Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Minister. We have continued to transfer our headquarters staff overseas. In recent years, we have assigned almost 100 people to our missions outside of Canada. We will continue with this practice this year with a number of other transfers. This means that the staf

Public Accounts committee  Following the Auditor General's recommendations, we reviewed the costs that go into consular service fees. We are currently discussing the matter with Treasury Board.

Public Accounts committee  Yes.

Public Accounts committee  Well, I guess it is very pleasant to be part of such a positive review by the Auditor General, for which I take no personal credit, because I think it really was the people in the passport office who did the work. I would only say in response to some of the questions we've had

Public Accounts committee  You've put your finger on an interesting subject. Indeed, part of the work that needs to be done going forward is to cost out the new passport, its delivery and so forth. That work is under way. Right now we have the commitment and we have the initial funding in the budget to d

Public Accounts committee  Sitting where I do, in the deputy's chair, this is why I have top executives running the passport agency. Obviously it's a huge management challenge that you've put your finger on, and it does, I think, require a lot of talent in the executive chair. Certainly this year, with t

Public Accounts committee  When we made that decision, as I recall back in August 2007, there was a lot of concern that we not do something that would harm the security of the passport. After studying it very hard, we came to the conclusion that, in the end, dropping the guarantor policy that we had and si

Public Accounts committee  Due to the great number of details, I will ask Ms. Desloges to answer.

Public Accounts committee  I was going to start where you just left off. There's no question there was leadership, and it extended from the top of the organization--the CO at the time--to all of the staff, two of whom are here today, to recognize that this was a crisis situation and needed the kind of urge

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chairman, I'm pleased to respond to both, and then I'll ask Madam Desloges maybe to talk a little bit more about these mobile units. First of all, if I may, Chair, I'd just like to correct a figure that I gave earlier. I talked about half a million passports since the start

Public Accounts committee  We'll make sure you're not treated rudely the next time, because this does exist--

Public Accounts committee  Again, let me assure the committee and other members of Parliament that we do have a dedicated section in the passport office to deal with--

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chairman, I think my statement and that of Madam Desloges' in a way answered your question. We certainly feel that the staffing levels, the systems that have been in place, the improvements we've made in processing, the new print plant, and so forth have positioned us to be

Public Accounts committee  I will answer that and then perhaps Madam Desloges may have a comment. We discovered going back to 2007, as you said, that the model was not providing as accurate results as we wanted. We revisited that model, and if you're interested in the details of the model, I'm sure one of

Public Accounts committee  The general point is that during the peak year in 2007, we had a fixed passport fee and the revenues have come in higher than expected. Perhaps they are a little lower than expected last year, which means that the passport office is operating at a bit of a deficit now because of