Quote:
Originally Posted by fredr123
See, I think this goes to a point I tried to make above but wasn't very clear.
Customs officers are treated by their employer as more akin to bank tellers than law enforcement agents. Customs officers would probably like to be treated more like law enforcement agents since some of their duties (such as arresting smugglers and enforcing the 4 million statutes they claim to enforce) no doubt fall within that category. Demanding to be properly armed and trained to do their job makes sense. Thus the union stance. I question the need to walk off the job so often now but I digress...
Changing from a customs officer to a border guard will require a paradigm shift. The way Customs uses force now is different from how police officers do. For the most part, force is used to control a subject during a lawful arrest or as self-defence. Disengaging when things get too dangerous is hammered into their psyche. A police officer doesn't have the luxury of disengaging. If they are doing their thing, they can't let the culprit win and will, when necessary, shoot the bad guy.
Such a shift will require, in my opinion, more than merely a new gun license and some shooting lessons. It should mean that the standards used for selecting border guards should be raised commensurate with the expectation of a higher level of skill and responsibility in the job. In no way do I mean to disparage current customs officers but I believe there are a lot of them out there that should not be allowed to meet this higher standard.
If that's the case, then you'll have a pile of officers no longer qualified to do their job and a number of spaces that need to be filled by uber-qualified individuals. You can shift those other officers around all you want but I'm not sure there are enough spaces for them. And on top of that the employer will have to deal with the Union response to suddenly having a bunch of its members out of work.
Filling the spots with uber-qualified people will put CBSA in competition with police agencies across the country. Ask the RCMP and CPS how easy it is to attract, train and retain qualified individuals.
So what would the cheap and easy solution to this be? Lower the standards. If this were to occur you would have a group of workers who potentially don't past muster carrying guns trying to do a job that they probably aren't qualified for. Not cool.
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you are making alot of assumptions. From what I read it's takign them 4 years to do this and is costing many millions of dollars. They are not simply handing out guns here.