Madam Speaker, now that I am not as crunched for time as I am in question period or at other opportunities, I would like to congratulate you on your reappointment as Assistant Deputy Speaker.
I also want to thank the constituents of Brampton North—Caledon for electing me for a fourth mandate. I am committed to making sure that their voices are heard and that the issues they brought up to me during the election and in years prior are worked on effectively and efficiently. I want to thank my campaign team and my family at home, who have always supported me completely.
I will now start my remarks on Bill C-2, the bill we are talking about today. This is a wonderful opportunity, and it allows me to fulfill some of the commitments I have made to my constituents. As the Secretary of State for Combatting Crime, I am really proud to play a role in supporting this government's initiative to keep Canada and our communities safe and secure.
In April, Canadians gave this House a mandate to ensure the safety and security of all Canadians. Our country has professional, highly trained and hard-working security personnel. However, it is clear that the current tools and policies are insufficient to effectively counter the modern and emerging threats and challenges we face today.
Now is the time for action. We must do more to equip our law enforcement and intelligence agencies with the latest tools and technologies, do more to stop transnational organized crime from damaging communities and destroying lives with illegal guns and weapons, and do more to enable collaboration and information sharing among our security agencies, law enforcement partners and international allies.
Bill C-2 is a crucial legislative step we must take to secure our border, support law enforcement and improve community safety. This government's top priority is to keep our communities safe and our economy thriving. Both of these objectives depend upon decisive measures to combat crime and keep our border safe and secure. The effects of improving our border security will be felt in cities and towns across Canada. By giving border officers the authority to search goods for export, we are ensuring they have additional tools to recover stolen vehicles and seize illegal firearms and drugs.
This legislation is building on the Government of Canada's $1.3-billion investment in border security through our Canada border plan. This spending is helping our law enforcement and intelligence agencies investigate and prosecute transnational organized crime groups, which have become increasingly more sophisticated in their use of new technologies like drones, 3-D printers and encrypted communications to carry out cross-border crimes.
We cannot have a strong border without good intelligence. The border plan has built up our information and intelligence-sharing capacity among federal, provincial and territorial authorities, as well as with our international partners. Investment in drones, helicopters, sensors and other detection technologies ensures that we are effectively monitoring our whole border.
We will continue to work with Canada's fentanyl czar to coordinate all levels of government and law enforcement to dismantle these networks. To support that aim, we have taken a major step in the fight against organized crime by listing seven transnational criminal cartels as terrorist entities under our Criminal Code. Listing is an important tool that helps support criminal investigations and strengthens the RCMP's ability to prevent, disrupt and prosecute criminal activities.
It is now time to take our efforts further through legislation. Bill C-2 would improve the tools and authorities that Canadian law enforcement needs to fight crime. For instance, communities across Canada have been shocked by the increase in deaths caused by illegal fentanyl. Fentanyl's devastating effect can be felt on individuals, families and communities. Every member of this House knows someone who has been affected by this public health crisis. Through this proposed act, our work to secure the border, we are tackling the fentanyl crisis and its precursors head-on. To increase our detection capabilities, we are training and deploying new border detector dogs that specialize in uncovering smuggled drugs.
Amendments to the Canada Post Corporation Act would allow police to search and seize contraband such as fentanyl from Canada Post mail with a general warrant. This charge would help indigenous communities and rural municipalities in their efforts to intercept dangerous illegal drugs that are clandestinely shipped through the mail.
Canada recently demonstrated it can move quickly to ban precursor chemicals used in the production of fentanyl via the temporary accelerated scheduling pathway under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. Bill C-2 proposes amendments that would allow chemicals in this pathway to quickly be regulated under the precursor control regulations.
It is clear that we must strengthen our laws to disrupt the supply of illegal drugs both within Canada and around the world. This important step would give the government and law enforcement the ability to stay ahead of those who would profit from fentanyl production and distribution.
Furthermore, we are creating a new Canadian drug analysis centre that would allow for a more specialized analysis of synthetic drug samples. This centre would be able to go beyond simply identifying the components of a sample and would instead look at markets to determine how and where the substances were manufactured. Knowing that transnational organized crime groups depend on illicit money to keep their operations going—