Chair, I think I was on the list, wasn't I?
First of all, again, Chair—and I'm imploring my colleagues—the Prime Minister has seen fit to appoint a minister who has appeared before our committee, for whom we've been unable to ascertain his purview, but ostensibly sits between two departments, so I do feel that, through you, Chair, the comments that my colleague made are somewhat irrelevant, especially given that there's now a minister who straddles both of these departments.
With regard to spending taxpayer dollars as a metric, to Mr. Tabbara's point, Chair, what I find is the government—he mentioned question period—often uses the taxpayer dollar as a metric. We'll ask how they are making the streets safer in Canada, and they will stand up and say that they have spent x amount of money. I am certain that the Liberal government is more expensive. I'm certain that they are spending more money. That is not in question. I think that the metric we're looking for is not how much money they can spend, but how safe Canada's streets are and how our immigration process is working. On the comment that was made, I could refer my colleague, through you, Chair, to....
First of all, I'm going to go back. I believe that a lot of the CBSA components in 2015 were programs that came to their natural conclusion. I would say that it is incumbent upon Parliament and government to look at programs that come to their natural conclusion that might not be as effective. I think that's reasonable, but for the CBSA this year in their departmental performance report, and I'm looking to colleagues, I believe there was a metric on the number of goods and people that were detected that might pose a threat to the country. In their audit it was found that only 3% of the time the CBSA was able to do this. We have multiple news stories about gaps occurring.
My colleague's comments that using taxpayer dollars, expending more resources, and getting less results ostensibly reported by the media in terms of public safety would be problematic in terms of accounting to taxpayers, and actually proves Ms. Kwan's point on this amendment even more, that there should be accountability on how we are spending tax dollars. It is not acceptable to spend tax dollars and then get poor results in terms of anything, but specifically public safety. I have no doubt that this government thinks expensive programs are a metric in and of themselves, but what we should be looking at as a committee is whether or not the money that we're spending is actually working.
Actually, my colleague has just proved my point for me, that if the government is going to brag about spending tax dollars, going into deficit and raising taxes, then we should, as a parliamentary committee, examine whether or not things are safe.
I have a feeling, Mr. Chair, I know where this is going, given the result at SECU, given what my colleagues have said here. I think it's unfortunate that we can't, in a neutral setting, look at this issue, but I'm sure it will be a decision that will be recorded and noted in the Canadian public for some time to come.
I will rest my case on that.