Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here.
A couple of things are certainly troubling. One is the fact that the port authorities don't have access to review the manifests. CBSA does to some degree. Obviously there is a big gap where, as you said, Mr. Bergeron, a manifest is completed, but no one confirms that what's actually in the container is what's on the manifest. This is an area we can fix.
Are there any recommendations you have for that? I don't have time to do it all today, but if you guys from the port authorities could supply the information on your recommendations as to how we can fix that gap, that would be great.
I started in law enforcement in 1980, before most of you in this room were born, and I can tell you that back then, early on, traditional organized crime in Montreal and outlawed motorcycle gangs in Vancouver ran the ports, and they still run the ports. That is a fact. When I say that, it's not in the port proper necessarily. It's that gap between a car stolen in the GTA and.... People think they drive it into the port and drive it into a container on port property. We know that's not how it happens. We have a gap there as well.
We know that crime is getting worse in this country after the nine years of this government. What do we need to do to ensure that what's in the containers that are being filled elsewhere and coming onto port property is actually what is in them, and that we know what's in them?
How do we do that differently, given that organized crime is absolutely involved in that process?