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.