By JEREMY HAINSWORTH
Associated Press Writer
VANCOUVER, British Columbia- Canadian customs officers say a fatal shooting at a U.S.-Canada border crossing in remote eastern British Columbia highlights confusion over security along the world’s longest unarmed border.
While trying to get more details about the killing for a story by The Associated Press, it emerged there is considerable confusion among Canadian authorities over who has responsibility for patrolling the 4,000-mile (6,436-kilometer) border.
Meanwhile, Canada’s Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defense, said Tuesday that a new report about poor airport security in the United States is just as gloomy as the lax safety along the 4,000-mile (6,436-kilometer) border.
The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office was called to the Roosville border crossing between British Columbia and Montana after reports of gunfire on Saturday. Robert Donald Mast, 42, of Eureka, Montana, was found dead several feet (meters) from the Canadian side of the border.
Eureka police later stopped Wayne Allen Hixon, 51, also of Eureka, who was coming from the border area. He has been charged with homicide, according to the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department.
The border crossing was closed for an hour after the incident.
Ron Moran of the Customs Excise Union Douanes Accise, the union representing Canadian customs officers, said Canadian customs officials called the nearby Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) for assistance.
Gunfire so close to the customs office scared the unarmed officers, Moran said. He said the incident indicates the need for a dedicated, Canadian armed service to act as a backup for customs officers and to patrol the border.
“There is nobody on the Canadian side patrolling the Canadian border,” he said, noting that job nominally falls to the RCMP.
RCMP spokesman Sgt. Gilles Deziel, however, said it was not the RCMP responsibility to patrol the border. That falls to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), he said from the RCMP’s Ottawa headquarters.
Agency spokeswoman Paula Shore, however, said it was the RCMP’s responsibility. But, she added, they do it as part of the so-called Integrated Border Enforcement (IBET) teams.
Twenty-three such teams exist across Canada, said Alex Swann, director of communications for Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan, who is also the minister for public security. The teams consist of members from RCMP, the border agency and local police forces among other agencies, he said.
Moran likened the situation to being a “bureaucratic football.”
“The bottom line is nobody’s doing the work,” he said. “There is definitely mass confusion in terms of financing, in terms of mandate, in terms of jurisdiction.”
Meanwhile, Canadian Senator Colin Kenny, chairman of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defense, said Tuesday that a congressional report released Monday by the Government Accountability Office in Washington was proof that little has been done to improve airport security since 9/11.
The GAO report criticized the Transportation Security Administration for failing to produce a standard to measure the quality of its airport screeners and for not providing them promised training. It said TSA screeners’ inability to find guns, weapons and other dangerous items since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks has been a continuing problem.
Kenny said the GAO study contains raw statistics on the percentage of weapons and other dangerous items that are sneaked through security checks. The statistics are classified - on the grounds of national security - but Kenny said they should be made public.
“Security authorities in both countries claim publication of the numbers would encourage terrorists, but that’s nonsense,” Kenny said. “Everyone in the business knows the holes are there, and the only way to close those holes is to demonstrate to Canadians that new systems and equipment are working to make our airports, sea ports and border crossings secure.”
Kenny said the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority budget last year was $351 million (US$280 million); the TSA’s budget was U$5.4 billion.
“The public needs to know whether it is safe to travel and the public needs to know that its money is being spent wisely in making the right kind of upgrades,” Kenny said.
_____
On the Web:
GAO summary of study: www.gao.gov/news.items