Front Burner - Will controversial "Border Security" show get a government reboot?

Episode Date: December 13, 2018

CBC reporter Catharine Tunney says the reality TV show starring Canada's Border Services Agency was controversial. The show included footage of drug busts and interviews at ports of entry. It was not renewed after three seasons, but could come back. Correction: No additional lights were used during airport scenes of Border Security and the program aired for three seasons, not four and the name of the program in the introduction was corrected. This episode has been changed to reflect that.

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and get ready to hunker down with the final season of Alone, A Love Story. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. So you're at the airport in Vancouver. You're coming into Canada after a long trip away. And you think you're going to be okay. You're bringing back a few things that might be over the limit. Some gifts, some alcohol, nothing major. But then, a border guard pulls you aside.

He says you need to come back for an interview. And when you walk into the room, there's a camera and a boom mic. You're not just talking to a border guard anymore. Now, you're a reality TV star. On this episode of Border Security... You found another one? Looks to be either methamphetamine or crack cocaine. If you're going to tell us one thing and it's going to be another, we're not going to let you in the country at all.

I'm describing the Canada Border Service Agency's reality show that ran for three seasons on National Geographic. It put all sorts of unsuspecting people on TV. And then, in 2015, it wasn't renewed. Lots of people thought the show was an invasion of privacy, that it was making money off other people's pain, or that it was just a propaganda tool for the border services. tool for the border services. Now, documents found by the CBC show the show could be rebooted. Today on FrontBurner, why border security wasn't renewed and why it might come back.

Hi, I'm Catherine Tunney and I'm a reporter with the CBC's Parliamentary Bureau. Hey, Catherine. Let's talk about what happens in this show. It was launched in 2013. What happens in a typical episode? Yeah, I'm not here to judge anyone's TV habits, but I definitely would put this in a guilty pleasures kind of category. Like The Bachelor. Yeah, you know, it's addictive. Basically, the whole point is that it's supposed to show behind the scenes of the CBSA. So it was filmed at different airports across Canada, also at the land borders. They have a scene in the back room where they're going through packages.

They have a huge scanner. At the mail center, officers suspect drugs may be concealed inside two pieces of art from Trinidad and Tobago. They find drugs in everything. That's what I've learned, that you can put drugs in absolutely everything. Like what? Like suitcases? Or a teddy bear? Yeah, people try to sew it into their

suitcases. There was one where someone was mailing a sculpture and they run it through the x-ray. There's a secret... Drug compartment. Compartment, yeah, exactly. Compartment. And they open it up and they're know, there's a secret... Drug compartment. Compartment, yeah, exactly, compartment. And they open it up and they're like, there's cocaine everywhere. So there is a lot of cocaine on this show.

Yeah, and a lot of heroin. Looks like you got something in there. It's a white powder. Can you smell that? So we can smell the vinegar, which is one of the characteristics of heroin. Yeah, and sometimes, like, they'll flag, oh, like, this package came from Afghanistan,

and they open it up, and, yeah, there's opium. Red flags go off. They might think that someone maybe is smuggling drugs or that they're here, they're going to try to work when they say they're actually here on vacation or they're here and they're going to commit a crime. It's not hash, I think. I didn't say it was hash. I'm just asking you.

It's a tea thing. I can't remember what it was. Smoke tea out of it? So a typical show, it's pretty short. I think 22 minutes per usual. Yeah, and you mentioned being able to watch the interview with the CBSA official. It's really interesting to me this show puts CBSA Canadian Border Patrol guards front and center. They even send them out to do publicity for the show. We are joined now by Officer Danielle and Officer Matt.

It's not necessarily a reality show, it's more of a documentary. There's so many different aspects to the job, so the show has done a great job of depicting that. When it was originally pitched, production company approached the CBSA, which then they had to get approval from the federal government. At the time, it was a conservative government. That was really part of the pitch, that this was going to showcase the men and women of the CBSA doing their job. And look how great they are.

And to promote the work that they do. I mean, it is entertaining. Like, who doesn't want to watch this kind of awful? But, you know, you do kind of want to watch something you put in hand. Yeah, there's really high stakes music and cliffhangers. Yeah, exactly. You know, I know I mentioned The Bachelor at the top of the show, but really like the vibe of the show, let me know if you disagree with me, it's a lot more like Cops, like that

US show Cops. Yeah, like, you know, it has a catchy like theme song from the 80s. Cliffhanger, like before you find out what happens they cut to the next scene so you have to wait to the end to find out the person actually was you know is trying to come into the country illegally so have you ever been arrested before yeah what was the charge it's very addictive it was what i had producer messaged me the other day that was just like i'm really like sad to admit it, but I've seen every episode

that's been available. Someone was telling me it's really good hotel fodder, like when you're in a hotel room. Let's get a sense of how popular the show is. Yes, the numbers that have been floating around,

it's about 11 million viewers. So while it was Canada-focused, it did air in different countries. I think Italy was on the list, air in the U.S. So that would have helped get the message out there. Earlier this year, the CBSA commissioned a survey of Canadians just on their services. Lots of departments do this. Just to get a sense of how familiar people are with the work that they do.

Yeah, how are things are doing? Do people, you know, are people happy with what we're doing? You know, the whole point is that we're a government agency that's supposed to be, you know, doing things for the people. So they did a survey, and what kept coming back was that people learned about the CBSA, not through the website or through tweets or through any kind of normal government messaging techniques, but from this reality TV show. It was like, oh, CBSA? Oh, yeah, I think I remember watching that in a hotel room. Right, so they're not saying that they're learning about the CBSA from the CBC.

No, I wish that was the case, but no. It's much more flasher than any story that I could do. This was a project that was greenlit by the Conservatives, Stephen Harper's Conservatives at the time. Can you tell me a little bit about why the Conservatives supported it? It definitely fit in with their law and order mandate that they took that on across many departments. Our plan at the federal level to protect Canadians has been keeping dangerous criminals behind bars and out of neighbourhoods, protecting our children and keeping illegal guns, gangs and drugs out of our community. So it fit in with the idea that we can showcase that, you know, if you do try to break the law, we will catch you, we will jail you or make sure that you can't come

into the country. In the original agreement, they did flag to the minister at the time that, yeah, there could be some blowback. They were aware of that. Part of the agreement was that they'd be able to go through the footage. And for many reasons, like national security reasons, they could say, no, you can't air that bit. But that also would help them mitigate any kind of potential storms, I guess. kind of potential storms, I guess. I understand this show, it also cost the agency money. Yeah, so they said that they never paid to be involved with the show.

They didn't pay the company, you know, as part of the pitch. The number that was circulating was that it cost about $200,000, and part of that was because they did have to put people on it to watch that footage, to give clearance. Briefly, if you could sort of encapsulate the message of this show, how would you do that? Don't lie. Don't bring in drugs. We will catch you. People that are on the show that do get caught, like, it's a scary situation. Hell, I get scared sometimes going through, and I don't have any drugs. Like, you're filling out your form, like, do I have $10,000? No, I mean, definitely not on my bank account. But is there some weed in my backpack? My cousin who borrowed this backpack accidentally

put in my backpack. That's the thing that happens to people. You question everything when you go through. Exactly right. You're like, uh, TBSA maintains that, you know, it was an educational tool and it let people know, you know, about what you can and cannot bring into Canada and what you can and cannot do if you're someone from the outside that's visiting Canada. You should probably have a return ticket or they will pull you over. That's what I learned. We've touched on some of the later aspects of the show and also maybe some of the messages

that CBSA might want to get front and center. But the show has also been quite controversial. So CBSA claimed that everyone was free to appear on the show. And obviously, when you watch it, there are people who appear on the show. Sometimes their faces are blurred, but sometimes they're not. And the idea is that all of those people have given some sort of permission to use their images and what happened on the show. But CBSA has said that this was called informed consent. But is that correct?

No. And there's a privacy commissioner report to prove that. The show was very popular. But I also want to be clear that even when it was on the air, there was concerns. Some civil liberty groups and other groups were already raising the concern that they found it salacious, that, you know, you're filming people in these really vulnerable positions and it's gross and tacky and crass. That kind of came to a head. They filmed this raid on a construction site.

The CBSA was worried that there were undocumented workers on the site, and that ended up being true. They arrested eight people. on the site and that ended up being true. They arrested eight people. One of them, this man named Oscar Mata Duran, said he was presented with a content form from the production company and that he was confused and he didn't really even read it. And then next thing you know, he's part of this TV show. I asked him, he's a sporty guy, why is the camera?

And he said, no, don't worry, it's a reality show. He asked me to sign something, but when I was there, I was so in shock. And just I signed everything because I want to do whatever they want. Okay, I do. So the B.C. Civil Liberties Association kind of took up his case, spearheaded his complaint, brought it to the Privacy Commissioner. In 2016, he ruled that, yeah, CBSA did break the Privacy Act. Basically, at the beginning of filming, they offer a verbal confirmation,

and then they sign a form at the end of filming. But that's not really fair when you're dealing with people who, A, don't know Canadian law. They don't understand that that's separate from actually what's going on. This is a TV crew. They're in one of their most vulnerable positions. They might be arrested. They're being questioned about drugs. So there's no way that they could be actually offering meaningful consent.

So the commissioner recommended that the show stop, that they don't continue. And then if they ever did try to bring it back, the privacy commissioner be informed about it and that they come up with a privacy impact assessment. That's kind of where we're at right now. I know that there were also concerns in the Privacy Commissioner's report that the border guards were like playing up to the cameras. And so can you tell me a bit about that? A little bit probably hard to prove. But I know the B.C., the Civil Liberties Association also raised this concern. How do you know for sure that the guard isn't changing his or her tone or being, you know, trying to play a scenario up, you know, because there's a camera there and they want to be on TV or they think that they have to make it a little bit more sexier to get on TV? We are talking about reality TV.

Should that be impacting the way that you go about your job in these very serious situations? Is it fair to say that you haven't been coerced into swallowing any kind of narcotics? Uh, no. You had to think about that, though. If you were to ask me if I swallowed any drugs, you know what I'll do? I didn't realize. I thought you meant if it's been... And then this brings us to this week and your reporting.

So the CBSA is now thinking about bringing back the show. How come? It was in a briefing note. The head of the CBSA wrote to Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale saying a lot of it's redacted, so we don't know the nitty-gritty of why. But in their response to me,

it maintained that it's still a very educational tool and that it gets the CBSA's message out, so they are looking at the possibility of bringing it back. They wouldn't really say in what capacity. We're not really sure what a new show would look like since there were all these privacy issues. They did say that they would take travelers' privacy very seriously. But yeah, they kept reiterating that this is an educational tool,

that this helps us get the message out. It's interesting how it's a different government now. We talked earlier about how this fit into the conservatives' wheelhouse as being tough on borders and law and order. But how do you think it fits into the Liberals' political calculations? Well, they do have a border issue. So the issue of asylum seekers and people who are crossing the border, not at those ports of entries, but at irregular crossings, has happened under their watch. Tens of thousands of people have been coming over the border. We hear a lot about Roxham Road. I'm largely in Quebec. I'm in Manitoba as well.

And they've been really hammered on this by the Conservatives. This prime minister has failed to take any concrete steps to address the situation. In fact, it was the prime minister's own words that encouraged this crisis to start in the first place. And there's also suggestions that Canadians don't think that they're handling this issue very well. There was a poll just at the end of the summer from Angus Reid that said about two-thirds of Canadians call the situation at the border a crisis and that they think it'd be best handled by Conservative leader Andrew Scheer. So when you're in government, you don't want to hear those types of things, that your opposition, your main foe, Canadians think that he'd do a better job on this subject. It would make sense. You could see how having a show showing how the CBSA is handling this could play

well for them, could show that they do have control of the border. If that's the message that gets out, CBSA has had to answer questions about the issue of asylum seekers and detaining people. So you could see why this would be an attractive option to them. It's a way of getting your message out, but also in an entertaining way. Another thing I was just thinking while you were talking is that the liberals also might want to signal that they're doing things to stop the flow of guns at the border, for example. This is another election issue. The government's obviously recognized that this is a problem for

them and will be a problem for them probably in the election year, to the point where they've created a new portfolio, the Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction. That's Bill Blair's role now. So you could see where they could show that they are stopping firearms from coming over the border. That's been an issue, especially when you're talking about organized crime. That could be seen as a win for Bill Blair particularly, and for the liberal government that they could tie these two things together. It's hard to imagine, though, how the show, if it came back on the air, wouldn't also encounter the same issues of filming vulnerable people, especially if it dealt with the issue of asylum seekers.

Yes, the same issues, almost even more heightened. I mean, I've been to Roxham Road. Most people, I'm sure, have seen footage. When you hear those people that are coming over, they feel very desperate. So you're aware that by crossing here, you're committing an illegal act. Yes. Are you sure that you want the beginning of your life in Canada to start with an illegal act? Yes. They say that they're going this route because they fear that they're going to be deported,

sent back to their countries where they could be killed or, you know, very dangerous situations. So they're fleeing in desperation, they say. It's hard to imagine where you would have a show where the point is to show how the CBSA interacts with people without showing people. But that's where we get into the privacy issue. Do you think it's even possible to make a show like this responsibly? The privacy commissioner, his report did open the door to it, did say, if you are going to bring the show back on, please contact our office, basically so we can talk it through.

As we just talked about, it's really hard to see how if the whole point was that you weren't, you know, people weren't giving proper consent. They were being filmed because they're in these vulnerable positions. How you're going to get around that. You know, I did speak to the B.C. Civil Liberties Association earlier this week. You know, I asked them, is there anything the CBSA could do when it comes to this TV show that you would say, yeah, that's an acceptable TV show to watch? And the resounding response was no. Like, we are done with this. Do not bring the show back on the air.

There's no way that you can do it in a responsible way. Catherine, thank you so much. Thank you. We reached out to the office of Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodell for this story. At the time we recorded this podcast, we had not yet heard back. That's it for today. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner. I'm Jamie Poisson. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.

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