Public Accounts committee  There is no doubt that the Canada Border Services Agency is working very hard to prepare for the 2010 Olympics and Paralympics. We have several things under way from the point of view of operational planning and making sure we have the right number of staff, making sure that our facilities are able to process the expected volumes of travellers and athletes that will be coming.

Public Accounts committee  Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. We do have an extensive program to recruit and train our officers. When we are going to recruit officers, we have them go through a variety of tests, essentially skill tests, behavioural tests, and we make sure they have other credentials such as first aid and are able to handle the enforcement responsibilities they would be asked to undertake.

Public Safety committee  I will forward that.

Public Safety committee  Mr. Chair, I know there are other organizations that do arm their border officers; I know there are some that do not. I apologize, but I don't remember off the top of my head.

Public Safety committee  Mr. Chair, if I understood the question correctly, it was generally across the entire public service perhaps. If you'd like to know about the Canada Border Services Agency, I personally am not aware, in the last 15 years, of any fatality, as the question was phrased, or serious injuries such as that.

Public Safety committee  Mr. Chairman, I don't think that there have been any.

Public Safety committee  Yes, we have done some analysis about the people who may not wish to carry a firearm. No doubt there are some people who joined our organization and had a long and very productive career, but perhaps they joined the organization with other interests in mind. It's impossible to know exactly how many people would not want to carry a firearm.

Public Safety committee  That's right. There are two aspects to it: eliminating work-alone and the arming initiative.

Public Safety committee  Perhaps I could add a comment, Mr. Chair. Just to complement the president's reply to you, the $1 billion amount that was commonly known before was dedicated to two aspects. One was the arming initiative, as the president has already said, at $781 million. The balance of that money actually applies to eliminating the work-alone situation.

Public Safety committee  Mr. Chair, the president referred to different reasons. I can tell the committee of an example in Vancouver where there is a lot of market competition for skilled workers, and it's very difficult to maintain a stable workforce. In other parts of the country, as per your suggestion in your area, certainly there is an interest among some employees to go to another law enforcement agency.

Public Safety committee  Thank you. Mr. Chair, as the president has said, we absolutely are in the course of trying to establish an implementation strategy, and we are looking at a variety of things that will help us prioritize where that rollout should be. Obviously we're guided by the government's direction in looking at high-volume ports, but we're also looking at response times, at risk generally, and at other things like that.