Thank you very much, Chair.
I'd like to thank our witnesses today for helping to guide us through this study.
It seems to me when looking at this issue that there are two potential advantages that we can make use of when dealing with this problem. First, a car is not the easiest thing to hide because of its size and, second, our ports seem to be natural choke points, in that people rely on your ports to reach those lucrative export markets.
This is obviously a multi-faceted problem. We've heard from a range of witnesses: from auto manufacturers to police to intelligence-gathering. They all have a role to play, but given the fact that a car is not the easiest item to hide and that we have a natural choke point, I'm just wondering how best we can take advantage of that.
At the port of Montreal, when you have successfully located contraband cars, obviously stolen cars, I know that with the containers they are loaded off-site. They are sealed, and I assume that's with a wire tag with a manifest. When you've worked your way back, you've opened the container and you've found stolen cars.... That's how I like to approach problems. You find a problem and work your way backwards.
What have been some of the common themes in that investigation? Where did things go wrong? Who ultimately signed off on what was in the container? That's what I want to know: How do we best improve that process?