Public Accounts Committee on Feb. 6th, 2017

[The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès (Brossard—Saint-Lambert, Lib.)), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Good afternoon, everyone.

I am very happy to welcome you to this televised meeting. This is the first time we use this room. We hope everything will go as planned.

This is the 42nd meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, and we are studying the first of the fall 2016 reports of the Auditor General of Canada, entitled “The Beyond the Border Action Plan.”

From the office of the Auditor General of Canada, we welcome Mr. Michael Ferguson, Auditor General, and Mr. Martin Dompierre, Principal.

From the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, we welcome Mr. Malcolm Brown, Deputy Minister, and Ms. Jill Wherrett, Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Portfolio Affairs and Communications Branch.

From the Canada Services Border Agency, we have Mr. John Ossowski, president, and Monsieur Martin Bolduc, vice-president, programs branch. From the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, we have Monsieur Gilles Michaud, deputy commissioner, federal policing.

I've taken a peek at all your opening statements, and I'll just let you know that it's me here and not the chairman. Good afternoon, everyone.

Mr. Ferguson, the floor is yours.

[Michael Ferguson, Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada]

Madam Chair, thank you for this opportunity to present the results of our fall 2016 report on the beyond the border action plan.

Joining me at the table is Martin Dompierre, principal, who is responsible for the audit.

In December 2011, Canada and the United States released their shared vision for perimeter security and economic competitiveness action plan, better known as the beyond the border action plan. The action plan consisted of 34 initiatives aimed at establishing a long-term partnership between the two countries to enhance security and accelerate the legitimate flow of people, goods, and services across the border.

We estimated that these initiatives had a total plan spending of over $1.1 billion, of which approximately $585 million had been spent as of March 2016.

The audit examined the progress made by departments and agencies in meeting the commitments set out in the action plan and in achieving results toward the intended benefits. We also looked at how Public Safety Canada reported on progress, performance, and costs in their annual reports.

The action plan had 19 initiatives that focused on enhancing security. Of the $700 million departments and agencies had planned to spend on these initiatives, approximately $410 million was spent as of March 2016. However, departments and agencies faced challenges in completing a number of the initiatives, and they couldn't demonstrate that they had improved security at Canada's borders.

For example, the entry/exit Initiative is intended to allow the Canada Border Service Agency to track who enters and leaves the country. This initiative, which has a budget of $121 million, was initially planned to be completed by June 2014. As of March 2016, $53 million had been spent, but the initiative couldn't be fully implemented without a change in legislation. Until such a change is made, the agency cannot achieve and demonstrate the initiative's security benefits.

We looked at the 15 initiatives that focused on facilitating trade and the legitimate flow of travellers. We found that for trade, some initiatives had not moved forward significantly, were not working as intended, or at low adoption rates.

The Single Window initiative, which is led by the Canada Border Services Agency, provides an example. The initiative was intended to simplify border processes for regulated goods. As of March 2016, almost $80 million had been spent on Single Window, which had been in place for one year. However, we found that this initiative was being used to process less than 1% of shipments entering Canada.

Another example is the Canada Border Services Agency's initiative to build a system to allow trusted traders to apply only once for both the Canadian and U.S. programs. Through this initiative, the agency aims to double the Canadian program membership. The system was launched in August 2015, but was soon taken off line because it was creating significant problems, including duplicate records. As of March 2016, $31 million had been spent on this initiative, which had a total budget of $50 million.

We also found that departments and agencies were experiencing challenges for initiatives focused on travel. In many cases, there were either no performance indicators to measure the intended benefits or no results to report.

For example, Transport Canada was able to implement its border wait-time technology at only one of 14 crossings identified in the action plan. Furthermore, even though the border wait-time technology had been installed at six other crossings before the action plan was released, the Canada Border Services Agency had not assessed whether it had made a difference for travellers or had helped them better manage its operations.

As mentioned earlier, we examined how progress on the action plan was reported and whether this reporting was complete and accurate. Overall we found that in the “2014-15 Report on the Beyond the Border Action Plan Horizontal Initiative”, also known as the horizontal report, Public Safety Canada provided an incomplete and inaccurate picture of progress and costs. In addition, although the report provided information on annual achievements, it didn't convey a consolidated view of progress.

As an example, for the initiative on deploying border wait-time technology, the report stated that seven crossings had been completed. The report didn't mention that six of these crossings had been completed years before the action plan was released. For the shiprider initiative, the report didn't mention that the second main commitment, to expand pilot projects on land, hadn't been started, or that there were no plans to pursue them.

For the initiative on enhancing benefits to trusted trader programs, the report stated that there were 83 new members in the 2014-15 fiscal year, but it didn't mention that the long-term goal was to attract 1,700 new members.

Finally, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat did not give departments and agencies specific guidance on costing and measuring program results, which led to different interpretations and inconsistent financial information. We concluded that although departments and agencies met many of their commitments under the action plan, they achieved limited results for the intended benefits. They also had few performance indicators to use in assessing results.

We are pleased to report that all entities have agreed with all of our recommendations and have committed to taking corrective actions.

Madam Chair, this concludes my opening statement. We would be pleased to answer any questions the committee may have.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Thank you, Mr. Ferguson.

From the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, Deputy Minister Malcolm Brown.

[Malcolm Brown, Deputy Minister, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Good afternoon.

I think you've already introduced my colleagues, Jill Wherrett, John Ossowski, Martin Bolduc, and Gilles Michaud.

As members know, Public Safety Canada is one of many working to implement the beyond the border action plan. At the time of its launch, the action plan was a first-of-a-kind horizontal undertaking, involving many federal organizations collaborating with a number of American counterparts.

It is essential that Canada and the United States adopt a coordinated approach to the four broad sectors of the action plan.

Those four elements include addressing threats early, facilitating trade and travel, coordinating cross-border law enforcement, and enhancing critical infrastructure and cybersecurity.

We've seen progress every year, and I know my CBSA colleagues will speak to the developments before and at the border, and the RCMP will speak to initiatives such as joint law enforcement.

For the Public Safety portfolio, the action plan provided the opportunity to work together to enhance our ability to address threats early, for example, through information sharing in immigration and national security.

Other examples of initiatives led by Public Safety would include improving the resilience of our cross-border critical infrastructure, and more effectively communicating threats and incidents in the area of cybersecurity to our industries.

We continue to build on the collaboration established in the framework of the action plan.

For example, we are moving forward with the implementation of the pre-clearance agreement through the introduction of legislation last June, and working with the U.S. on the implementation of new sites.

So, with that context in mind, I will speak briefly to our roles and responsibilities, before directly answering the recommendations made by the Auditor General.

In terms of Public Safety Canada's responsibilities, along with leading the development and implementation of several of the action plan's security and emergency preparedness initiatives, the department played a role in coordinating reporting to Canadians on the action plan on behalf of all departments.

The Privy Council Office was responsible for managing the governance of and coordinating Government of Canada efforts on the action plan, and working with the White House to publish an annual joint implementation report.

Public Safety Canada took on the responsibility of reporting to Canadians through an annual horizontal report, with guidance from the Treasury Board Secretariat on horizontal reporting.

Public Safety Canada, the CBSA, and RCMP play an important role in responding to six of the eight recommendations made by the Auditor General. Of those, two fall under the purview of Public Safety Canada.

Today I will speak about those two recommendations in particular.

I can speak for the portfolio in saying that the recommendations are welcome, and we are committed to finding more effective ways to report outcomes to Canadians. Specifically, reviewing performance indicators will help us concretely measure the benefits of the action plan and better demonstrate results to Canadians.

I will speak first about my department's response to the recommendations on the presentation of program results.

As we committed to in our response to the audit, we are reviewing all of Public Safety's initiatives to determine where changes to indicators are needed.

An example of where we will be making changes to our indicators is the regional resiliency assessment program, which evaluates the resilience of Canada's critical infrastructure assets.

Informed by the AG's recommendations, we have already put in place revised metrics to more clearly communicate benefits by measuring the changes undertaken based on our assessments. I'll note that out of the 12 initiatives we lead, over two-thirds have been completed. That's because many of these had a limited time frame with specific deliverables, for example, issuing a study of border fees or conducting joint threat assessments.

A number of these initiatives focused on outputs and their contribution to border security objectives.

The Auditor General's feedback will be carefully considered as we move forward with improving Public Safety's performance and reporting approach to meet Treasury Board's new policy on results, and the government's results and delivery agenda.

We will also build on our lessons learned since the action plan's inception, understanding the importance of good indicators to demonstrate results to Canadians. All of this will help us demonstrate results to provide a complete picture of progress to Canadians on all of our initiatives.

With regard to horizontal reporting, and with respect to the recommendations mentioned earlier, Public Safety was responsible for horizontal reporting on the progress of initiatives identified in the action plan. The department coordinates the reporting on spending and performance on behalf of, and with input from, all involved departments and agencies.

This reporting covers activities through the end of the current fiscal year 2016-17 to align with the period covered by the action plan. At this point, the bulk of the 34 initiatives will have met their action plan commitments. The annual horizontal reports on the beyond the border action plan are published as a supplement to Public Safety Canada's departmental performance reports and are available online.

In future we will redouble our efforts to clarify horizontal report presentation, for the benefit of all of those who are a part of the process.

In fact, we've already started making improvements to ensure more complete reporting and provide greater clarity, beginning with the 2015-16 horizontal report, which we'll publish in the coming months.

For example, rather than simply providing a snapshot of the previous year's progress on each initiative, we are working towards providing a more detailed picture of how each initiative has developed from the start. This includes financial data, such as cumulative spending to date, with an annex containing a breakdown by initiative.

We are also working collaboratively with federal departments and agencies to update the performance measurement framework and to ensure it reflects indicators currently in use. We will also ask beyond the border partners to review their indicators to assess whether each is still relevant or, if needed, to provide new indicators that might be a better fit, with a special focus on strengthening the indicators for intermediate or ultimate outcomes. We will be reinforcing a common costing framework in consultation with central agencies so that all departments and agencies report their accurate and complete financial information in a consistent manner.

Furthermore, we look forward to providing updated instructions during the next horizontal reporting cycle to participating departments and agencies to strengthen their ability to consistently apply common costing.

Due to these changes, Canadians will have a clearer image of each initiative and of the action plan overall.

In conclusion, we agree that better measurement of the beyond the border action plan's outcomes and clearer reporting will support transparency and help inform Canadians. We agree that Canadians need to see clear results as we move forward in the context of the new results and delivery approach of this government.

I'd be happy to answer any of your questions. Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Thank you very much, Mr. Brown.

We now go to the Canada Border Services Agency, Mr. Ossowski, president.

[John Ossowski, President, Canada Border Services Agency]

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the committee, as well as the Auditor General. Thank you for the opportunity to appear today.

I am joined by my colleague Martin Bolduc, to whom I might turn for assistance in responding to some of your questions.

I will begin by saying that CBSA agrees with the recommendations from the Auditor General. We take the report seriously and we are determined to address the findings.

I would like to open by briefly describing the mandate of our agency. We were created 13 years ago in the aftermath of 9/11. Protecting national security, therefore, was bred into our bones, and we undertake this responsibility with utmost seriousness.

As the second largest law enforcement organization in Canada, we hold a dual mandate: preventing the entry of those travellers or goods posing a potential threat, while at the same time facilitating the flow of people and legitimate goods. Each day we process 250,000 travellers, 31,000 highway shipments, 12,000 air cargo shipments, and about 270,000 postal and courier items. Consequently, managing risk daily is fundamental to how we do our business. Our dual role of facilitation and enforcement requires this.

Our frontline officers are critical to delivering our mandate. Indeed, they are the first line of defence—trained professionals, on duty 24 hours a day, every day.

We operate in a highly complex, ever-changing environment where threats are as diffuse as they are diverse. It is within this complex environment that the significance and scope of the action plan can be appreciated. It set a bold and unprecedented course for a long-term partnership, encompassing a range of areas such as information sharing and privacy, cross-border law enforcement, and expediting legitimate cargo and travel. Based on the premise that threats could be detected early—hence the term “beyond the border”—the action plan's 34 initiatives aimed to enhance our security by identifying high-risk people or goods early in the travel continuum.

Why was this unprecedented? The action plan was multi-faceted, complex, and represented a major shift from a reactive to a proactive approach to border management.

Importantly, it also meant our border officers could be freed up to focus on travellers and activities of unknown or higher risk.

Our agency led on 10 of the initiatives and supported 12 others.

I will now address our responses to the report's key findings.

First, the Auditor General found that there were limited performance indicators to show concrete results for initiatives as they relate to security, trade, and travel.

We agree and are already taking action. Last June, we launched a review of key performance indicators supporting the 10 initiatives that we led. This includes examining their outcomes and impacts, as well as reviewing, revising, and developing indicators to more accurately measure the outcomes. Many of the new key performance indicators we identified were submitted to Public Safety Canada to be included in their 2015-16 annual horizontal report on the beyond the border initiatives.

This includes indicators to measure the impact our NEXUS program has on expediting travel for its members, which is, of course, one of the key objectives of the program.

Under the action plan, we expanded NEXUS lanes and enhanced the program's benefits, so that membership has more than doubled, in excess of 1.4 million people. This means that another 700,000 low-risk travellers are crossing the border faster, supporting economic growth, and allowing border officers to focus on higher risks.

As well, we are developing indicators to track the growing membership in our trusted trader programs better, which makes it faster and easier for low-risk, pre-approved businesses to make cross-border shipments.

We will also enhance trusted trader benefits by installing additional free and secure trade or FAST lanes, which can be used by eligible, trusted traders to clear their goods into Canada with greater speed and certainty. FAST lanes or booths are currently located at Windsor and Sarnia, Ontario. We are on target to open lanes in Fort Erie, Ontario and Pacific Highway, B.C., by this March and eventually at Emerson, Manitoba.

This will allow us to offer FAST at Canada's busiest commercial highway border crossings.

In addition, we are looking forward to the further collaboration with the United States, as we harmonize some of our trusted trader programs. Harmonization of Canada's partnership in protection program with the U.S.'s customs-trade partnership against terrorism program will eliminate the duplication of efforts in membership application and management, providing time and cost savings to eligible members.

A second finding of the report was that some of the action plan's commercial initiatives were not meeting stakeholder needs as hoped. Two of these were specifically identified. One was our trusted traders programs, which I just noted.

The second was the single window initiative, which aims to reduce the administrative burden on businesses by providing a single electronic window through which they can submit all information required by law and regulation on imports. In turn, we transmit the information to the appropriate department or agency. In this way, we save businesses the trouble of dealing with multiple processes led by multiple actors administrating multiple regulations. This initiative eliminates nearly 200 different paper copies for various licences, permits, and certificates that are required for the importation of regulated goods.

It will also improve efficiency at the border as release recommendations can now be made up to 90 days before goods arrive in Canada.

Our agency agrees that we need to better account for various stakeholder perspectives and to ensure that we are meeting their needs.

Last November, we met with the Border Commercial Consultative Committee regarding an adoption strategy and onboarding plan for the single window initiative. In total, we now have applications for 29 trade chain partners to be certified in the initiative, and five of these trade chain partners are actively testing or going through the certification process.

We will hold workshops with importers and brokers this spring. We will leverage trade association meetings and other direct-to-stakeholder channels to raise awareness. All told, we are confident this outreach will help increase adoption rates.

Before closing, I wish to emphasize the bigger picture. Thanks to the action plan, collaboration between Canada and the United States has been systematic and interdepartmental at all levels.

The plan has helped to set the ground work for the highest calibre of co-operative border management, supporting jobs and overall economic benefits, and a higher degree of administrative certainty on both sides of the border.

Another example of this cooperation is the bi-national port operations committees that have been established at 20 land ports and eight airports. Among other benefits, these committees formalize Canada-U.S. operational communication, including during critical incidents.

A final example is our commitment to install radio-frequency identification or RFID technology at 22 lanes in eleven ports of entry. As of last month, technology was installed in eight lanes at four land ports and the remaining RFID readers are scheduled to be installed throughout the fiscal year of 2017-18.

The ability to read an electronic chip embedded in certain travel documents before vehicles arrive at the booth improves the security and streamlines traveller processing.

I hope I've communicated just how dynamic and complex an undertaking the action plan has been. We rose to the challenge, with focused co-operation across multiple departments and with the United States.

In closing, let me reiterate that our agency is committed to delivering results to Canadians. To this end, we will remain focused on adopting solid indicators that demonstrate progress on border management for citizens, stakeholders, and partners.

Thank you and I'll now be pleased to take your questions.

[The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Thank you very much, Mr. Ossowski.

To conclude, we will hear from Mr. Gilles Michaud, deputy commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

[Deputy Commissioner Gilles Michaud, Deputy Commissioner, Federal Policing , Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

Good morning, and thank you for the invitation to attend today's meeting to discuss the Auditor General's findings and recommendations regarding the Beyond The Border Action Plan, specifically in relation to the Shiprider program.

The shiprider program has evolved since its inception more than a decade ago and is a cornerstone for how the RCMP approaches integrated and binational operations with American law enforcement partners.

Enhancements to the shiprider program were a beyond the border commitment. Through this program, the RCMP and select Canadian police services, along with the U.S. Coast Guard, have been working together to enforce the laws on both sides of the border in shared waterways. There are currently over 240 specially trained and cross-designated U.S. and Canadian law enforcement officers. There are now five shiprider teams located in British Columbia and in Ontario. Canadian police partners include the Ontario Provincial Police, Peel Regional Police, and the Niagara Regional Police Service.

These teams are a critical tool in support of ongoing investigations with a binational marine nexus. Specific activities include carrying out on-water intelligence gathering or targeted response to known criminal activity.

In addition to the shiprider program, considerable efforts have also been placed on the RCMP's two other beyond the border commitments: enhancing binational domain awareness along the border, and implementing an interoperable radio system for law enforcement personnel working in a border environment, specifically between ports of entry.

Through the domain awareness initiative, the RCMP and its American law enforcement partners have created a binational inventory of current technological capabilities along the border. We have also developed a binational common operating picture that has improved response capability to the evolving methods and tactics employed by transnational crime groups. Recently a joint methodology has been selected to prioritize and to address identified known gaps and vulnerabilities.

Ongoing binational cooperation on the domain awareness initiative continues to contribute significantly to the security of our nations. Implementing a binational radio system for Canadian and U.S. law enforcement officers was critical to enabling them to effectively communicate in real time across the border. The system provides a reliable, secure, and legal means to facilitate communication between Canadian and U.S. law enforcement. The RCMP has fully implemented this system.

Now to the findings and recommendations, the 2016 fall report of the Office of the Auditor General of Canada recommended that the RCMP focus on developing performance indicators that clearly measure the security benefits for our beyond the border initiatives, as well as measure and report accurate and reliable results against indicators to assess the security benefits achieved.

The RCMP fully recognizes the need to be fully accountable, transparent and demonstrate results. Steps have been taken to improve performance measurement, not only for our Beyond The Border commitments, but across the RCMP's federal policing program.

To this end, federal policing is developing a comprehensive performance measurement framework that aims to guide, support, and increase performance measurements across all programs and activities. In addition to the creation of a specific beyond the border logic model and performance measurement framework, links have been made to the RCMP's performance measurement data for the new TBS policy on results performance information profile.

The RCMP has also identified outcomes to be achieved and corresponding indicators to measure and report the benefits for the Beyond The Border commitments the RCMP both leads and for those that it contributes to.

Specific to the RCMP-led initiatives, we have developed outcomes and indicators that measure the long-term impact of the initiatives. For example, interdictions made as a result of technology—either sensor or camera—will now be tracked, as well as how the activities related to the shiprider program and radio interoperability have contributed to investigations, including seizures made.

Additionally, indicators were developed related to preventing individuals from leveraging the Canada-U.S. border to commit transnational crime, including the number of individuals charged by RCMP border units, as represented by the number of occurrences and percentage of files cleared by the RCMP border units.

To help ensure that the RCMP is able to report accurate and reliable results, baselines and targets have been identified. These will be used to gauge success over time. Where possible, data will be obtained through system-driven sources to ensure accurate and consistent reporting.

I am pleased to report that the RCMP has met its commitment to develop a logic model and performance measurement framework for the RCMP beyond the border initiatives.

Madam Chair and honourable members of the committee, I would like to thank you for inviting the RCMP here today and I would be pleased to answer your questions.

[The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Thank you very much, Monsieur Michaud.

We now go to the rounds of questions.

Mr. Lefebvre, you have seven minutes.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I thank the witnesses for being here today.

First I would like to congratulate you for all of the work you have done to integrate things on the Canadian side and with your American colleagues by the same token. This is a commendable task and it is good to see that it is being done, in light of what happens these days. I want to congratulate you and I hope that the work will continue in that way.

That being said, the report of the Auditor General points to certain issues. It is as though every group had an action plan—the message is clear and emphasized—but nothing is being proposed to measure progress to see if the objectives of the action plan are being met.

I would like to begin with the comments of the Auditor General.

Mr. Ferguson, when you did your audit, did the departments and agencies tell you why they didn't have any performance indicators in place at the time?

[Michael Ferguson]

I'll ask Monsieur Dompierre to perhaps give more details on it, but fundamentally what we found was that a number of the organizations were measuring activities. They had a number of things they said they were going to do and you can see a number of those in the report. They were going to put in place new screening technology or those types of things.

They were measuring whether those activities were done without then indicating how those activities were having an impact on the outcomes related to security or to speeding up travel and trade at the border.

[Martin Dompierre, Principal, Office of the Auditor General of Canada]

Logic models were designed by each organization—not to say that nothing existed, but they were not monitored specifically. As indicated, they were more output driven. Indicators are supposed to be intermediate or long-term. That was what we saw.

In some cases some of these indicators were not well designed to show the benefits achieved by these initiatives.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Would you have any examples of performance indicators this department should develop to measure the security benefits of their initiatives?

[Martin Dompierre]

Not really. We didn't recommend any specific indicators to put in place, but for them to review existing indicators they had or to revisit some of them.

In the report we do mention that at the outset 126 indicators were designed and 57 of those were modified throughout the process.

If you look at the report, in paragraph 1.93 I believe, we indicate that nine of these indicators were well designed to measure the benefit. We didn't make a specific recommendation about the type of indicators. We left it up to them to decide.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

With respect to the following recommendations, developing “performance indicators that clearly measure the security benefits for the initiatives that they are responsible for”—this was a recommendation by the Auditor General—“and measure and report accurate and reliable results against baselines and targets to be able to assess the security benefits achieved”, you mentioned that you guys and all departments were in the process, Monsieur Michaud. CBSA, RCMP, Transport Canada, and Public Safety all responded with timelines to provide a response to come up with their plan.

I see that the RCMP said they would complete theirs no later than December 2016. Is all of that completed?

[D/Commr Gilles Michaud]

Yes.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Are we able to get a copy?

[D/Commr Gilles Michaud]

Yes, I definitely can share that with you. I am new in the chair responsible for federal policing, and being exposed to the performance measures and the metrics that have been developed, I don't think we have it 100% right. It's a bit difficult sometimes to be able to measure the impacts at the end of the day.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Yes.

[D/Commr Gilles Michaud]

We are working in that direction. I can definitely share with you our logic model, and also the performance measurement framework we have developed.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Make sure that it's in both official languages, please.

[A/Commr Gilles Michaud]

Yes, of course.

I have not been in this position for very long. I have looked at the performance indicators and I am not completely satisfied. It is quite difficult to assess their real effectiveness.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Very well.

Is your document in both official languages?

[D/Commr Gilles Michaud]

Yes.