When the Canada Border Services Agency began dramatically increasing enforcement operations, many wondered where the Department was going to detain individuals. The provinces, especially Ontario, has indicated for many years that they do not want to be in the “detention business.” The internal document below shows that at one point the Department went so far as to approach the Department of National Defence to host some immigration detainees, particularly in the case of mass arrivals and security certificate cases. Ultimately, as the document below also indicates, the Department of National Defence was not interested.
Neither the provinces nor DND appear to be interested in using their facilities to detain “illegal immigrants.” Given this, I am always surprised when a few CBSA officers (certainly not all, or even most) decide to detain people as a matter of course, only to have them be released only a few days later by the Immigration Division.
Please note that the document below was obtained through an Access to Information and Privacy Act Request, and to my knowledge is not otherwise publicly available. The reproduction of this document has not occurred with the affiliation of the Government of Canada, nor with the endorsement of the Government of Canada.
http://www.stevenmeurrens.com/wp-content/uploads/BN11-01207.pdf