Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for joining me in thanking the customs officers for their work. With respect to the question of resources at the border and the volume we deal with on a daily, weekly and year round basis, I have said many times that we are living in a global marketplace.
We on the customs side have what we call a dual mandate. If one has a look at the mandate the question of the safety of our population is a very important cornerstone of it.
In facing new realities such as the threat of terrorism and the question of resources, the way to manage the border is to proceed with the type of reform we tabled a year and a half ago: Bill S-23. We are trying today to proceed with a much better risk management by using soft technology. In doing so we will be able to use our resources where there is a higher or an unknown risk, and therefore be more efficient in our mandate.
What does this mean? Members know we are using passport and licence plate readers, ion scans, x-rays and the databank. If we keep doing this, while using intelligence and continuing to co-operate and exchange intelligence with other countries, we could proceed with new ways of delivering the services of customs.
I will give an example. Let us take a commercial flight. Normally when people come to Canada on a commercial flight we must stop them and proceed with interviews. Why do we not obtain all the information about people on a flight before they get to Canada?
With the information we have in the databank we would be able to analyze passengers on a certain commercial flight. When they got to the airport we could ask those who could represent a risk to our society to stop at the primary inspection line and then be referred to a secondary one. We could let the other people cross the border in a normal and standard fashion. That is an example.
We would like to use what we call palm readers at airports. It is a type of soft technology or new method of doing business which we at customs would like to use.
We must focus on the parameters as well. As we all know, we have free trade and economic links with the rest of North America. This is important. We must make sure we have a balanced approach and continue to be efficient for our society.