Public Safety committee  In the context of enforcing the Customs Act, we have an ability to open containers without a warrant.

Public Safety committee  I apologize. I don't have the exact number of border services officers that we have at the Port of Montreal, but it's more than eight. Our mandate, both in terms of looking at traffic coming in, whether it's people or goods, or traffic leaving in terms of exports, is to always take a risk-based approach.

Public Safety committee  First of all, I'd like to apologize for not having the number, and I commit to providing you that number. Yes. Historically, our primary focus has been on threats coming into the country, such as drugs and illegal firearms, but we do not ignore exports. We've had results in terms of seizing stolen vehicles over the last 10 years, for example.

Public Safety committee  I think it is a plausible scenario, and we've seen press reports that refer to it. I can only imagine how frustrating it is for somebody to experience that. I think it speaks to the collaboration that's taking place between law enforcement partners and the CBSA. We're developing what we call our “request to locate” protocol.

Public Safety committee  Hopefully, you're not engaging us by the time it has gotten to the port. What we would ask people to do is to contact their local law enforcement, who can intervene more rapidly in the locale where it is. This is a hypothetical scenario, but if it is then bound for a rail yard in the Toronto area, and it's brought to our attention that it's in a container we think is bound for export, we can use our authority to go into the rail yard, open the container and retrieve the vehicle, same if it gets to the port.

Public Safety committee  As we become more engaged in auto theft—again, I'll point out that last year, we seized about 1,800 vehicles—we are getting better in how we do our targeting and how we manage things like the vehicle identification numbers, VINs, for example. What we're trying to do is take the information that we get as part of export declarations, which includes the VINs, and use that to improve our targeting.

Public Safety committee  Thank you for the question. It felt like there were two parts to it, so I hope I get this right. Generally speaking, when it comes to port security and the background checks that are required for all people working at the port, that is the responsibility of Transport Canada. Transport Canada has a marine security program that requires not all, but probably most, port staff—it's for them to say—to have some kind of background check that's similar to what they do at airports.

Public Safety committee  I'd prefer not to talk about the percentage, because that gives our adversaries, if you will, a bit of an advantage. What I can say is that if you look at international reporting, around the world internationally about 2% of containers are physically inspected at any given time.

Public Safety committee  What we're focused on is using intelligence and information referrals from the RCMP, for example, but also our own intelligence, to target containers and separate the needles from the haystack, if you will. I think we're having success. If you look at the results of our targeting in the Port of Montreal, for example, we've now seized 561 vehicles in the Port of Montreal.

Public Safety committee  I think we are screening a lot more when it comes to stolen vehicles—certainly more than we did in the past—and we're seeing the results.

Public Safety committee  Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and honourable members of the committee. Thank you for having us here today to respond to your questions. The Canada Border Services Agency has a dual mandate, to facilitate legitimate trade in support of a strong Canadian economy and to ensure border security and integrity to protect Canadians from a variety of threats including illegal drugs, firearms and the export of stolen vehicles.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, we use the technology in our digital forensics labs, secure facilities. It's in our physical possession, again, obtained through a search warrant.

Information & Ethics committee  It was border-related legislation, so they were booked, for example, under our own Customs Act.

Information & Ethics committee  I'm not aware of any instance and I can't think of an instance in which we would use it in the context of COVID. Again, the only instances in which we would use it would be with prior judicial authorization.

Information & Ethics committee  Same thing for us.