Thank you.
I'd like to try to get the measure of some of the problems that have been identified by anecdote. I don't mean to criticize identifying problems by anecdote. As elected officials, we do it all the time. Constituents come to us with problems, and we know many Canadians want a predictable, smooth, and efficient process at the border. They also want to be kept safe from external threat, so there are a lot of complicated issues that go along with border security.
I was struck by one bit of data that we got with respect to devices searched at the border. If I got it down correctly, there were just over 8,500 in 2015, and 19,000 in 2016, or double the number. That's a trend, one could say, doubling in a year. I don't know what 2017's number might be.
What is known about these device searches? Do we have any idea about the identity of the devices, by nationality, searched at U.S. borders?