Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the panel.
Obviously there's a bit of a philosophical difference between my colleagues on that side and this side. Our belief is that we need to secure the border to protect the border guards and protect Canadians. Part of that is the RCMP would know that they don't send their people out unarmed, because you don't know what's coming across the border, and I think that's a fair assessment.
But what we do want to make sure is that we get good value for the cost. Mr. Jolicoeur and Ms. Hébert will know that this is and has been one of my concerns.
Yesterday, just as a matter of interest, I checked the Ontario Police Commission website on the Internet. I found that their basic officer training, which brings their police officers in Ontario to the standard required in the province of Ontario--which is probably similar to everywhere across the country, because there is that concern from the citizens' point of view--is a 12-week course and it costs $7,500 to provide that training. That may be subsidized somewhat, but it's a 12-week course. And we're talking about a three-week course.
I know we've talked about the need to backfill in salaries in that time, but if we took the number that you provided us with here, that looks like about $100,000 per border guard to arm them and train them. Have we looked at other agencies to provide that? As well, would we look at partnering with other agencies, like the Ontario police commission, the police facility in Quebec...and across the country?