Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank the Office of the Auditor General for being here today. Certainly, we do appreciate your diligence in working with both the RCMP and CBSA, because we always know that improvements can be made.
I'd like to take a moment, Mr. Chair, and thank both the RCMP and CBSA for their work in trying to keep our country as safe as possible. Every day 90,000 people come across our borders and it's a tremendous undertaking to keep Canadians safe. I sincerely want to say I appreciate what your organizations do to keep us safe.
Moving into the actual guts of the report, Mr. Chair, I'd like to start with the comments on page 7 of the brief, which Mr. Bolduc mentioned:
I would also like to note the Report's acknowledgement of the progress we have made in collecting, monitoring and assessing information through the development of our National Targeting Program, as well as the improvements we've made in Resource Management.
Mr. Bolduc, it's my understanding that many of the changes were reflected after the Auditor General's office did its 2007 report, with a series of recommendations from “Keeping the Border Open and Secure”. Specifically, could you please highlight some of the areas we've seen that have increased? For example, they said:
We found significant improvements in the program, including the development of formal standard operating procedures and training, and a framework to systematically measure and monitor program performance.
Could you walk us through what the 2007 report did and what the reaction of CBSA was, and what Canadians know we have working to protect us today?