May 21, 2009 By BOB MACKIN, 24 HOURS

The Canada Border Service Agency will be doing much more than stamping passports for 2010 Winter Olympics visitors. The November 2007 Pacific Region Olympics operations plan and funding request, obtained under Access to Information by the Work Less Party, shows the agency’s Olympics Intelligence Unit coordinating a wide-ranging program of enforcement to combat perceived threats involving organized crime, sex trade workers, human trafficking and terrorism.

Roles of intelligence officers, it said, could include gathering information on illegal workers at Olympics venues and investigating warehouses that containing counterfeit goods. A job description said the designated intelligence officer, who is attached to the joint enforcement group, is “assigned specific venues and files to investigate. The investigation may involve surveillance at the Olympic venue, drive-bys of suspects and/or their associates’ homes and businesses.”

A September 2008 funding draft estimated CBSA spending $12.52 million from 2006-2007 to 2010-2011 on dedicated Olympic operations and enforcement.