Friday, October 08,
1999 Mounties spent $2M to track down
migrant vessels
RCMP budget reviewed:
Total bill for smuggled aliens reaches $5M
Marina Jimenez and Stewart Bell
National Post
The RCMP spent at least $2-million on high-speed boats,
helicopters and police dogs chasing down the Chinese migrants who
arrived aboard smuggling ships this summer in B.C.
These latest figures bring the total bill for receiving the 600
migrants to more than $5-million, an expense shared by four
government agencies: the RCMP, Citizenship and Immigration, the
Department of Defence and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
The policing bill comes at a time when the B.C. force is
experiencing funding shortages and a severe shortfall in staff.
"This is just the tip of the iceberg. All the numbers aren't in
yet," said Corporal Grant Learned, spokesman for the RCMP's E
Division in B.C. "This was a major police operation. We weren't in a
position to budget for the bevy of ships coming in."
According to figures released yesterday under the federal Access
to Information Act, the RCMP had spent $1-million on the "alien
smuggling project" by Sept. 21. More than half this bill -- $523,415
-- was for overtime costs of the 110 officers involved in the
operations.
Cpl. Learned estimated that the actual bill would be more than
$2-million by the time all the costs are tallied.
The RCMP was responsible for tracking and securing the four
ships, which arrived between July 20 and Sept. 8 off the coast of
B.C. The Inkster police boat and crew helped track the smuggling
vessels; Emergency Response Teams boarded the ships; and tactical
units were flown in from the Lower Mainland to Vancouver Island,
along with police dogs, to help secure them.
According to the Access to Information data, by Sept. 21 the RCMP
had spent $180,355 on travel, ferrying police and immigration
officers to the remote areas where the migrants landed, $10,000 on
helicopters, $3,800 on protective gear, $2,407 on photographic
equipment and $3,100 on computer equipment.
Also released yesterday was an estimate of the costs tabulated so
far by the Fisheries Department; the Coast Guard spent an estimated
$14,097 tracking the four ships.
Cpl. Learned said the RCMP and Citizenship and Immigration Canada
-- which has spent more than $2-million hosting the four boatloads
of migrants -- will make a joint submission to the Treasury Board to
be reimbursed.
The financial pressures on the 5,500-member B.C. division of the
RCMP have been so severe that last year the force grounded its air
fleet, docked its boats and banned overtime except in emergencies.
Today, the boats are back in the water, but there are still 315
vacancies, and another 200 temporary vacancies on the B.C. force.
The B.C. government has been embroiled in a disagreement with
Ottawa about the underfunding and accused the federal government of
jeopardizing the safety of British Columbians. The federal
government gave the B.C. division $10-million in assistance last
year, but the province felt this was insufficient because the force
had a $1.4-million deficit and a $7-million budget shortfall caused
by an increase in officers' pay.
A review of the budget crisis conducted by Pricewaterhouse
Coopers, the accounting firm, will be presented this month.
"We are in a very tight budget situation," said Cpl. Learned.
"[The migrant ships] put additional pressures on the RCMP. We hope
we can get reimbursed by the Treasury Board."
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