It involved a pan-government effort. I, of course, was involved. The Department of Finance was involved in our analysis and investigation as well. Sister departments like immigration were involved as well.
As I said earlier, I think in terms of the nuts and bolts on the street and at the ports of entry and so forth—the operations of our agencies—they are undertaken by extremely dedicated individuals, who strive every day to do the very best job they can possibly do and to find ways to improve their performance and make sure that we are all constantly getting better at the incredibly important task of public safety in an incredibly difficult world.
In 2008, 2014, 2015 and 2016, ISIS was a growing threat in the world. Our government recognized that we needed to make sure that our agencies were properly equipped and in a position, with the capacity, to keep Canadians safe and to safeguard the security of the nation.
Broadly speaking, we undertook to do three things. One was to bring in innovative new policies where that would be required. An example would be this whole point of making biometrics broadly used across every dimension of what we do in the security checking process. It was used in some cases but not all. By 2018, we had made it universal.
We also improved information sharing with our international partners. We took steps to upgrade the quality of what we do under cybersecurity. Some of that was policy changes. Some of that was legislation. We passed, if I remember correctly, with the help of all parliamentarians, at least 12 pieces of major legislation, including the anchor piece, Bill C-59.
Over that period of four years, we also increased the funding available to these agencies by about 42% from beginning to end, which the government has continued to improve upon as well.
You need to make sure you have the best trained people, that they have the legal mandates and the legal authorities to do what they need to do, that they are publicly accountable through all of your oversight and review agencies, and that they have the enthusiasm of knowing that their government and the population stand behind them in this absolutely incredible mission of keeping Canadians safe.