Madam Speaker, the reform of Canada customs has been the subject of a huge and extensive period of consultation. We started some years ago by consulting stakeholders, the department and customs officers.
As I said on numerous occasions, we can use technology and programs like Canpass and the Canada customs self-assessment, but at the end of the day customs officers are the key component of our customs system. These are the people we rely on. We need their experience and expertise. We are using technology to make sure that we will proceed with a much better risk assessment and risk management system. We will make sure that our human resources focus on where the risk is higher or unknown.
I met with the head of the union some weeks ago and I told him that we must maintain an ongoing relationship in the sense that our customs officials are working in the field and their advice is very important.
We all know that pre-clearance is part of our customs action plan. It is one program that needs to be more efficient and effective. We have looked at that question at airports. Pre-clearance could also be established in other places as well.
However, as I said many times when referring to the management of customs and the land border, it should include a high tech smart border as well as co-operation with the United States.