Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have indeed appeared before this committee.
My thanks to you and to the members of the committee for the invitation this afternoon. As always, I appreciate the opportunity to speak about the Canada Border Services Agency and the delivery of its mandate in this tight fiscal period.
As you well know, the CBSA provides integrated border services across the functions of customs; enforcement of immigration and refugee policy; and food, plant, and animal inspection. Simply stated, our responsibility is to guarantee the optimum facilitation of legitimate travellers and trade while providing security across the border in its entirety.
Last year we processed over 85 million travellers and 26 million commercial shipments. We seized some $2.36 billion worth of illegal drugs and removed over 14,000 persons who were inadmissible to Canada. We collected over $13.5 billion in duties and $16 billion in value-added taxes.
The CBSA is very much a people-based organization, which means our expenditure is largely salary-based. As such, any budget change will have an effect on staff, and we are acutely aware of this as we allocate funds.
Additionally, like other public and private sector organizations, we are faced with the reality of tighter budgets and the requirement to align scarce resources in a responsible and cost-effective way. I believe we are meeting this requirement through tight fiscal management and the pursuit of a sound strategic agenda.
In this context, I appreciate that parliamentarians are interested in the conscientious management of tax dollars. During difficult economic times, Canadians expect government agencies to be even more watchful, and to ensure that every tax dollar is producing results.
I want to assure members of the Committee that we share this view. The CBSA is committed to cost-effective delivery of border services based on a close and continuous assessment of our programs and operations.
In 2009 the CBSA was the subject of a strategic review, as required by the Government of Canada. Through this process we identified ways to better meet our mandate and ensure full alignment of our priorities with those of the government. In compliance with the terms and conditions of strategic review, we carefully and comprehensively looked at all our programs, and this led to cost savings of some $58.4 million, which were accepted by the government. These reductions covered lower-priority items across the full range of our programs. We also took particular care to minimize unnecessary impact on our front-line operations.
That said, there were expenditures on the front lines that we concluded were reasonable candidates for reallocation. These particular recommendations put forward as a result of the review were also sensitive to both the realities in our field operations and the demand to exercise a national mandate for border services.
Still, making these sorts of choices is never easy, but I can assure this committee that these decisions were taken according to the principles of sound fiscal management and with the expectation that they will result in improved service to all Canadians across the country.
As a result of these cost-saving measures, certain ports of entry will have their hours reduced, while nine low-volume inland customs offices will have their commercial operations consolidated to another nearby service point.
Obviously, particular discussion and attention is attached to the three planned port closures at Jamieson's Line and Franklin Centre, both located in Quebec, and Big Beaver in Saskatchewan.
In this case, the intersection of considered factors, particularly cost, traffic volumes, the proximity of other available service locations and risk profiles, resulted in these expenditures being assigned a relatively low priority within the range of program expenditures made by the CBSA. While these decisions were difficult, the Agency's overall service and enforcement priorities in those areas will not be diminished. The security risks and threats associated with these ports of entry and service points are considered low, while the costs of maintaining operations at current levels are, in proportional terms, high.
I can also say that the actual closure of these ports will be done in consultation with community interests. We will also proceed in consultation with our counterparts in the United States. In these discussions we will pay particular attention to the installation of arrangements for the passage of emergency vehicles as a key factor in serving Canadians.
Mr. Chair and committee members, by way of conclusion, I would like to emphasize that the CBSA is an agency that undertakes its responsibilities seriously and with a view to serving the nation as a whole. As a responsible agency, we have to deal with the reality before us, and that reality means making difficult decisions and hard choices. The decisions we take as an agency are granted with a steadfast and unwavering commitment to provide the highest-quality border services, which protect our country and facilitate trade in a fiscally responsible and principled manner.
I look forward to your questions, and thank you.
