I would suggest to you that spending the money to identify and catch criminals prior to their getting into the homes of our families and neighbours, becoming our neighbours, or walking around our communities is money well spent, certainly. That is an identification tool. We can share information with our friends and partners around the world, and catch people prior to their coming into the country. That is very important.
I share some of your concerns about some of the sad situations you stated, but I think if we go back and see what happened with the Ocean Lady and the Sun Sea, 43 people of some 500 were deemed inadmissible to Canada; 24 had perpetrated crimes in their country of origin, and 19 were deemed to have perpetrated war crimes. Those are 43 people I don't want to be my neighbours, and I know my neighbours don't want them here either.
It's important that we identify who they are.
Tools that we give our law enforcement officers to identify people up front can make life a lot easier for the people whom you're commenting about in your testimony, because they don't want them around them either, and the sooner, the better.
Mr. Oette, are you familiar with the electronic travel authorization? It basically monitors the exit and entry provisions in a perimeter agreement that Canada has signed with the United States. It allows us to know every time a person crosses our borders either by land or air.