What I said, Mr. Chair, was that there had not been a single death. I deferred on the question of whether or not there had been assaults on my officers, and I will be happy to get back on that.
In terms of the policy of the government to move forward on arming border officers, I would not in any circumstance want to see a situation where we actually had to wait for a death in order to react to it. I'm not sure if that is a valid barometer of whether this policy is effective or not.
I would also make a little question about whether the math that you're using of simply dividing the total cost by the number of officers is valid. I think over time the cost of the weapon, the cost of the training, the cost of the support that goes into maintaining an armed force will be quite comparable to any armed force in Canada, police forces and others.
I think at the end of the day this will be an effectively implemented program. And given the circumstances that my officers have faced where there have been 63 cases of weapons having been drawn since the deployment of the program, 63 cases have been checked and validated as having been appropriate action on the part of the officers. This demonstrates to me that there have been circumstances where border officers have been placed in situations where their health and safety was compromised and was at risk.