Thank you. I appreciate this opportunity. I also serve as the co-leader of the Quebec–New York Corridor Coalition, which is a broad public partnership of government and business interests in Quebec and New York with a shared interest in the border.
I'm going to take things to a higher level because I know my colleagues here are going to address some of the very specific impacts on the ground in the affected region. I think everybody here agrees there is probably nothing more important to the U.S. and Canada economically, socially, and in many other respects than our connection at the border between our two countries and our two peoples.
The accords and agreements of the last several years have established very firmly a commitment in principle by both countries to recognize that it is a shared border, not two borders that sit alongside each other separately, and that the decisions need to be collegial, joint, and bilateral. I'm the first to admit that the U.S. has messed up on that front many times. The western hemisphere travel initiative of last year is certainly an example of that--an example of unilateralism and all of us having to get with the program because unilaterally one government made such a decision. However, the principle remains, and we're always, all of us in the field, trying to drag our government, as many of my colleagues in Canada do, to come back to that principle of bilateralism and collegiality in all decisions on the border, whenever one government or the other strays from that and goes into a mode of unilateralism.
In the Quebec–New York region, we have had enormous success in working with the U.S. government in particular to make the border work as efficiently as it can. We obtained $109 million from the U.S. Congress for the remarkable new U.S. commercial and passenger car facilities at Champlain, New York, which has now made it the premier U.S.–Canadian border crossing. We have zero truck delays at Champlain, thanks to the immensity of the investment the U.S. government made there in recognition of the importance of the border in the New York–Quebec area. We doubled CBP staffing across most of the border, but particularly at Champlain, at a time when Canada seems to be stuck in place. We heard a word that troubled me greatly in the remarks that were just made, that you're not looking at moving personnel around, but eliminating CBSA personnel through attrition, while the U.S. has doubled its personnel to help make the border work.
We have deployed all new technologies and accelerated clearance programs, and we have a very collaborative relationship with CBP in terms of trying to reduce dwell times at Lacolle and the other border crossings, even through creative approaches. For example, we have finally deployed a French-speaking training program for U.S. CBP personnel assigned at Champlain to help reduce dwell time by making conversations and interactions easier and faster; we have just built the remarkable facilities at Massena; and we have updated facilities across the northern New York border crossings, such as at Rouses Point, where two entirely new booths and new roadways have recently been constructed--and on and on. The commitment, with a lot of ground support, has been tremendous across the New York part of the New York–Quebec and the New York–Ontario border in northern New York.
As one who has worked passionately to give Canada premier gateways in our region, I feel qualified to say, even as an outsider from the other side of that border, that I remain underwhelmed by Canada's commitment to the border, and particularly underwhelmed by its commitment to the border at New York with Quebec. It doesn't begin to rise to equity with the priority status that clearly the U.S. government has assigned to that same region for purposes of social and commercial interaction, and that's profoundly sad. To hear, as I said, that we not only are not seeing the Canadian government commit to steadily building its resources and commitment at the border, but instead to cutting the very personnel levels that already are woefully inadequate and woefully behind the U.S. commitment is indeed troubling.
How is all this relevant to Franklin Centre? I believe the action of announcing these three intended closures next spring raises very legitimate concerns for this committee in terms of a fresh outbreak of unilateralism, which is bad, is negative, and is destructive to the relationship on all levels in terms of trying to operate a shared border. There needs to be a pause to think about that. We expect Canada to be better than the U.S., frankly, when it comes to avoiding acts of unilateralism. Please don't mimic the bad behaviour of our government in some cases at the border. Show them once again how to lead in the fact that these should be bilateral decisions. This was not a bilateral decision in any way, shape, or form.
Our member of Congress in our area, William Owens, is a member of the U.S. home and security committee, your counterpart in the U.S. Congress. He was blindsided by this. We were all blindsided by this--blindsided all the more because just before that, it announced the awarding of contracts for $6.8 million worth of new facilities at one of the border crossings that unilaterally Canada decided wasn't needed anymore, a stunningly bad example of unilateralism.
It raises legitimate questions about the adequacy of Canada's commitment to resources, particularly staffing levels to its border with New York in Quebec. You ought not to be cutting border personnel, ladies and gentlemen; you need to be increasing it in order to make sure the border works effectively. At the end of the day, a border is a service operation and services are conducted by people.
