Ex-CBSA employee improperly passed on data to potential real estate clients

OTTAWA — For at least 13 years, an employee of the federal border services agency improperly accessed government databases and passed on confidential information to immigration applicants, some of whom would become clients of his real estate side gigs.

In a stern decision rendered in February and recently published online, the federal labour tribunal confirmed the 2017 firing of Placide Kalisa, a longtime Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) employee who was contesting his dismissal.

At the time of his firing, Kalia’s job as a senior program officer was to recommend if the agency could continue safely removing inadmissible foreign nationals to certain countries or not.

But Kalisa, who immigrated from Rwanda decades ago and is deeply connected to Rwandan community, was also a part-time real estate agent and manager.

In the decision, the tribunal found that Kalisa had committed dozens of “worrisome” unauthorized searches of sensitive CBSA and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) databases between 2003 and his suspension in 2016, sometimes to help future clients of his side gigs.

“He committed many serious acts of misconduct over a long period. He accessed the CBSA’s and IRCC’s databases to carry out searches that were not required or related to his CBSA work. He made them for personal reasons, either to help acquaintances or to benefit his real-estate agent activities,” the CBSA told the tribunal, which agreed with the statement.

The CBSA did not respond by deadline to a request for comment or to questions about if it has since improved how it monitors employees’ use of its confidential databases.

In one example cited by the tribunal, Kalisa searched an IRCC database 32 times within the span of two months after a Rwandan individual, identified in the decision as “A.K.”, contacted him asking why their visa application had been denied.

After reading about the denial in the database to allegedly verify that A.K. was not suspected of participating in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, Kalisa wrote an invitation letter for the applicant and his spouse and asked a colleague to sign it in his stead.

An invitation letter is a document written in support of a visa applicant to help sway the Canadian government.

But Kalisa also knew that A.K. was coming to Canada to buy a condominium and would hire him to be his real-estate agent, reads the decision. Eventually, A.K. signed a property management contract with Kalisa.

“(Kalisa) put his interests as a real-estate agent and property manager in conflict with his obligations as an Agency employee,” wrote the board, which concluded that the ex-CBSA employee put himself in conflicts of interest several times during his employment.

Kalisa admitted to the board that he wrote invitation letters and conducted database searches for at least seven individuals. In each other those letters, he identified himself as a CBSA employee and wrote his agency title, the tribunal wrote.

“When he used his title in a letter supporting a friend’s, client’s, or potential client’s immigration application, (Kalisa) did so in an effort to increase the chances that it would be approved,” reads the decision.

“If it was approved, and the client or potential client became able to travel to Canada to view properties, (Kalisa) could gain a personal and business advantage, whether in the short or long term.”

In another case, Kalisa looked into IRCC’s system to see why a friend’s immigration application had been denied and advised their spouse on a course of action to increase the chances of getting the application approved, reads the decision.

This friend happened to want to move to Canada to buy a property with their spouse and had hired Kalisa as a real estate agent.

Throughout the grievance process, Kalisa denied any wrongdoing, offering the tribunal various explanations for his actions.

In many of the “indefinite number” of cases where he looked into an immigration file at the applicant’s request, he said he acting to defend Canada’s security by making sure they had not participated in the Rwandan genocide.

He also said that he generally shared information the applicants already knew, like that their request was being processed.

But the tribunal dismissed his explanations outright, calling parts of his testimony “implausible or unpersuasive.”

“It seems unlikely to me that that trend would continue for 13 years… if the grievor was merely confirming to those concerned that their applications were being processed,” wrote the board.

“I find that it is more likely than not that he shared additional information not available to the public about the status of the applications in question.”

The labour board also concluded that Kalisa, who required a top-secret security clearance for his work at CBSA, failed to tell his employer that he knew that one of his long-time friends was a suspected criminal.

He knew that because, in 2009, the Rwandan embassy gave Kalisa a list of suspected war criminals that included his friend’s name, identified in the decision as “D.N.”. Then a few years later, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) also met with Kalisa to discuss concerns that D.N. might be a war criminal.

Kalisa told the tribunal that he never disclosed his relationship to D.N. because he was certain his friend was not a war criminal. But the tribunal disagreed.

“It was not for (Kalisa) to decide whether the embassy was right or wrong to include D.N.’s name on a list of suspected war criminals… He was obligated to inform his manager of his association with D.N. He did not,” wrote the tribunal.

In fact, it was only after CSIS began an investigation into Kalisa in 2014 regarding a series of trips he took to Rwanda booked by D.N. did CBSA begin looking into its employee’s work activities.

In 2016, CBSA launched a review of Kalisa’s security clearance, which revealed his unauthorized searches in CBSA and IRCC databases for years. He was suspended shortly after and fired one year later.

Kalisa, who represented himself in front of the labour board, declined to comment on the decision. But he told National Post in an email that he was consulting with lawyers with the aim to file discrimination lawsuits against CBSA and his former union, which he said refused to represent him in his grievance.

“The employer refused to hear the discrimination argument, and the union refused to represent me. I had to represent myself against two of the employer’s lawyers,” he wrote.

National Post

cnardi@postmedia.com

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