{"id":29056,"date":"2014-10-16T22:48:32","date_gmt":"2014-10-16T14:48:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=29056"},"modified":"2014-10-16T19:50:27","modified_gmt":"2014-10-16T11:50:27","slug":"ontario-puts-an-end-to-joint-road-safety-blitzes-with-border-services-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/10\/16\/ontario-puts-an-end-to-joint-road-safety-blitzes-with-border-services-agency\/","title":{"rendered":"Ontario puts an end to joint road safety blitzes with Border Services Agency"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Border<\/a>
Border Patrol Agent reading the Miranda Rights to a suspect. Gerald L. Nino, CBP, U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TORONTO\u2014Ontario will no longer allow the Canada Border Services Agency to join the province\u2019s road safety blitzes, which federal agents have used to make arrests on\u00a0immigration\u00a0violations, the government announced Friday.<\/p>\n

Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca sent a letter to federal Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney saying that partnering with the CBSA \u201cdoes not align\u201d with his ministry\u2019s mandate to make roads as safe as possible.<\/p>\n

Ontario\u2019s Liberal government ordered the review of the partnership with the CBSA after a joint commercial vehicle roadside blitz in Toronto in mid-August led to the arrest of 21 undocumented workers.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a result, effective immediately, the ministry will no longer partner with the CBSA on commercial motor vehicle enforcement initiatives,\u201d wrote Del Duca.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ministry will only partner on joint enforcement initiatives with road safety partners that have a shared objective to protect and ensure road safety and commercial carrier compliance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The arrests at the Toronto blitz of commercial vehicles were the catalyst for reviewing the province\u2019s relationship with the border agency, said Del Duca.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was that initial incident that caused me to ask questions and ask for the review,\u201d he said in an interview.<\/p>\n

Blaney\u2019s office defended the practice of arresting people for\u00a0immigration\u00a0violations during road safety operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cMinister Blaney is concerned about this decision and will respond to Minister Del Duca\u2019s letter,\u201d said spokesman Jason Tamming.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a result of this blitz, CBSA was able to apprehend over 20 people who were violating Canadian laws.\u201d<\/p>\n

Del Duca insisted that partnering with the CBSA wasn\u2019t in line with his ministry\u2019s objectives.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not to suggest CBSA does a good job or a bad job,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt became pretty clear to me that partnering with CBSA didn\u2019t necessarily make sense with respect to being in alignment with our road user safety goals and objectives, and that\u2019s why we made the decision to end the relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ontario\u2019s New Democrats wrote Premier Kathleen Wynne and ombudsman Andre Marin last month to demand an investigation into the arrests, saying that the roadside inspections are meant to improve safety and are \u201cnot for\u00a0immigration-related interrogations, arrests and deportation.\u201d<\/p>\n

NDP\u00a0immigration\u00a0critic Teresa Armstrong said Friday she still wants the ombudsman to conduct an independent investigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to find out what really happened and what role the Liberal government played that resulted in these, and any other\u00a0immigration\u00a0arrests,\u201d Armstrong said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy did it take political and community pressure for the government to realize CBSA\u2019s\u00a0immigration\u00a0enforcement and the MTO\u2019s commercial traffic safety blitzes had no shared mandate? How many people were interrogated, arrested and deported over the years because of this practice?\u201d<\/p>\n

A lawyer who represented two Mexican men arrested in the August blitz accused CBSA agents of \u201caggressively\u201d demanding identification from members of visible minorities during the four-hour roadside operation, including from one man who was a passenger, not a driver.<\/p>\n

Macdonald Scott said at the time that the arrests were made in an area where construction labourers wait to be picked up by potential employers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s racial profiling,\u201d said Scott. \u201cI asked my clients, \u2018Do you see them stopping white people?\u2019 They said, \u2018No, they\u2019re only stopping Latinos.\u201d\u2018<\/p>\n

Del Duca\u2019s letter to the federal government said Ontario will keep inspecting commercial vehicles at border entry points because \u201cthey do not involve CBSA resources.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TORONTO\u2014Ontario will no longer allow the Canada Border Services Agency to join the province\u2019s road safety blitzes, which federal agents …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":29086,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-immigration","mauthors-keith-leslie","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}