Gun seizures up but fears of porous border remain

The Canada Border Services Agency last year seized twice the number of weapons at border crossings compared to six years ago, according to a CBC News analysis of agency data, but experts fear little progress is being made in stemming the flow of illegal guns into Canada.

The database, obtained by CBC News Network's Power & Politics through the Access to Information Act, shows that while guns make up about a third of all weapons confiscated by border officials, the seizures only tally in the hundreds annually.

That compares to tens of thousands of illegal guns nabbed in police operations on Canadian streets each year.

The Canada Border Services Agency last year seized twice the number of weapons at border crossings compared to six years ago. (Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press)

For example, in 2011, the CBSA seized 673 guns at ports of entry such as land border crossings, airports, ports and mail centres. By comparison, police seized 33,727 firearms that year, according to Canadian Firearms Program statistics. Many of these illegal firearms are believed to have come from outside the country.

Analysis of the CBSA data shows that switchblades, brass knuckles, tear gas or pepper spray canisters, butterfly knives and stun guns make up the remaining two-thirds of weapons seized at ports of entry.

But police are most concerned about handguns and other illegal firearms entering the country, with entry hotspots being the Vancouver area and southern Ontario, the two regions of the country with the busiest border crossings.

Americans neglect to declare weapons

The CBSA declined to make someone available for an interview, but a spokesperson said in an email to CBC News that most of the guns its officers find belong to Americans who neglect to declare them, not criminals.

While the agency does nab criminals attempting to smuggle weapons, and publicizes the seizures in news releases, border busts involving suspected criminals are not common, leading experts to conclude the weapons are evading detection at the border.

"[The CBSA] doesn't have any solid risk models for how we seize guns," says Christian Leuprecht, an associate professor at the Royal Military College and Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., who specializes in organized crime.

"And given that the United States is unlikely to do away with the Second Amendment [which gives citizens the right to bear arms], we have to come up with a strategy as to what we're going to do to stem the flow."

According to police officers and organized crime experts, smuggled guns are typically purchased from a handful of states, such as Georgia and Ohio, with lax gun laws. In many cases, middlemen transport the firearms across busy border points, usually by hiding them in concealed compartments in vehicles or strapping them to their bodies. Seldom do they get pulled over for a more detailed "secondary inspection," allowing them to deliver their guns to customers, typically gang members and organized crime.

Complicating matters is the internet.

Quebec soldier charged

While the CBC News analysis of the agency's database reveals that gun seizures at the country's mail centres in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal are small — just 14 in 2012 — the number of all weapons seized at mail centres rose sharply over the six years, to 899 in 2012 from 47 in 2007.

The mail and the internet figured prominently in the arrest last week of Quebec soldier David Theriault, who was charged with more than 30 illegal weapons production and trafficking offences.

Ontario Provincial Police said raids conducted at CFB Borden and several locations in Quebec netted hundreds of firearms, gun enhancements and parts, including silencers and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

The Quebec soldier is alleged to have attempted to create an international smuggling ring, which would have allowed individuals on five continents to use parts such as "selector switches" to turn semi-automatic guns into fully automatic weapons allegedly intended to "kill people," according to Patricia Dobbin, the detective-inspector running the Provincial Weapons Enforcement Unit. Theriault is to appear in court Thursday in Barrie, Ont.

There's another development that could turn out to be a boon for smugglers, at least according to a report released by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute last week.

In the report, co-author Christian Leuprecht argues negotiations with the United States to ease the flow of goods across the border while tightening security will actually make it easier for organized criminals to smuggle drugs and guns in truck containers.

"As transnational organized crime groups become increasingly sophisticated in the crimes they perpetrate, the jurisdictions they exploit and the methodologies they employ, it would be unwise to assume that the border can be an effective point of interdiction."

The CBSA, already facing criticism that recent and planned cuts will make it even more difficult to stop smugglers, argues that it will work with the U.S. to increase intelligence as part of the Beyond the Border initiative.

In its most recent performance report, the agency asserts that it "uses automated risk assessment systems and intelligence to identify potential risks to the security and safety of people and goods."

Candice Bergen, the parliamentary secretary to the minister of public safety, insisted cuts at CBSA will not affect frontline officers or seizures at the border. She also noted during an interview on CBC News Network's Power and Politics that most weapons are intercepted at an unmanned border point.

"The fact is, the majority of illegal guns are not coming across at points of entry, they're coming across unmanned areas," she told host Evan Solomon. "And that's where the RCMP and other law enforcement obviously have an important role and important task in terms of not only intelligence, because that's what helps at the points of entry with CBSA, but working together with our American counterparts to stop guns."

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Mental health issues for soldiers, police up 47% since 2008

The number of soldiers and RCMP officers suffering from mental health injuries such as post-traumatic stress disorder has skyrocketed over the last six years, driven in part by the gruelling decade-long combat mission in Afghanistan.

Data provided to CBC News Network's Power & Politics from Veterans Affairs Canada shows the number of veterans, soldiers and federal police officers receiving disability benefits for mental health conditions has swelled to 16,206 at last count, from just over 11,050 in 2008. That marks an increase of 47 per cent.

Source: Veterans Affairs Canada (CBC)

Second World War and Korean War vets with mental health problems is the only group that saw their caseload decline, and that is due to an aging population. There are now 1,932 "traditional" veterans of that era with PTSD and other mental disorders, down from 3,036 six years ago.

Source: Veterans Affairs Canada (CBC)

Canadian Armed Forces personnel – including those still serving and out of uniform – have seen the biggest jump, from 6,587 in 2008 to the current 11,600. The number in this group who have served in Afghanistan has climbed from 697 in 2008 to 3,411.

Source: Veterans Affairs Canada (CBC)

Veterans Affairs did not have a figure immediately available on the costs of benefits and services to individuals with mental conditions, but the Defence Department spends about $50 million a year on mental health services.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay has described the care of ill and injured soldiers as his "number 1 priority."

A statement from MacKay's office to CBC News said the Armed Forces has made "tremendous strides" in supporting personnel who suffer from deployment-related mental health conditions like PTSD.

"Post-traumatic stress disorder and depression are a priority focus for military health programs because they are the most common operational stress injuries," he said. "Canada is now recognized as a world leader in fighting stigmatization and raising awareness of mental health illnesses. In fact, we have the greatest ratio of mental health care workers to soldiers in NATO."

The data also shows the number of Mounties suffering with mental disorder has also spiked to 2,674 cases from 1,427 in the last six years.

Source: Veterans Affairs Canada (CBC)

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Government moves to control wages at Crown corporations

The federal government has introduced legislation that gives it sweeping powers to intervene in the collective bargaining process of Crown corporations, and even in the scale of executive salaries.

The provisions, which are part of the omnibus budget implementation bill tabled Monday, say that government ministers on the Treasury Board Secretariat will be able to impose "any requirement" on Crown corporations at the bargaining table.

The new legislation also says employers at agencies such as the CBC, Canada Post, Via Rail and over 40 other Crown corporations must seek approval from Treasury Board before fixing working conditions for both unionized and non-unionized employees.

Treasury Board will also be able to appoint one its own officials to sit at the negotiating table as an "observer' when collective bargaining takes place.

Denis Lemelin, national president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), said the changes are "unbelievable."

"In 2011, the Harper government got rid of our right to strike. Now, with this omnibus bill, they got rid of our right to negotiate," said.

Lemelin was referring to government legislation that ordered postal workers back to work in the summer of 2011 after the union had begun a series of rotating strikes. CUPW has launched a constitutional challenge to the legislation.

Lemelin said Wednesday in a telephone interview that the right to negotiate is guaranteed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He continued that CUPW had fought for Canada Post to become a Crown corporation in the 1970s so that the union could negotiate directly with it .

Under the new legislation, the government will be the real negotiator, he said.

'Taxpayers end up paying the ticket'

However, Gregory Thomas of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation said Wednesday his organization has been advocating for just this kind of legislation.

"Companies that are government owned but have independent boards of directors can be very irresponsible with decisions they make, especially with regards to executive compensation. And yet the taxpayer ends up holding the bag, paying the ticket," he said in a telephone interview.

Thomas pointed to a report done by the parliamentary budget officer in December that found compensation in the federal service has outpaced inflation and that of other employees — both in business and other levels of government — over the last 13 years.

Thomas doesn't see much difference between public sector employees and employees of Crown corporations. He calls Crown corporations "government companies", although most Crown corporations are supposed to be at arm's length from government.

Tony Clement, the president of the Treasury Board, issued a statement Wednesday saying the government would like to see "consistency" among all Crown corporations and the civil service.

His statement said, "Government will look at options to improve the financial viability of Crown corporations, including compensation levels. We are ensuring that public service labour costs align and that taxpayer's hard-earned dollars are used efficiently."

Opposition Leader Tom Mulcair, pointing out Wednesday is International Workers Day, said outside the NDP caucus room in the House of Commons that every time a question is asked about Crown corporations the government always says they are autonomous.

"They can't suck and blow at the same time, that's what they're doing," he told reporters.

George Smith, a labour relations expert at Queen's University and a former CBC executive, said Wednesday in an interview, "In my 40 years of bargaining in the federal sector, there has never been anything like this."

He added: "[The government] have effectively pre-determined that collective bargaining won't work, so that when the government intervenes to impose a settlement, they'll have an excuse."

"I think this is an unbelievable and unprecedented intervention of government into the free collective bargaining process, and, you know, I have to say that most of us in the world of industrial relations are completely taken aback by this development," he said.

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MPs want more Revenue Canada powers to fight tax havens

The federal government needs to take steps to stop tax cheaters from hiding their money in offshore havens, a parliamentary committee maintains in a report tabled today, but opposition MPs say the proposals are inadequate.

The House of Commons finance committee delivered its findings Wednesday on the use of financial havens to evade taxes, following more than two years of hearings and 36 deputations.

Its report makes 11 recommendations for tightening the rules so that Canadian taxpayers can't squirm out of their obligations to the government.

Among them:

• The Canada Revenue Agency should crack down on virtually all use of offshore tax havens where a taxpayer is exploiting a legal loophole and doesn't have a legitimate business purpose.
• The CRA should gain the power to withhold tax refunds from businesses that don't identify to the CRA who their shareholders are.
• All banks, credit unions, stock brokers, life-insurance companies and currency dealers should be required to track who really owns any company that is their client.

The latter two suggestions follow testimony at the committee that shell corporations are sometimes used by people seeking anonymity in order to mask income from the government.

The committee also recommended that the CRA post the names of people and companies convicted of tax crimes for a full year on its website. Currently, the information is kept online for six months. By comparison, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service has details on its website about convicted offshore tax cheaters dating back to 2007.

In an emailed statement, Minister of National Revenue Gail Shea said the government would give "due consideration to the recommendations."

"Our government has long recognized that international tax evasion is a serious issue," Shea said, adding that the government has introduced "over 75 measures to improve the integrity of the tax system" since 2006.

Shea called on the NDP and Liberals to support the federal budget, which she said would give CRA the "tools it needs."

'Baby steps'

Opposition MPs said the recommendations by the majority-Conservative committee don't go far enough.

"Baby steps don't just cut it," said Murray Rankin, the NDP critic for national revenue.

"The government talks like they're doing something, yet look, the proof is in the pudding. They're cutting the CRA [by] 3,000 people over three years, $250 million, and we're supposed to think they're taking this seriously."

The New Democrats called for the government to calculate Canada's "tax gap" — the amount of revenue the federal treasury loses due to tax evasion. Other countries like Britain and the United States have official estimates of their tax shortfalls, but Canada does not.

The NDP also said Canadian corporations should be forced to reveal how much tax they paid in other locales, to give a complete picture of whether or how they're operating in offshore havens.

Liberal John McCallum echoed those concerns.

"We don't think the government report says anything very much," said McCallum, who served as revenue minister from 2004 to 2006.

"First of all, you have to estimate how much tax you think is being evaded in order to go after it.… And the second point is you need money to go after tax cheaters. And the government has been cutting the budget and the number of employees in CRA."

The finance committee's report was tabled a month after an unprecedented and massive worldwide leak of financial records from a number of tax havens became public. A global group of media outlets, including CBC News in Canada, used documents in the leak to reveal details on dozens of cases of money laundering, fraud and tax avoidance.

In his March budget, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty promised to set up a system for tipsters to report offshore tax cheats. Informants would get 15 per cent of the recouped tax in cases where the Canada Revenue Agency recovers more than $100,000.

It also emerged this week that the U.S. Internal Revenue Service is going after American clients of CIBC who might have used offshore accounts at the Canadian bank's Caribbean subsidiary to evade taxes.

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6 new search and rescue measures expected today

Defence Minister Peter MacKay will announce six new measures related to the search and rescue system on Thursday, including new satellites and changes to response times, CBC News has learned.

MacKay has a news conference scheduled for noon in Ottawa with Kerry-Lynne Findlay, associate minister of defence.

CBC's Hannah Thibedeau reported that MacKay, the lead minister for search and rescue, will announce his department intends to spend millions of dollars on two new satellites to better track where people in need of help are located. A second initiative is aimed at increasing the flexibility for mandatory response times for Air Force rescue squadrons.

Currently, between the hours of 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday to Friday, they are supposed to depart within 30 minutes, and within two hours on the weekends. MacKay is expected to announce that the hours can be adjusted to account for busy traffic on the water, during lobster season for example in Atlantic Canada.

The 30-minute response time, for example, could be extended for longer periods during the day.

The Coast Guard's reaction time standard is 30 minutes, seven days a week, 24 hours a day and it does modify its operations in times of anticipated need such as busy fishing seasons.

The announcement on Canada's search and rescue system comes in the wake of Auditor General Michael Ferguson's spring report released Tuesday that raised serious concerns about the sustainability of the system.

He found that overall, search and rescue activities have met minimum standards of readiness to respond to calls for help, but he said there are big risks to that readiness. Ferguson said aging equipment and staff shortages are threatening the future quality of the services provided by the Coast Guard and Air Force.

His audit said that in 2012 the Canadian Forces reviewed its state of readiness and concluded that shifting the current 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. schedule by an hour or more could improve coverage during busy periods.

The audit found that search and rescue region commanders do modify the schedule for heavier traffic times such as the opening of fishing season.

Ferguson also noted that the reaction time standards for the Canadian Forces are based on the resources they have available, not on what is actually needed. Ferguson suggested that readiness standards should instead be based on current and anticipated search and rescue needs.

The federal government's process to replace aging rescue aircraft has been dragging on for years and been plagued with problems.

MacKay acknowledged on Tuesday that staff don't have the aircraft they need and that he accepts all of Ferguson's recommendations.

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NDP wants to 're-protect' waterways in Canada

A Toronto NDP MP is launching a private-members bill to get the Conservative government to reverse some of the sweeping changes it has made to waterways protections by focussing on one of the Toronto area's best-known rivers.

NDP MP Mike Sullivan used a park in his riding (York South-Weston) beside the Humber River to announce he's tabling a private members bill on Wednesday to have the entire of the length of the river protected under the federal Navigation Protection Act.

"It's our intention to re-protect this water, to re-protect this wonderful piece of Canada that is the water source for much of Toronto and the five million people who live in the GTA," he said.

Currently only one kilometre of the Humber, from Lake Ontario to Bloor St., is protected under the new Navigation Protection Act. Sullivan says the entire length should be protected, because not protecting a major source of drinking water in Canada's largest city is "a dangerous thing."

The Humber River is one of a long list of waterways in provinces and territories that the NDP wants protected by the new federal law.

They are excluded from federal protection as a result of changes made in last year's federal budget.

2% of waterways protected

The Conservative government revamped the Navigable Waters Protection Act to remove federal protections from thousands of lakes and rivers. Since the 1880's, the act required any projects that could affect the navigation of the rivers and lakes to undergo a strict federal environmental assessment.

The new Navigation Protection Act now protects 62 rivers, 97 lakes and the three oceans, about two per cent of the waterways in the country.

The rest of the lakes and rivers are covered by a patchwork of provincial laws. In some cases it will be up to private citizens or even municipalties who want to stop development on their local waterways to take the matter to court.

In defending the changes in the budget last year, federal Transport Minister Denis Lebel and officials from his department said they focussed on protecting navigation in the busiest waterways in the country. They believe that equivalent provincial laws will protect rest of the lakes and rivers, and the new law will help "streamline" approvals of many development projects.

Last week, the opposition NDP started its campaign by tabling a series of 10 private members' bills to get protection for an additional 27 heritage rivers in Canada.

Mike Sullivan's is the next one to be tabled, this week, in the House of Commons. It is also about one of the most high-profile rivers that are not fully protected by federal law.

A spokesman for Lebel dismissed the NDP move.

"The NDP is playing silly games by introducing bills that likely won't even be brought forward for debate," Mike Winterburn said Tuesday in an email to CBC News. "We're proud of the new Navigation Protection Act, which fixes an outdated law to reflect its historic intent: to protect navigation."

Drinking water and beaches

Mike Mattos, a board member of the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, says the Humber River needs all the help it can get. Its growing pollution is getting into the Toronto water system and into local beaches.

"We need everybody to help us protect the Humber so we can have clean water and hopefully we can canoe from Weston (Road) to the lake and enjoy the benefits of the Humber for the rest of our lives and the rest of our children's lives," said Mattos.

In announcing the campaign on the recent Earth Day, NDP Environment Critic Megan Leslie said most people are still figuring out how changes to the federal law will affect their local waterways.

"People do not know we have lost the protection of the navigable rivers, she said. "For example, in North Bay Trout Lake is not protected, it is the source of their drinking water and it is not protected. Everyone in the community meeting was in shock."

But the opposition NDP knows it has an uphill battle on its hands. Getting a private members bill through Parliament isn't easy at the best of times.

"This is a majority Conservative government, said Mike Sullivan. "I'm not holding my breath."

However he hopes it will draw attention to the ongoing issue of water protection that he thinks has hit a nerve in Canada. The opposition MPs are planning to fan out to their ridings this summer to ask constituents about which local waterways they want "re-protected" federally.

They'll bring back petitions to give to the Harper government in the fall sitting of Parliament.

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Canada can't account for $3.1B in anti-terror funding, AG finds

The federal government needs to do better at tracking and evaluating some of its program spending to ensure taxpayer dollars are being well-spent, Auditor General Michael Ferguson found in his spring report released today, and one of the most striking examples is that it can't account for $3.1 billion in anti-terrorism funding.

The lack of information on spending and on results achieved for money spent is a common theme throughout Ferguson's report, which includes 11 chapters in total.

In his audit of the Public Security and Anti-Terrorism (PSAT) Initiative, Ferguson suggested there should have been a government-wide review of spending by 35 departments and of the results for the program that was funded between 2001 and 2009.

He found that departments reported spending $9.8 billion of the $12.9 billion allocated for security and anti-terrorism measures under the program but he couldn't determine where the other $3.1 billion went. The Treasury Board had no clear answers for him.

Auditor General Michael Ferguson speaks to reporters in the National Press Theatre in Ottawa following the release of his spring report. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

Ferguson said he's not concerned the money is missing, it's the information about it that can't be nailed down.

"It's a matter of missing that last link in putting that information together," he said at a news conference in Ottawa Tuesday morning. If the money was reallocated from the anti-terrorism program to another program, there should have been approval for that, he added.

"We don't have enough information to say whether that happened," he said.

The NDP jumped on the accounting gap as a sign the Conservatives can't manage the public purse.

"It is really scandalous that [the government] can't account for the $3.1 billion," NDP MP Malcolm Allen said. NDP Leader Tom Mulcair called the unaccounted for money a "$3-billion boondoggle."

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the issue raised by Ferguson has nothing to do with the improper use of money, but rather with the categorization of spending by different departments over the years.

"There's some lack of clarity, the auditor general's made some suggestions on how we can be more clear in our tracking in the future. We will do that," Harper said in question period. "Unlike the NDP, we remain fully committed to legislation and to expenditures to protect Canadians from terrorism."

Treasury Board president Tony Clement said there are no allegations of misspent or misallocated money and that Parliament was "in the loop" on how money was spent.

"All government spending, every nickel and dime is reported to Parliament and accounted for each and every year in the public accounts," he told reporters.

Clement said he accepts the auditor general's recommendation for his department to provide a clear picture of spending and results for government-wide programs.

Some of the other main findings in the report include:

• Some departments, including National Defence, aren't always doing proper security clearances for people and companies hired on contract.
• The Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the government are not acting in a spirit of reconciliation to create a complete historical record of the residential school system, and there is no plan on how to resolve their disputes.
• The Public Health Agency of Canada is doing a poor job of managing the Canadian Diabetes Strategy and the impact of the program is unknown.
• The Canada Revenue Agency is doing better at collecting unpaid taxes, but needs to do more given there are arrears of $29 billion.
• Better reporting on how development aid money is spent and what results are being achieved is needed.
• There are concerns over the sustainability of search and rescue activities because of aging equipment and personnel shortages.
• Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) is doing better at cutting down employment insurance overpayments, but still losing millions a year.

Ferguson's report on anti-terrorism spending comes at a time when the subject is dominating public debate and Parliament Hill. Anti-terrorism measures were debated in the House of Commons last week, on the same day that arrests were announced by the RCMP. A man from Toronto and another man from Montreal are accused of plotting a terrorist attack on a Via passenger train.

Search and rescue management questioned

Safety and security were also raised in other chapters of Ferguson's report. He found that some departments, including National Defence, are not following proper procedures for security clearances when outside people or companies are hired on contract. In some cases people were awarded contracts who did not have appropriate security clearances.

Auditor General Michael Ferguson says he has concerns about the sustainability of federal search and rescue activities because of aging equipment and personnel shortages. (Andrew Vaughan/Canadian Press)

Defence Minister Peter MacKay's department is also singled out in the spring report for its management of search and rescue (SAR) activities. Ferguson said he has concerns about the sustainability of SAR activities because of aging equipment and personnel shortages.

The government has been trying to acquire new SAR aircraft since 2002, but the replacement project has been plagued with problems and controversy. A contract to replace the Hercules and Buffalo planes won't be signed until next year at the earliest and in the meantime, money has to be spent on upgrading and maintaining the older aircraft.

Ferguson also has concerns about the information management system used to manage SAR cases, saying it is "nearing its breaking point." A replacement system isn't expected until 2015-16.

MacKay acknowledged there have been ongoing delays with the procurement process and said he accepts the report's recommendations.

"The reality is that while the process is underway it has not delivered the aircraft that we need," he told reporters. He also said he is acting on the security clearance concerns identified in the report.

Ferguson's office also looked at how some departments are doing at implementing Treasury Board requirements to evaluate their programs.

"Overall, we found many areas where the government should improve on the results that it achieves with taxpayers' dollars," Ferguson said.

'Significant weaknesses' in evaluating programs

Ferguson found that at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, HRSDC and Treasury Board, there are "significant weaknesses" when it comes to using program evaluations in decision-making.

"As a result, decisions have been made about programs and related expenditures with incomplete information on their effectiveness," said Ferguson. HRSDC and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada did not evaluate their ongoing grant and contribution programs over a five-year period, the audit also found.

There is also limited information on the results of spending on international development assistance, Ferguson's report said. He said the annual report to Parliament on how the money given to multilateral organizations is spent "lacks clarity, and we identified some inaccuracies."

According to the legislation governing official development assistance, programs are supposed to have a focus on poverty reduction, take into account the perspectives of the poor and meet international human rights standards. Ferguson's audit raised concerns about those last two provisions.

"Decision makers do not have all the information they would need to determine that the conditions in the act are respected," he wrote.

About $5.2 billion was spent on development aid in 2010-11.

Ferguson also looked at how the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), Health Canada and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research have implemented the Canadian Diabetes Strategy. What he found is a poorly managed program that hasn't defined a strategy, priorities, performance measures, timelines or expected results.

PHAC gets $18 million per year for the pan-Canadian diabetes strategy, but according to Ferguson, it's not keeping tabs on whether its activities are helping to prevent and treat diabetes. The government also funded $44 million in research in 2011-12.

Ongoing disputes over residential schools records

Another chapter in the spring audit report focuses on whether the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, created as part of the settlement over the Indian residential schools system, is getting what it needs from the federal government.

"The Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada have been unable to co-operate, in the spirit of reconciliation, to create as complete as possible a historical record of the Indian residential school system and its legacy," he said.

The commission has a $60-million budget and five-year mandate that ends in July 2014, and is responsible for collecting records and setting up a national research centre. The problems that have plagued the commission so far don't show signs of being resolved, according to the audit, which found no detailed plan to resolve the issues.

The spring report said the CRA is making satisfactory progress on tax collection, but "given tax arrears of $29 billion, the agency needs to continue to work to refine and improve its tools."

Human Resources Minister Diane Finley's department is also doing better at reducing EI overpayments, but is "missing opportunities" to minimize costs to the program, the audit found. Close to $10 million per year isn't being recovered because cases are being processed too slowly, he noted.

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Elections Canada drops plan for online voting due to cuts

Elections Canada has abandoned plans to experiment with an online voting pilot project before the 2015 general election due to budget cuts.

Elections Canada also has concerns about the security of online voting, but a new report indicates that voting irregularities happen frequently at polling stations on voting day even when paper ballots are used.

A spokesperson for Elections Canada said Tuesday that experiments with online voting are postponed "for the long term," and the reasons for the delay are due to an eight per cent budget cut that took effect this year, translating into a loss of $7.5 million per year.

A plan to try out online voting in a federal byelection sometime before 2015 has been quashed.

During the last general election in 2011, Mark Mayrand, the chief electoral officer of Elections Canada, told CBC that online voting is "the way of the future". The plan was to eventually incorporate internet balloting into general elections, although Mayrand estimated that voting by laptop or smart phone as a permanent feature was at least "three general elections away."

In August 2011, Mayrand told a parliamentary committee, "Elections Canada has been examining internet voting as a complementary and convenient way to cast a ballot. The chief electoral officer is committed to seeking approval for a test of Internet voting in a byelection held after 2013."

However, in a recent report to parliament, Mayrand said, "Elections Canada is scaling back its efforts on internet voting and will delay conducting an I-voting pilot project until after the next general election."

Some municipalities have experimented successfully with online voting, particularly Markham, Ont., and Halifax. In Markham's 2006 municipal election, voter turnout increased by 10 per cent, likely because online voting was offered as an option. No province has ever tried online voting.

Online voting was never meant to substitute for voting the old-fashioned way, in person with a paper ballot.

Still plenty of problems with paper voting

However, a report released Tuesday by Elections Canada shows that there are plenty of problems with paper voting.

The report says officials at polling stations across Canada committed a raft of serious procedural errors during the 2011 federal election.

The report was commissioned by Elections Canada after a court case about voting irregularities in the Toronto riding of Etobicoke Centre revealed dozens of instances of missing paperwork on polling day May 2, 2011.

The report says the same kinds of mistakes happened right across the country. It includes a national audit of the paperwork filled out by elections officials who are supposed to ensure voters whose names don't appear on the list are eligible to cast a ballot.

The audit found more than half the documents contained errors of the type that courts have found serious enough to contribute to overturning election results. The paperwork was seriously deficient in more than 165,000 cases. That means, on average, election officers made more than 500 serious procedural errors in each of Canada's 308 ridings.

The same kinds of mistakes were found to have occurred in Etobicoke Centre, and last spring an Ontario Superior Court judge overturned the results in that riding. However, the Supreme Court of Canada reversed that decision, ruling that the constitutional right to vote trumps almost all procedural errors.

Nevertheless, the report concludes that the procedures for verifying voters must be simplified and election officials must be better trained.

As reported by the Canadian Press, Mayrand has accepted the report's conclusions and recommendations.

The budget cuts Elections Canada are facing mean it's also trimming its international vote monitoring program, and will move its Ottawa office to Gatineau, Que.

With files from the Canadian Press

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Ambrose tears up over cyberbullying

Rona Ambrose showed Tuesday that she feels a personal connection to the fight against cyberbullying.

Ambrose, minister for the status of women and minister of public works, struggled to compose herself at an Ottawa high school during a funding announcement for an online campaign to promote healthy relationships among Canadian teenagers.

Citing a rise in the incidence of violence in youth relationships – including cyberbullying, harassment and abuse – Ambrose announced a new project in partnership with the Canadian Red Cross and Respect Group Inc. to create an online educational workshop to raise awareness about relationship violence.

In a scrum after her announcement, she denied her party's current advertising campaign attacking the background of Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau is the same as cyberbullying. It's a much different situation, she said, because that campaign is directed at an adult, not young people.

"We're dealing with very serious consequences related to sexual assault, intimate sexual violence between intimate partners and sometimes of course very difficult consequences like suicide," she said. "This kind of program is incredibly, incredibly necessary."

"I've met a lot of people that have been impacted by this," she told reporters, fighting back tears. "We've worked very hard to make this happen."

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Search plane purchase delay causes Tory infighting

The military's failure to purchase new search and rescue planes has led to rare infighting between two federal Conservative cabinet ministers.

Auditor General Michael Ferguson, in his spring report released Tuesday, said the military's persistent failure to buy new search planes was a significant risk that affected the sustainability of Canada's rescue program.

Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose said it was important that government contracting rules be followed and that there be an open competition for new search planes. That's a push back against Defence Minister Peter MacKay and the suggestion Ambrose's department has failed to deliver.

Sources tell CBC News that Ambrose and public works officials are tired of being made out as the bad guys, when they believe it's clear the Defence Department has botched the process.

"Enough is enough," one source said.

MacKay stiffened at the suggestion that the Defence Department should be held accountable for failing to buy new search planes.

"Well, I would disagree that this has gone absolutely nowhere," MacKay said.

A rescue parcel is dropped out the back of a CC-115 Buffalo aircraft in Baring Bay, Nunavut, during search and rescue training in 2012. (Cpl. Jax Kennedy/Canadian Forces Combat Camera)

"The reality is, while the process is underway, it has not delivered the aircraft we need, and that our [search and rescue technicians] and our forces deserve," he said.

The program to purchase new search planes was launched in 2002 but the military has been unable to even get a tender out. It carried on for years but later stalled amid allegations the military was trying to rig the bid, in favour of a specific plane.

The military has spent years fighting that allegation and trying to deal with the consequences.

Last year, the program started moving again, under the strict control of a secretariat inside the Department of Public Works.

"It would appear that the aircraft will now reach the request for proposal stage within this calendar year," MacKay said.

This would mean a contract by 2015 — with possible delivery at 2017 — making it 15 years between the launch of the plane program, and the launch of an actual plane.

"Well, it hasn't been acceptable to me," Ambrose said about the process.

Asked if she was dissatisfied with the way the military has handled this, Ambrose paused and said: "I would say we have worked with the military to ensure this is done in an open, fair and competitive way."

With files from James Cudmore

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