Transport committee  Yes. CATSA Plus is a different process that incorporates technological elements. There's a centralized screening, and then as you actually approach the lane, there are four parallel divest stations, so it gets travellers going through the lane a lot more quickly, and it's a much better traveller experience.

Transport committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the invitation to appear before you as part of this committee's study of Bill C-49. My name is Daniel-Robert Gooch, and I am the president of the Canadian Airports Council. The CAC has 51 members, operating more than 100 airports in Canada, including all the private airports in the National Airports System (NAS).

Public Safety committee  I think that gets out of our area of expertise, but I would say that there is no Canada pre-clearance in the U.S. right now, so it's a bit of a one-sided arrangement in terms of how there is pre-clearance in Canada. We do not have it in the U.S., although that is something that is contemplated in the legislation of the treaty.

Public Safety committee  I'll just add that, coincidentally, a couple of weeks ago, a colleague of mine, Jennifer Sullivan, from Greater Toronto Airports Authority, and I presented at the transport committee on a series of questions about the screening of airport workers, where we were into a fair bit of the back-and-forth.

Public Safety committee  I would add that the situation will vary a lot from airport to airport, but we have seen that the lines in Canada can sometimes be shorter than in the U.S. The other thing is that Canadian travellers don't necessarily go through as robust a process. Fingerprints are taken from international travellers, so sometimes, even if the line is the same in the U.S., if there are more travellers from other international points it can take longer for each one of them to process.

Public Safety committee  In very broad terms, it's a competitiveness factor. The ability for travellers to arrive in the U.S. as domestic travellers and just step outside and get into their taxi within 15 or 20 minutes is a tremendous advantage relative to travellers from other countries. It's part of a broad package of what airports are doing with partners in the air carrier world to be more competitive against hubs in other parts of the world: providing a better passenger experience and reducing time required as well.

Public Safety committee  Maybe I can answer. One thing it does is it allows airports to work a little bit more flexibly with CBP in terms of the allocation of resources. In some airports, particularly if the hours of service are not really right for a flight—for instance, if a flight comes outside of hours of service, which may be more of a factor for some of the smaller airports—with pre-clearance they at least have the ability to supplement the services.

Public Safety committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today to present on this important piece of legislation, Bill C-23, the preclearance act. My name is Daniel-Robert Gooch. I'm the president of the Canadian Airports Council. I'll be sharing my time today with Janik Reigate, director of customer and agency development at the Greater Toronto Airports Authority, which operates Toronto Pearson.

Transport committee  I think we've spoken to some of the solutions already. CATSA Plus is being rolled out at the first four airports. There is a plan to roll it out to more of the larger airports and higher-volume checkpoints. That plan is a bit stalled, however, until CATSA gets the money to continue the implementation.

Transport committee  That's probably most appropriate for my colleagues at CATSA to respond to.

Transport committee  Are you referring to the skilled workforce? We jumped around there so I'm not....

Transport committee  The safety and security is forefront in training at airports throughout the country. I'm not really sure I see the connection with innovation. Innovation and technology are helping us do our jobs better. Taking it back to CATSA, certainly one of the concerns we have with the budget is that CATSA had a plan to introduce technology that would help it do its job better—I'm talking about CATSA Plus—and the funding for that has been stalled.

Transport committee  I think as a community of airports, we're always looking at what's out there and how to improve things. Our organization is part of an international network. We work very closely with colleagues in the United States and around the world, so we're there at the forefront of technologies and innovations that are being developed elsewhere.

Transport committee  That's something that varies from community to community and from airport size to airport size. We could certainly follow up with more precise information for the committee.

Transport committee  I will ask my colleague, Ms. Sullivan, to answer.