Overview: Ministerial transition 2024

CBSA overview

Mandate

The CBSA provides integrated border services that support national security and public safety priorities and facilitates the free flow of persons and goods, including animals and plants.

Vision

An integrated border agency that is recognized for service excellence in ensuring Canada's security and prosperity.

Border integrity: Immigration, Asylum and Travellers

What we do

• Facilitate the flow of legitimate travellers (citizens, permanent residents and visitors) across the border
• Deny entry to foreign nationals who are inadmissible due to committing crime, national security reasons, connections to organized crime, war crimes, or any other inadmissibility under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act
• Screen travellers for immigration status and admissibility
• Process regular and irregular asylum seekers at Ports of Entry
• Work with Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada to implement immigration policy set by the Minister of Immigration Refugees and Citizenship

Priorities

• Contingency planning in the event of a northbound surge
• Managing border wait times in busy holiday period
• Continuing national rollout of streamlined asylum processing method for faster refugee processing times for low risk/needs and eligible claimants
• Supporting increasingly digitally-enabled border experience with tools and technology to increase security and facilitate processing of travellers
• Continuing to manage volume of 33,000 access to information and privacy requests from persons seeking immigration records from the system the CBSA shares with IRCC

Border integrity: Intelligence and Enforcement

What we do

• Collect intelligence and conduct analysis to inform risk assessment and targeting of potentially inadmissible people and goods
• Work with law enforcement partners to find and remove inadmissible foreign nationals from Canada
• Deter and counter terrorism, human trafficking and money laundering
• Administer immigration detention, including alternatives to detention

Priorities

• Developing capacity to detain high-risk individuals, as provinces ended agreement to house immigration detainees in provincial facilities
• Increasing rate of removals in face of record high levels of regular and irregular asylum, challenges xacerbated by certain countries' recalcitrance to provide travel documents to enable the removal of their citizens
• Detecting and disrupting criminal activity: contraband, irregular migration, threats to national security and trade fraud
• Detecting and countering transnational criminal organizations engaged in human trafficking, money laundering and proceeds of crime
• Combatting the illegal importation of opioid precursor chemicals is a key priority, while also focusing on the export of illicit opioids from Canada
• Investigating and pursuing prosecution of those who commit criminal offences against Canada's border legislation
• Using data and developing new analytic tools to interdict existing and detect emerging threats

Border integrity: Commercial and Trade

What we do

• Target, identify and intercept contraband such as firearms, drugs, and other illicit goods
• Facilitate the flow of legitimate goods across the border, supporting trade and commerce
• Implement trade agreements and changes in tariffs (for example, electric vehicles)
• Investigate foreign companies and countries for unfair trade practices and administers anti-dumping and countervailing duties to protect Canadian industry and jobs
• Examine goods, including food, animal and plants, for threats to human health, agriculture and the environment, such as African swine fever and invasive alien species
• Collect duties and taxes on legitimate imports

Priorities

• Identifying efficiencies, tools and resource requirements to address increasing trade volumes and changing landscape, to support supply chain resiliency and new service demands on CBSA's facilities. 228% increase in volumes since 2014 to 2015 is driven by e-commerce and is challenging enforcement and revenue collection
• Deploying imaging technology to counter increasingly sophisticated concealment methods
• Operationalizing and administering new tariffs in response to potential trade measures aimed at Canada, if necessary
• Improving the CBSA's administration of the import prohibition on goods made with forced labour
• Working with law enforcement and industry to target and intercept stolen vehicles in ports and rail yards
• Introducing new measures to ensure that border officers can access the spaces and facilities required to examine goods destined for export, consistent with existing requirements for imported goods
• Continuing to enhance the CBSA Assessment and Revenue Management (CARM) system that provides Canadian businesses an online self-service tool and simplified assessment and collection of duties and taxes

Advancing reconciliation

The Canada – United States border physically divides many Indigenous communities and traditional lands, posing challenges to cross-border movement, traditional practices, economies, and familial and cultural ties.

What we do

• Guided by the CBSA's Indigenous Framework and Strategy, we work collaboratively and proactively with other government departments and Indigenous partners to address border crossing issues and barriers
• Facilitate the repatriation and rematriation of cultural, ceremonial and sacred items. Assist Indigenous delegation members attending events outside of Canada and travelling with cultural and sacred items

Priorities

• The Minister of Public Safety is the co-convenor for the Jay Treaty Border Alliance–Collaboration Initiative High Table which provides direction on work to support First Nations border mobility, including: border crossing experience; right of entry; entry of goods; identification and travel documents; and, safety and security
• Pursue legislative amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, in line with Action Plan Measure 52 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (UNDA) Action Plan, to address complex border crossing and migration challenges faced by Indigenous peoples divided by Canada's international borders, with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada
• Continue the Border Collaboration Initiative, a co-developed strategy with the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne to improve the border crossing experience at Cornwall
• Since October 2024, temporary measures are in place to help Indigenous people in the United States reunite with their families in Canada. Eligible Indigenous people whose family members live in Canada can now work or study in Canada with some requirements waived and extend their stay for up to three years

International cooperation

The agency depends on international partners for access to information, facilities and tools abroad to interdict inadmissible people and goods early and to disrupt illicit border-related activity:

• Five Country Ministerial: annual meeting of the security and immigration ministers of the Five Eyes: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States
• Border Five: forum for Five Eyes agency heads to influence border management discussions and promote their common interest; Canada taking Chair in 2026
• World Customs Organization: Canada among 185 members representing 98-percent of global trade, focused on customs matters with various technical, policy and decision-making bodies
• United States: unique and close relationship with its U.S. counterparts at the Customs and Border Protection within the Department of Homeland Security

Placemat

CBSA service locations

• 207 Airports
• 117 Land Border Crossings
• 26 Rail Offices
• 9 Ferry Terminals
• 405 Small Vessel Reporting Sites
• 973 Warehouses
• 213 Commercial Vessel Clearance Facilities
• 50 CBSA Inland Offices
• 3 Immigration Holding Centres
• 3 Mail Processing Centres

Our global footprint

• The International Network helps to "push the border out" by supporting capacity building initiatives worldwide
• In 2024, international Liaison officers intercepted 9,100 people based on concerns over the validity of their travel documents

Figure 1 - Text version

USA and Caribbean

• 1) Kingston
• 2) Los Angeles
• 3) Miami
• 4) New York
• 5) Santo Domingo
• 6) Washington, D.C.

Mexico, Central and South America

• 7) Lima
• 8) Mexico City
• 9) Panama City
• 10) Brasilia
• 11) Bogota

Europe

• 12) Berlin
• 13) Brussels
• 14) London
• 15) Paris
• 16) Rome
• 17) The Hague
• 18) Vienna
• 19) Warsaw

Africa

• 20) Accra
• 21) Nairobi
• 22) Pretoria
• 23) Rabat
• 24) Lagos
• 25) Addis Abada

Middle East

• 26) Amman
• 27) Dubai
• 28) Istanbul

Asia Pacific North

• 29) Beijing
• 30) Hong Kong
• 31) Shanghai
• 32) Tokyo
• 33) Ho Chi Minh City
• 34) Hanoi

Asia Pacific South

• 35) Canberra
• 36) Colombo
• 37) Islamabad
• 38) New Delhi
• 39) Bangkok
• 40) Kuala Lumpur
• 41) Singapore
• 42) Manila

Average CBSA processing times

• Land Border – Primary: 72 seconds
• Air Port of Entry – Primary Inspection Kiosks: 154 seconds
• Work Permits: 14 minutes (air) / 43 min (land)
• Study Permits: 10 minutes (air) / 31 minutes (land)
• Refugee Claim: 6 hours
• Seizures: 52 minutes (air) / 1 hour and 23 minutes (land)
• Commercial – Primary: 26 seconds
• Commercial – Secondary: Up to 4 hours and 50 minutes

Welcoming travellers into Canada and promoting economic prosperity

In 2024, the CBSA welcomed over 80.5 million travellers to Canada. The CBSA is managing high volumes of travellers and commercial goods. The significant rise in e-commerce volumes is driven by lasting changes in consumer behaviour.

Keeping Canadians safe

The CBSA plays an integral role in ensuring the safety and security of Canadians as Canada's first line of defence at 1,200 ports of entry and works diligently to protect Canada from border-related threats. While the Agency aims to keep out all contraband, it continues to focus particularly on illegal drugs and firearms.