Thank you.
Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members of the committee. My name is Roslyn MacVicar, and I am the regional director general for the Canada Border Services Agency in the Pacific region. I'd like to thank you for giving me this opportunity to provide an overview of our operations here in the Pacific region.
As you heard from colleagues in Ontario, the CBSA's mission is to ensure the security and prosperity of Canada by managing the access of people and goods to and from Canada. Here within the Pacific region, which is inclusive of British Columbia and the Yukon, approximately 1,900 employees ensure that this mission is achieved in all modes. That includes air, rail, highway, postal, and marine.
In 2017 our staff were responsible for processing 23 million travellers, eight million vehicles, 2.2 million commercial releases, 44 million courier shipments, and almost 37 million pieces of international mail.
Tomorrow you will tour the Metro Vancouver marine operations, an area that encompasses the largest marine port in Canada. It is responsible for the clearance of commercial vessels and goods, cruise ships, and personal vessels. Marine operations will conduct examinations of marine vessels, travellers and crew, inbound and outbound marine containers, and non-containerized commodities. Operations focus primarily on enforcement, analysis, inspection and monitoring of activities in the third-largest port, by tonnage, in the Americas.
More than three million containers pass through the port of Vancouver every year, and more than 142 million metric tons of goods are risk-assessed and controlled by the CBSA in the Vancouver area. Total volumes through the Pacific region account for 57% of marine container freight in Canada.