Mr. Speaker, in response to (a), as of January 25, 2008, 220 CBSA officers have been armed and deployed to various ports of entry, POE. By the end of the 2007-08 fiscal year, we expect to have between 250 to 300 CBSA officers armed.
In response to (b), the number of officers armed in 2008-09 will be based on the availability of training facilities and the implementation plan and seat allocation. The plan and the seat allocation are currently being developed in consultation with the regions and will be available in early 2008.
In response to (c), fully trained and armed border officers have already been deployed. While it is projected that this process may take up to 10 years, the government intends to move forward as quickly as possible and is looking at options to increase training capacity.
In response to (d), the CBSA’s arming initiative involves much more than just the cost of training officers. The cost of the initiative includes officer training, uniforms and equipment, inventory tracking and incident management, overall program administration and corporate support, the replacement of summer students, new construction at the CBSA learning centre in Rigaud, Quebec, the development of new policies and procedures, and the costs related to our legislated requirement to accommodate certain employees. To assign these costs on a per person basis when only slightly more than 100 employees have successfully completed the training would be extremely misleading.
In response to (e), the 2006 federal budget provided funding of $101 million during a period of two years to begin the process of arming officers and to eliminate work-alone shifts. The total cost of arming border services officers, including all expenses related to the initiative, is estimated at $781 million over a period of 10 years. This includes $338 million in training, $97 million for infrastructure, $44 million for equipment such as firearms, ammunition, et cetera, $77 million for student conversion, $17 million for duty to accommodate situations and $207 million for program administration and corporate costs.
In response to (f), there have been many assessments over the years done on the issue of arming border officers, and not all had the same conclusions. The Government of Canada’s position has always been that CBSA officers need to be provided with adequate tools to protect their lives, health and safety and to perform their duties. The government has concluded that it is in the public interest to provide an armed presence at the border.