Canada Border Services Agency concurs with end of Transit Police agreement

VANCOUVER – A Canada Border Services Agency spokeswoman says the agency agrees there is no need to continue with a memorandum of understanding with Metro Vancouver Transit Police.

Jennifer Bourque says the intent of the agreement was meant to facilitate the placement of a CBSA officer in Transit Police offices in order to help with information sharing.

But she says since information sharing is covered under existing privacy legislation, CBSA did not see the need to have an officer embedded with Transit Police and the memorandum was never used.

Transit Police spokeswoman Anne Drennan announced the end of the agreement on Friday, and she also said that officers would no longer arrest undocumented migrants unless they were wanted on an outstanding warrant.

The decision follows the death of Lucia Vega Jimenez (HE’-MEN’-ez), a Mexican woman who hanged herself in a holding facility below Vancouver’s airport in December 2013, after Transit Police stopped her for fare evasion and called CBSA.

Bourque says while the agency cannot comment on changes that Transit Police makes to its internal policies, CBSA will continue to act on tips it receives from any of its enforcement partners.