Public Safety Committee on Feb. 26th, 2024

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Michaud.

Mr. Garrison.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to try to get in two quick questions.

Mr. Weber, when you were just asked about no cuts since 2015, can you talk about the increase in the number of travellers and traffic through the ports in that time? That makes it sound like it's a good thing that things didn't go down, but there was a lot more volume. That would be my understanding.

[Mark Weber]

I don't have exact numbers available. We could get those for you.

Things are definitely getting busier. Anecdotally, I hear that from officers. As the numbers go down, obviously, the lineups get longer. We all saw what went on during the pandemic and what happened with ArriveCAN with some of the lineups at certain times of the year. You're arriving at major airports, and you're waiting an hour or two to get through customs.

Again, what does that do to our officers? As was mentioned earlier, they are dedicated, they want to do a good job and they want to protect Canada. That's why they get into this. For them to do that, under the circumstances they're currently working under with those short staffing levels, it is often really devastating for them to not be able to really do the job they were hired to do.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thanks very much.

I'll try to squeeze in one here to the Peel Regional Police.

It seems to me that manufacturers ought to be able to do more with anti-theft devices. My partner took my car after dropping me off at the airport, and the car emailed me that it was at McDonald's in Saanich a half an hour later.

If the car can do that, which I don't really want it to do, can manufacturers do more with anti-theft devices and tracking to assist the police?

[D/Chief Nick Milinovich]

Yes, definitely. This is why this is so important. While I've been more highly focused on a few key points here, I want to provide reassurance to everybody on the committee that we understand that everybody has their role to play, including industry stakeholders. Absolutely, they should be considering the gaps and the faults in their security systems and addressing them.

We have working groups, and we are sharing the most recent theft trends we are seeing with industry. However, it has to be one of those continuous improvement pieces, because the criminal element is learning quickly.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Heath MacDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Garrison.

Thank you to the witnesses. Believe us, we appreciate everything you do.

The meeting is adjourned.