Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, everyone.
I'd like to thank the members of this committee for giving me the opportunity to speak today.
Before I begin, I would like to re-emphasize what my colleague Mr. Edwards has mentioned, that certainly the government wishes to be as transparent as possible to ensure that all relevant information regarding Ms. Suaad Mohamud's treatment by Canadian government officials in Kenya is made public. However, a number of considerations must be taken into account.
First of all, any personal information respecting Ms. Mohamud or other individuals is subject to the provisions of the Privacy Act. Moreover, Ms. Mohamud has commenced a lawsuit against three ministers of the crown and a number of public servants. It would therefore be inappropriate to comment on matters touching on the litigation before the courts.
Mr. Chairman, my goal today is to give the committee a sense of Canada's approach to border management and its reliance on overseas efforts. Let me stress at the outset that the majority of the CBSA's almost 15,000 resources are located in Canada and that less than 100 are situated abroad. Our role is very focused, but of growing significance, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak about our overseas activities.
The challenge, particularly since the beginning of this decade, is to facilitate the experience of international trade and travel, while mitigating threats to border integrity, if possible away from the physical border.
The structure and strategy of border management adhere to these principles. The Canada Border Services Agency's programs and policies reflect this modern way of approaching border security.
The small complement of our resources situated abroad is performing a valuable function of working with our domestic and international partners to ensure excellence in service to travellers and mitigation of risk. I'd like to take a moment to review the agency's approach to its responsibilities, with particular emphasis on our migration integrity officers, known as MIOs, who perform a key advisory role at points of departure overseas.
As I mentioned, the CBSA has a complex mandate that requires balanced focus to both security and facilitation at the border. This dual role is managed through the strategic placement of resources in Canada and abroad.
Because we understand that the vast majority of our travellers are legitimate and law-abiding citizens, the goals of security and efficiency at the border are often achieved at once, by making decisions about how and where we assess the risk.
The goal is to be able to assess and interdict risks away from Canada, prior to their materialization at the physical border, and provide service to travellers, traders and immigrants that facilitates their voyage to Canada by ensuring in advance that all requirements have been satisfied.
The CBSA has a number of such programs. We have pursued several initiatives to assess information related to inbound travellers, goods, and conveyances. These include our trusted traveller program; our container security initiative, which locates Canadian personnel at foreign ports in order to examine cargo prior to its departure; and the migration integrity officers, a growing network of offshore officers. I will explain this more fully in a moment.
These programs and the underlying policies are all examples of the agency's growing commitment to managing risk away from the border rather than at the ports of entry. This distribution of work means that the resources at our ports can more readily focus on the facilitation of legitimate travel and trade.
As I alluded to a moment ago, the CBSA already has a substantial international platform of officers who work abroad. The CBSA currently has 56 migration integrity officers located in 46 key embarkation, transit, and immigration points.
Migration integrity officers work closely with other Canadian departments, foreign mission representatives, airlines and host country officials and are involved in a range of activities including interdiction, airlines liaison, anti-fraud, intelligence gathering, training and removals.
In performing their duties, officers work closely with Citizenship and Immigration program managers, visa officers and consular staff. IATA's Code of Conduct for immigration liaison officers establishes the objectives for MIOs and governs their powers and responsibilities in foreign jurisdictions. Human trafficking, immigration fraud, terrorism, piracy and organized crime are international concerns. Their effects are universal. Canada is not alone in distributing its resources around the globe to meet these new challenges. Many other countries share this approach and more and more countries are following suit.
Working closely with airlines, our MIOs enhance service to travellers and immigrants by ensuring that documentary requirements are satisfied, and thereby reduce costs for airlines to return inadmissible persons and remove potential burdens on the Canadian refugee system. The MIO program is successful both in risk mitigation and from the service perspective.
There are approximately 20 million passengers arriving in Canada each year. Last year we interdicted approximately 5,000 people. At the same time, the CBSA facilitated, through direct intervention, approximately 3,000 individuals with travel document problems, the majority of whom were Canadians returning home.
In closing, I would like to reiterate the valuable role that MIOs play in ensuring that the agency meets its obligation to border integrity while safely and efficiently processing the vast number of legitimate goods and travellers entering Canada every day. CBSA's use of these important resources abroad are key to supporting a global effort to mitigate risks spanning terrorism, firearms, drugs, contraband, illegal immigration, and food and product safety.
Again, Mr. Chairman, my thanks to the committee for hearing me today.
I look forward to any questions you may have.