases, we’re going to be tasked with the initial response, and (our partners) show up down the road.”

That’s what happened in Cambridge Bay, when the vessel from Norway arrived with is customs-dodging crew and its Hells Angels connections. Local RCMP co-ordinated the initial customs check, arrests and border investigation until CBSA officials arrived from Vancouver.

With regard to unauthorized landings like this, the RCMP has the Arctic environment on its side, says Supt Bob Wheadon, criminal operations officer for the Nunavut RCMP. “(The land) is really barren and isolated. . . . If people were to go anywhere, they’d go to a community, and we have (officers) there.”

Protecting canada’s back door

Intrepid adventurers aside, what about the potential for increased commercial shipping to open criminal inroads into northern Canada? That potential certainly exists at the Port of Churchill, Canada’s only operational Arctic sea port.

Located in northern Manitoba on the shores of Hudson Bay, the Port of Churchill provides a seasonal link to the Arctic Ocean. The port was traditionally used to export Canadian agricultural products to a global market, but it began receiving inbound shipments in October 2007.

The first such shipment came from Russia: a large load of ammonium nitrate (fertilizer) bound for the Canadian Prairies. “Of course, when you have a large quantity of ammonium nitrate, it’s got other possible uses as well,” says Insp Robert Bazin, the RCMP officer in charge of border integrity in Manitoba.

Loaded vessels from Asia and the Middle East also dock in Churchill — and the growing influx of ships certainly challenges local CBSA and RCMP resources, says Bazin. To help augment local capacity, Bazin organized a supplementary port patrol program, whereby officers from RCMP border enforcement, customs and excise, and immigration and passport sections in Winnipeg and Calgary join a CBSA dog handler and head to Churchill at least once during the July-to-November shipping season. The team synchs up with local CBSA and RCMP officers to inspect inbound cargo and crews for border offences, but the visits also serve a higher purpose.

“Right now, we don’t have a whole lot of intelligence about what’s going on in the North — specifically in a port that is like a back door to the country,” says Bazin. “We’re trying to get a sense of any vulnerabilities we may have in that area and what we can do to mitigate them.”

Patrolling inland waterways

The RCMP’s northern jurisdiction also requires officers to police inland waterways. In the Canadian Arctic, the waterway with the most potential for exploitation may well be the Mackenzie River, which runs 1,738 kilometres through the Northwest Territories, from Great Slave Lake in the south to the Beaufort Sea in the northwestern Arctic. A traditional supply route, the river carries significant barge traffic and provides access to several new mining and gas developments in the territory.

“If somebody were to blow up one of those barges, (particularly near the docking site at the south end of the river), it could effectively eliminate the shipping route,” says St. Germaine. “There’s the potential for significant economic impact to northern Canada.”

The RCMP’s territorial Integrated Border Enforcement Team (IBET) already conducts annual patrols of the Mackenzie using a vessel based on Great Slave Lake. St. Germaine says the IBET program is now implementing additional measures to address the expected increase in river-based activity. Last year, the program partnered with several other federal departments to acquire a new quick-response vessel that will augment current patrol capacity. The vessel will be stationed in Inuvik, at the north end of the river, and will also be available to attend security incidents in the Beaufort Sea.

Both vessels and their crews will be put to the test during an RCMP-led Arctic sovereignty exercise planned for the Beaufort region in the summer of 2009.But the patrol program has one shortcoming: a lack of resources, says St. Germaine. “We have IBET vessels, but we don’t have an IBET section. When we crew the boats, we’ve been relying on volunteers from the detachments.” He hopes that the upcoming exercise will highlight the need for a permanent IBET unit in the Northwest Territories.

Preparing for the future

From an RCMP perspective, the biggest threat to Canadian Arctic security at present may well be a lack of intelligence about where the real threats and vulnerabilities lie — both now and in the future. Bazin sees the gap in the Port of Churchill, and he’s not alone.

“We currently have no intelligencegathering capacity (in Nunavut),” says Wheadon, who is banking on a nationally driven business case that could bring as many as 30 new criminal intelligence resources to the RCMP’s northern divisions. The extra capacity would also assist the national Marine and Ports program, which requires more ground-level intelligence before it develops a specific Arctic program.

In the meantime, it’s up to the handful of officers on Canada’s frozen northern border to hold the fort.

“It’s (about) being cognizant of what’s going on, and being as proactive as we can be,” says St. Germaine.

Diamonds in the rough

by Caroline Ross

Canada is the world’s third-largest producer of diamonds by value, and our diamonds are renowned for their high gem quality.

These factors make the Canadian diamond industry a potential target for criminal infiltration, and the cutting sector based in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, is particularly vulnerable.

“Traditionally we didn’t have diamond cutters in Canada,”says sgt darrell Robertson, who served three years with the RCMP diamond Protection service in Yellowknife. Most cutters came from overseas, many from Eastern European countries known for their established cutting industries — and their established organized crime networks.

in 2001, Robertson and his colleagues launched an initiative to educate mine staff and government hiring agencies on how to effectively screen foreign job candidates. it was a timely initiative, given that the diamond boom brought people from 64 countries to Yellowknife between 2002 and 2003.

The diamond unit is now staffed by one officer, with assistance from specialized units as required. but proactive work remains vital to the industry’s long-term integrity, says Cpl scott MacPherson, who co-ordinated the program for the last half of 2008. MacPherson worked with mining stakeholders to develop a divisional RCMP policy on sharing information and protecting diamond shipments that must be diverted due to weather or other unforseen circumstances.

While all sectors of the diamond pipeline are subject to risk, the potential for opportunistic theft is somewhat lower at mine sites themselves.

“The mines are very remote,” says Cpl Kelly Ross, who runs the RCMP diamond program in Alberta. Most operations are only accessible by air, he says, and ground-level security is second to none.