Ms. Michaud, thank you for your 25 questions.
I remember telling you the day after the American election that I wasn't worried about a possible upsurge of migrants from the south to the north, because the RCMP and Canada Border Services Agency were ready. I haven't changed my mind on this issue.
That said, you're right about the comments made by Mr. Trump a week ago. At that time, the challenge was the fight against fentanyl. We discussed this at Mar‑a‑Lago on Friday evening.
The Americans are worried about the number of people trying to enter the United States from Canada. We must assure them and Canadians that we can bring the numbers down and remain a first‑rate partner in the fight against fentanyl, as I said. I think that this is still the case.
You raised another good point regarding the mandate of border services officers in comparison with the mandate of RCMP officers.
I completely agree with you. Should an emergency or operational circumstance require the reassignment of police officers by Commissioner Michael Duheme and his commanding officer in Quebec, for example, it could take precedence over other investigations. This wouldn't be ideal and it would be a challenge.
However, we've been dealing with this type of challenge for decades by managing threats. As a result, we'll be increasing the number of recruits in the depot division of the RCMP academy in Regina. The commissioner has already made considerable progress on this front and the trends in this area are encouraging. However, recruitment doesn't happen overnight.
I'm intrigued by the idea of looking at the Canada Border Services Agency's mandate. I had informal discussions on this topic with the president of the Canada Border Services Agency and the commissioner a number of months ago, well before the American election.
That said, it remains to be seen whether this approach would work. I visited the border services college in Rigaud. It's a great place to train. However, we can't recruit hundreds of border services officers overnight, although 500 join the ranks every year.