Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. We did rely on the the recent internal audit done by Global Affairs on physical security. We had worked with them very closely to ensure we could do that. In our and their view this would provide the most value to Global Affairs. They had done a series of site visits.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, we did indeed ask Global Affairs that question. As we point out in the report, they did have long-standing vacancies in their project management shop for developing and implementing their capital projects, which are necessary to resolve the security deficiencies at missions abroad.

Foreign Affairs committee  In the 15 cases we reviewed of mistreatment and torture, we didn't see anything on the consular officer on the ground. We saw that they met as soon as they were alerted. When it came to their attention, they immediately took action. The variance that we saw was in getting the information necessary to make a judgment as to whether or not the claims were credible.

Foreign Affairs committee  They do have a booklet. They do have information available online about your rights when detained abroad, and they do caution that conditions are not the same as they are in Canada. Global Affairs' approach to this is to inform the travellers. Our issue was that they had not examined the best way to reach the vulnerable travellers, nor had they examined their outreach to people who might be travelling to dangerous locations or to the Caribbean during holiday or hurricane season.

Foreign Affairs committee  It's certainly at the discretion of the consular officer handling the case. That's what we examined, and we found: a high degree of variation in how that discretion is exercised.

Foreign Affairs committee  They explained to us that they didn't get to them. They have only so many resources and they were not done. They should have been done, but they were not done.

Foreign Affairs committee  It's primarily because of the 10-year passport. Most Canadians are opting for the 10-year rather than the five-year passport. Without having to renew it as frequently, there is going to be a revenue drop-off, but then you can see that it's going to go back up again.

Foreign Affairs committee  The reason is that they're going to start renewing them again.

Foreign Affairs committee  I'm not at liberty to mention the name of the case for security and privacy considerations.

Foreign Affairs committee  We didn't look particularly at that case. We did see that they have discretion on whether or not they will provide consular assistance to non-Canadians. I believe we did come across one or two cases in our sample in which they did that. It is within their discretion to do that, but certainly the primary intent of these missions is to support Canadian citizens.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes.

Foreign Affairs committee  We found that we couldn't find any link between the level of workload and the staffing of different consular offices. We found issues in the level of contact in offices that were well staffed and also in offices that weren't very well staffed. It very much depended, in our view, on the discretion of the consular officer involved.

Foreign Affairs committee  Absolutely, and that was a recommendation from Justice O'Connor. This was a key issue that was raised in that inquiry, that the consular staff were not trained. Hence the recommendation that they do be trained. We looked at the level of training that was provided, and it is.... They do bring in experts in mistreatment and torture to give an overview, but what we also heard from the staff is that they do want to have a better understanding of what to look for and how to identify it.

Foreign Affairs committee  Every time a Canadian contacts the mission to request assistance, the mission is required to open up a case file. They did open up the case file, but we didn't find that the documentation within the case file, in many cases, was sufficient for us to assess whether or not the required contacts or the required services were being offered.

Foreign Affairs committee  There was a high variation. It wasn't documented, and, in our view, if it's not documented, it didn't occur.