Public Safety Committee on Feb. 6th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

I'd like to call to order the public portion of this meeting.

This is the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, meeting 29. We are meeting with regard to Standing Order 108(2), studying the issue of arming Canada Border Services Agency officers.

We'd like to welcome our witnesses to the table: from the Customs and Excise Union, Mr. Ron Moran; from the Northgate Group, Mr. Juneau-Katsuya; and from Blue Line magazine, Mr. Lymburner.

You have with you additional people to give you assistance. As you make your opening remarks, you can introduce them and also give us your position, as well, within the organization.

Normally we allow up to 10 minutes for opening remarks. I will let all of you make those opening remarks, and then we will begin with questions from our committee.

Mr. Moran, if you're ready, you may begin. Welcome to the committee.

[Ron Moran, National President, Customs Excise Union Douanes Accise]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, committee members. I am very pleased to be appearing once again before you today.

My name is Ron Moran. I'm the National President of the Customs Excise Union Douanes Accise, our CEUDA. With me today is CEUDA's National Vice-President, Mr. Jean-Pierre Fortin. We are both employed as border officers for the Canada Border Services Agency and we have a combined 52 years of experience working for border services.

We are pleased to be back here as you focus on issues surrounding the government's decision to provide training and equipment to arm Canada Border Services officers. As you know, arming border guards has long been one of our agency's key demands.

Let me first say that we have been following your committee's deliberations very closely. We understand that your job is to obtain information about issues that are important to you. Therefore, I will keep my preliminary remarks brief, to allow time for as many questions as possible.

For over 22 years, CEUDA has been lobbying the government to arm its members. Furthermore, it has been demanding for more than 26 years that officers no longer work alone. I don't intend to review two decades of history, but I would like to share with you some important information of a general nature concerning the arming of border guards to give you a better understanding of the reasons why CEUDA has taken this stand and why we applaud the government's decision.

In May of 1998, Canada customs services underwent the most significant change in their history. The House of Commons unanimously passed Bill C-18, a Liberal bill that for the first time ever, authorized customs officers to enforce the Criminal Code at points of entry into Canada. Among other things, passage of this bill meant that as customs officers, we could arrest drunk drivers, child molesters, persons in possession of stolen property and any individual in respect of whom law enforcement officials had issued an arrest warrant.

Passage of this bill meant that in practical terms, those individuals representing our country's first line of defence began taking on duties that historically, had been handled only by police officers. It also meant that customs officers became members of the only law enforcement agency in North America to handle this type of arrest, namely criminal arrests -- the most dangerous of all --, without the benefit of a gun for protection.

We have come a long way since then.

Despite initial resistance from management, today officers at just about all points of entry find themselves enforcing the Criminal Code. Not surprisingly, when we were assigned the task of enforcing the Criminal Code it became obvious that there was a tremendous difference between dealing with someone who failed to declare a bottle of wine or a carton of cigarettes versus pulling drunk drivers out of vehicles or wrestling down someone wanted for one crime or another and who has chosen to resist arrest.

As our focus continued to move toward enforcement, we started to interdict serious criminality, including drug and currency smuggling, as well as a significant volume of persons seeking to illegally bring firearms, often fully loaded and ready to go, into Canada. It may surprise some of you to know that between January 2000 and May 2005, for example, 324 times our officers were involved in narcotics and currency seizures of a value of more than $1 million. Those of you familiar with modern organized crime will appreciate that just about every time, the conveyances being used were escorted and monitored by individuals known as enforcers. This means that 324 times during that period, or one and a half times per week, we were the only thing standing between organized crime and $1 million or more of their drugs or their money. You should also know that we seize more weapons than all police forces combined.

Life is such that there are countless situations in which we find ourselves where it is simply impossible to withdraw in accordance with current CBSA policy—which, by the way, means we are supposed to let the danger enter Canada to potentially harm Canadians. Yes, police can be called ahead of time when we know what to expect, but in our business, danger tends to show up unexpectedly, a situation made worse by antiquated lookout systems, which we can discuss further if you wish.

Many of you will know that, in 2005, CEUDA commissioned an independent study of the risks faced by our officers, when we learned that the supposedly independent study, awarded to a company called ModuSpec, had been unilaterally and secretly altered by management in 2003 to remove a recommendation for an armed presence at identified land border crossings.

The choice of the word “altered”, by the way, was that of Liberal Senator Colin Kenny and his committee as a result of their investigations and inquiries of CBSA on this matter.

I hope you can imagine how outraged the officers were to learn of such dishonesty, which, in our minds, equated to playing Russian roulette with the lives of our members. It was one thing for the government to bury its head in the sand over the need for arming the border, but it was quite another to be burying evidence just because this evidence didn't agree with the position taken.

The president of the Northgate Group, which is the company that we had retained, is appearing before you today and can answer your questions, but I can say that its methodology, scope, and analysis were patently, incomparably superior to the altered ModuSpec report. We posted the Northgate report—unedited, I might add—on our website and gave a copy to pretty much anyone who was prepared to read it.

CEUDA has continued to survey its members, and our response rates are very high: 91% on the subject of individual officers' wishes regarding sidearms; and 100% on the land border port of entry site survey.

I would be happy to share the results in detail with you, but they demonstrate two key points, with which I will close my remarks.

We surveyed 2,400 officers who work at land border crossings, and we obtained a response rate of, as I've stated, 91%. The question to them was, do front line officers want, or feel that there is a need for, sidearms? Of the 2,200 officers who responded, 88% want a sidearm, and an additional 10% who don't personally want a sidearm agree that the job requires one.

Another question asked of the officers was, do police respond quickly to calls from our members at the border? Our members have told us, time and time again, that in just about every instance the answer is a firm no. The opposition spin, backed by no evidence, has by contrast always been yes.

We asked our good friends at CBSA about this via an access to information request. We are still sorting through the response--the disorganized response, frankly--which numbers in the thousands of pages, but we can nonetheless confirm the following.

Information was provided for only 178 of the 1,065 points of entry serviced by CBSA, and of those, CBSA could not provide known distance to a police detachment for 62 locations. Of a total of 119 land border points of entry, 37 had police response times in the range of two hours or more.

Contrary to assertions from CBSA, there are no individual agreements with ports of entry and local police in relation to pursuit and apprehension of persons running the port, and we understand that even the unreliable CBSA data show approximately 900 such runners each year, with an unacceptably low rate being apprehended.

Also worth noting is the fact that hundreds of persons every year for whom arrest warrants are outstanding are released into Canada by CBSA officers because the police are unable to respond.

In closing, CEUDA salutes the government and MPs who have chosen to provide the protection of our members, which is clearly overdue. Equally, it is long past time that Canadians were not put at risk because of the CBSA policy to let known danger enter Canada rather than interdict it properly, with properly trained, equipped, and resourced enforcement officers, right at the points of entry.

If anyone thinks this is speculation, you may want to talk to Priscilla de Villiers. Her daughter was raped and killed by Jonathon Yeo, a Canadian sex offender who, because he was in violation of his bail, was turned back by U.S. Customs at the border, but he was ordered not stopped by Canada Customs because he had a suicide note and a shotgun in his vehicle. Nina de Villiers would be alive today if our officers were not constrained by such dangerous policies.

Like you, we have serious concerns about both the cost and the delay in getting this initiative completed, and we hope these hearings will contribute at long last to getting that important job done.

Merci beaucoup. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you very much for your presentation.

We will now go to Mr. Juneau-Katsuya from the Northgate Group.

[Michel Juneau-Katsuya, President and Chief Executive Officer, Northgate Group]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

It is an honour to be able to assist and to present today.

Before I begin, I would like to point out that I am here to speak mainly about the methodology and about the study we conducted. I was getting ready to do just that a few moments ago, but just to give you an idea of who I am and where I'm coming from, I will summarize my career very briefly.

I have been working in the field of law enforcement for over 29 years. I began my career in the late 1970s with the RCMP, and subsequently continued working for CSIS, finally retiring after 21 years with this service. Therefore, I have been working in the field of law enforcement since the start of my professional career and I have long worked with customs officers in particular.

I'd like to address the issue of the methodology we've used and the way we went about it. I know that last week Mr. Cullen had certain concerns and raised certain doubts about the objectivity of the study, so I'd like to shed a little bit more light on our methodology.

We were brought in by CEUDA after CEUDA had requested from three different firms the submission of a proposal to do this kind of study. So we were not hand-picked, necessarily, by CEUDA; we went through a certain selection process. We demonstrated that we had a fairly good knowledge of the work, what we needed to do and what we were to accomplish.

It was very clear and very important, and it was stated right at the beginning to the CEUDA members and the executive committee that we were not going to necessarily seek the answer that somebody might suggest, we were going to seek exactly what the findings and the facts led us to.

To that effect, CEUDA answered right away, an answer that was also presented to Minister McLellan at that time, that whatever conclusions Northgate would come to, CEUDA would follow them and they would put to rest, if need be, the issue for good. That was stated to the minister and to Monsieur Jolicoeur as well at that time.

So how did we go about our methodology? First and above all, we were not going to try to demonstrate that there was a need for the border officers to be armed. What we were going to demonstrate, first and above all, was the type of risk and danger they are facing.

After identifying the risks and dangers that border services officers face, we examined various possible ways of resolving safety issues for the men and women who work as our borders. We considered different solutions, ranging from providing an armed police presence to possibly arming customs officers. This led us to the conclusion that it was necessary and imperative that custom officers be armed.

I have often used the following analogy. I worked as a police officer myself. Officers who work in downtown Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal may never have to confront an arms dealer, a drug trafficker, a mule for an organized crime ring, a terrorist or some other criminal.

What needs to be understood is that the border point is like a funnel: everybody has to go through. What police officers may never encounter in their entire careers, border officers are likely to meet at least once a year, if not once a month--sometimes more, depending on how busy the point is. The risk faced by those people is superior to the risk faced by police officers, and yet we do arm police officers.

I want to stress again that we are not members of CEUDA. We have never been customs officers. We have never been members of that union. We were really seeking to try to objectively investigate their situation.

We have conducted the study fairly...more extensive than the ModuSpec report. We have found also that we were not the only ones who actually recommended that border officers should be armed. We actually identified six reports that were written by different entities. Two reports came from CBSA itself. One report came from the Auditor General. Two reports came from the Senate committee. I'll dare to say that the first, non-edited, report from ModuSpec even recommended that border officers should be armed.

Everybody had various perspectives or degrees of understanding, but I'd like to put before you that I'll dare to say that the Northgate report is by far the most extensive report on the situation for the border services ever performed anywhere in the western world. We've searched for it, and even in the United States they have not conducted a study as thorough as the one we've conducted.

We went out and interviewed 387 officers face to face. We visited over 40 sites. The people with whom we spoke came from more than 50 different locations. It is twice as much in every aspect as the ModuSpec report. The ModuSpec report was very important because of the reason that Mr. Moran mentioned, but it was important to demonstrate and go even further than what they had performed and done.

On that note, I'll finish my introduction in order to give plenty of time for debate and discussion.

I hope that I've been able to review the essential points and that I've not gone over my allotted time. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you very much.

We will now go to Mr. Lymburner from Blue Line magazine.

[Morley Lymburner, Publisher, Blue Line Magazine]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the House committee, and ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for permitting us to come here today to speak about issues concerning Canada's national security as it relates to the Canada Border Services Agency.

I would like to introduce to you Mr. Dave Brown. Mr. Brown has been an assignment writer and tactical firearms editor for Blue Line magazine for just over 10 years now. Dave will be sharing with you his experiences in training and equipping officers of the CBSA in the Manitoba area.

Blue Line has been publishing monthly for the past 18 years. It is a publication directed at the broad-based law enforcement community across Canada. As such, we have had an ear to the ground about law enforcement issues for quite some time.

Living and working daily with police and others involved in law enforcement has given us quite a unique view on policing and security issues in Canada. Much of our contact has been at arm's length and as keen observers of the industry.

I would like to assist you with a perspective you may or may not have heard in the past and present, with a couple of logical conclusions which, at your discretion, you could place in the realm of possible, probable, or simply blue-sky thinking.

You have been in receipt of a package of past commentaries, articles, and news pieces drawn from past editions of Blue Line magazine, which you may refer to at your leisure.

I feel that your concern about border security is not one that's easy to get a handle on. It is fraught with a myriad of interconnected issues and a multitude of agencies, levels of government, and management and labour relations concerns. However, when it comes down to simply deciding if arming CBSA officers is a wise move, there is no confusion. There can be no debate on the issue and there is certainly no rational argument that can be brought to counter the logic.

I have stated in the past that this government simply has to consider what is reasonable under the circumstances. Points I have brought up in the past are numerous. Almost every illegal revolver or pistol in Canada today has come within a few metres or two of a member of the Canada Border Services Agency, and I think that's something to think about.

If other levels of this same Canadian government have decided that fisheries officers and certain members of the Ministry of the Environment should carry sidearms, then the concept of a CBSA officer being armed to protect our borders is most certainly not a far stretch to the imagination.

The message being sent out to smugglers, criminals, and even terrorists is enhanced incredibly by an armed officer at the border crossing. Being greeted by an officer with a sidearm at a border point of entry is not viewed by any other country in the world as being out of the ordinary. In fact, a simple sidearm would be viewed by most as being rather lax.

However, I think this group should be thinking far beyond the simple matter of arming border officers today. They must think of the future and they must think of the best manner in which to efficiently execute a wide range of law enforcement functions so that efficiency is a primary concern.

In the recently released book Police Innovation: Contrasting Perspectives, by Cambridge professors David Weisburd and Anthony A. Braga, there is a statement about America's system of criminal justice that I most certainly would apply to Canada's system as well. It goes as follows :

America's system of criminal justice is overcrowded and overworked, undermanned, underfinanced, and very often misunderstood. It needs more information and more knowledge. it needs more technical resources. It needs more coordination among its many parts. It needs more public support. It needs the help of community programs and institutions in dealing with offenders and potential offenders. It needs, above all, the willingness to reexamine old ways of doing things, to reform itself, to experiment, to run risks, to dare. It needs vision.

In my estimation, the CBSA has capabilities and potential far beyond its current functions. The idea that certain levels of action required to be taken must be delegated to another enforcement agency is simply not operationally or fiscally prudent in this day and age. The CBSA officer making an arrest and handing the person over to a police officer for the sole purpose of processing and prosecuting is horribly flawed. The officers within the CBSA unit should not have to sap away resources from another police service to help them perform their jobs. If an arrest is made by an Ottawa police officer, he does not call in an OPP officer to continue the process and investigation.

In the case of the CBSA, too many of their functions involve having to trip over parallel investigations of which they are not notified, nor even invited to be a part. Of particular concern to me is an entire branch of the RCMP that is set up to perform the exact same tasks that should be kept entirely within the CBSA investigations branch. Why should taxpayers be supporting two separate agencies to perform the same function? In the day and age when police resources are stretched to the breaking point, why are we insisting CBSA officers call police to their aid, and at the expense of local municipalities?

A good part of this talk can be transposed over many other investigative enforcement branches of other federal departments. The Canadian Coast Guard and parks warden services are two more that are told to call police for assistance if firearms are required. This is no longer viable. Each enforcement branch must be equipped, trained, and ready to perform all their enforcement responsibilities.

Last year I visited a nuclear power facility to update our readers on the advancements made there in security over the 15 years since I'd done a story on the facility. Originally I was not impressed. Many years ago, when they told me that their security personnel were trained to hold off an armed attack on the plant for 15 minutes--because that was how long the test studies had shown it would take to get an armed officer on site--the guards were unarmed. In this remote location, that would mean one officer with one gun, a .38 revolver with six shots. When I returned, a more enlightened security branch head advised me that their tactical security personnel could secure and hold this facility better than any other agency or group they could call in. So they would be calling in the police to simply back them up.

If a private security firm can possess this kind of confidence, why can't the Canada Border Services Agency?

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you very much.

The custom at this committee is to go now to a round of questions of seven minutes.

Oh, sorry, Mr. Brown, do you have some remarks as well?

[Dave Brown, Firearms Editor, Blue Line Magazine]

I have. I'll be very brief.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

My apologies. Go ahead.

[Dave Brown]

Thank you very much.

My name is Dave Brown. I'm a professional firearms instructor and also a tactical firearms editor with Blue Line magazine. I'm probably one of the very few civilians who has ever been in a similar position with a law enforcement magazine. I work with government agencies, military units, and police officers on firearms training. I'm not aligned with any particular agency or any firearms manufacturer in any way whatsoever, so you could probably consider me a sort of educated observer of this process.

What I'd like to contribute to the committee today is my experience with CBSA officers. I don't know if the committee is aware of this or not, but CBSA has done some basic firearm safety training for their officers for the past several years. Starting in 1999, I did the Canadian firearms safety course, which is a basic introductory level safety course, for CBSA officers in Manitoba. I have some statistics from that course. Hopefully I can answer for the committee whether these officers will be trained to the same high level as police officers.

Before I get into that I want to say that my philosophy is probably the same as everyone else's here: nobody really wants to live in a country where we have to arm our borders. But I also believe that if we are arming the borders, we need to provide the appropriate tools for the people who are protecting our borders and Canadians.

In 1999 we began training in Manitoba, and I trained a total of 127 officers on the Canadian firearms safety course, which is a 16-hour basic firearms course. At the end of the course there are two levels of testing: a written test on the theory in the course, and a practical hands-on component. Of all the officers who took the course, the average score on the written test was 95%. On the hands-on practical part, the average score of all the officers was 93%. Out of 127 officers, 20 of them achieved a perfect score on the written test, and seven of them achieved a perfect score on the practical test. I can also say that 94% of all the officers that took the course achieved 90% or more on the written test, and 83% of those officers achieved 90% or more on the practical test.

As Mr. Moran has said, 88% of his members surveyed were willing to be trained with firearms. Hopefully I have some evidence that out of those 88% who are willing to be trained, they would all perform to an extremely high level. I believe their professionalism would allow them to be trained to the same standards, if not higher, of any other police agency in North America.

Another thing I want to talk about is firearms selection. If firearms are to be given to the officers, they should be firearms that have been extensively tested, have been proven reliable, and have been chosen by other law enforcement agencies in North America. They do not want firearms that are new to the market and have never been tested. They don't want firearms that are not being used by another law enforcement agency. They don't want firearms that are now out of production. They want the best firearms on the market, with consideration for the cost of the firearms and the cost of the training.

At Blue Line magazine, every four or five years we do a survey of all the firearms used by law enforcement agencies. Since 1998, every police agency in Canada has transitioned to a semi-automatic pistol of the design where the trigger function is described as a double action only, which is essentially the simple, basic firearms design. This is the only firearm that should be considered for any law enforcement officer in North America.

While most of the agencies since 1998 are fairly satisfied with their purchases, from 2003 until 2007 five police agencies in Canada have changed to an entirely different make and model of firearm. Out of those five agencies, 100% of them have transitioned from a Beretta semi-automatic pistol to another make; four of them have gone to the Glock semi-automatic pistol, and one of them has gone to the SiGARMS semi-automatic pistol.

Basically, based on that experience of the agencies in Canada, what I would suggest is that if the firearm doesn't say Glock or it doesn't say SiGARMS, then there would have to be some justification involved.

I think I'll just stop there and make myself available for questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you very much.

We probably have a lot of questions from around the table, so we're going to have to try to move along as quickly as we can.

Mr. Cullen, first of all.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My thanks to all the witnesses.

Mr. Brown, I don't agree with your proposition that we live in a world where we do have to arm our borders. I think this is a very expensive proposition. In fact, we heard the other day that the $781 million does not include reclassification of the border officers. I think you can get to $1 billion very easily. I like to call it the “billion-dollar bordergate”, because it's a total waste of taxpayers' money for very limited or no results.

If you look at what we've heard so far, we suspect that the deterrent effect will be minimal. Can you imagine criminals in the United States who are planning to run guns or run drugs—which I agree are serious matters—saying that they better not try it because the border guards are armed in Canada? I don't imagine that will happen. They're not looking for a confrontation, I suspect.

In fact, we heard from Mr. Jolicoeur, quite rightly, that the customs officers will be told not to engage, because these are heavily populated areas and we have innocent bystanders there. So we have guns that won't act as a deterrent, and they're not going to be used, quite rightly. So I don't see the benefit of it.

Mr. Moran, I'm sure you have an interest in Canada's public safety, but you're also the president of a union. Is it not the case that, notwithstanding what Mr. Jolicoeur said, they're going to have a new classification system? People who carry sidearms will be reclassified upwards, because they're going to be arguing that they should be classified as police officers. Certainly, as the president of a union, I'm sure you'll be fighting for that.

Whatever it bottoms out at, there is going to be an increased cost. In fact, the numbers that I've seen could mean that the treasury could be impacted by $70 million to $100 million a year from this reclassification, which could be $15,000 per year. Maybe you could comment on that if you have different numbers, but that's a huge cost to the treasury.

It's a matter of negotiation, but I think there is a reality that these officers will be reclassified upwards. Frankly, I think that's another part of your agenda. Given that you're a union leader, I would be surprised if it were not.

I wonder if you could also comment—and I'll leave it here, although I could go on—on the numbers that you quoted in terms of the number of officers who do not want to be trained to carry a firearm. We heard testimony the other day that somewhere in the vicinity of 30% of the officers do not want sidearms or to be trained. We heard today that it's something more like 13%. Those numbers are clearly in conflict, so maybe you could clarify that.

Regardless of the number, what are you going to do or what is the CBSA going to do with those people? They can't all be sent off to airports.

I'll leave it at that, and maybe someone could comment, perhaps beginning with Mr. Moran.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

First of all, Mr. Moran, would you like to—

[Ron Moran]

Yes, thank you.

A long series of things has been touched upon here. First of all, I just want to clarify that it has never been.... In reviewing the testimony from last week, I was fascinated. It's really a leap to go from a sidearm as a tool to protect oneself, to an area where we would suggest that these officers should be shooting at cars as they're running the port.

We're the first to acknowledge that in a lot of cases, the U.S. side will do, for example, what they call an export check, which is a verification upon exit. A lot of individuals—usually older folks—tend to think they've cleared Canada Customs once they've gone through this check, and they will drive right by the Canadian office. Surely you're not suggesting we should open fire on individuals like that.

We've been accused repeatedly of trying to use the arming issue as a back door to try to get raises for our members. In other words, we've always been questioned about whether we really want to do this for the safety of the officers. Instead, it's been put that we're really just looking for a back door for raises. That really puts the whole issue in perspective in terms of where I suspect the opposition is coming from.

Mainly the motivation seems to be—and I hope you'll correct me if I'm wrong—that on the one hand, we shouldn't be arming the border because we're getting into what is essentially a labour demand that has been very public, and governments should never cave in to that. So we'll subtract ourselves from the reality that we don't live in Mister Rogers' neighbourhood or in Disneyland and that these situations of danger are not going on, in spite of six reports that now say they are going on. We'll subtract ourselves from that, and for the image, we'll also not consider arming, as you've pointed out, for the money.

I really find it unsettling that the safety of the officers is a very distant fourth place on your list of top reasons why we should arm the border. The issue has always been about whether the officers....

It's important to note that we've been provided with bullet-proof vests for the past twelve or fifteen years, so there has been an acknowledgement that there is certainly the potential for us to get shot at. But the only goal has always been about the officers being exposed to that level of violence. In other words, if, for example, somebody opens fire on them, they will at least have a chance of making it back home to their families at the end of that particular shift.

And in terms of suggesting that it won't protect Canadians, the policy now is that we're to let known armed and dangerous individuals into Canada and for police to hopefully intercept and deal with them. The suggestion is to not intercept them at the points of entry when we know who they are, what they're capable of, and what they've done. When we know that the person should be apprehended, to suggest that not intercepting them right then and there is not in the best interests of Canadians.... I'm at a loss to try to make sense of that particular analysis as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Does anyone else want to give a response to that?

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I was just going to say that Mr. Jolicoeur himself said that officers would be trained not to interdict, which I think is quite appropriate. I therefore simply refute the claim that this is going to increase the safety of officers or the safety of Canadians.

Given that there's no tangible evidence that this is going to increase the safety of Canadians or the customs officers, why would we spend this kind of money? So I have the order right, sir. It does cost money, and if you're going to spend taxpayers' money, you should have some benefits.

I'd like to maybe bring in—

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

You're out of time already, by half a minute.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I have half a minute? Okay.

I just want to—

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

No, sorry, you're over your time.

Monsieur Ménard.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Thank you for coming here to discuss an important issue. We are counting on you to enlighten us. I hope to have enough time to ask you all of the questions I want to ask.

First of all, can you tell me why you chose the Northgate Group to conduct this study?

[Ron Moran]

Michel provided you with an overview. We asked several organizations, including the Police Association and a number of other law enforcement agencies which we felt were qualified to do a study of this nature. We ended up with a short list of four firms, which we then approached. We interviewed three of them, with the fourth being unavailable. We made our final selection once we had interviewed all three firms.

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

When you invited these four firms to bid, did you tell them why you were looking for another organization to carry out this investigation?

[Ron Moran]

Absolutely, Mr. Ménard.

It was important to inform them, because they were likely to encounter a lack of cooperation on the part of the employer. Furthermore, they needed to know why we wanted our own study, namely because we had discovered that the study ordered by the government was supposed to be neutral. However, the report had been modified.

Therefore, we were bringing a firm into this somewhat hostile environment and we openly acknowledged our reasons for doing so.

Does that answer your question?

[Serge Ménard, Bloc, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Yes.

What did this study cost you?

[Ron Moran]

It cost a little over $150,000. Our biggest expense was travel costs, because we wanted a large sampling.