Public Safety committee  No, we have a very robust audit system. We have a chief audit officer. They do their plans based on risk, as well as initiatives such as this. You know, the money's gone, we'd better save it, so....

Public Safety committee  In terms of challenges generally, I would consider a lot of the work being caught in the area you're articulating supportive of the general public safety need. I think Mr. Potter has hit the nail on the head. From my discussions with deputy ministers in several provinces, I would

Public Safety committee  Well, not really. It's a shared responsibility at ports of entry and at the border in between. Both entities work very collaboratively, often in an integrated fashion. In many cases, it's a very positive working relationship. I would articulate it more as that we want to make sur

Public Safety committee  I'm not in a great position. I would just say generally, however, that our emphasis and attention is always on criminal activities related to national security. Again, the relationship and sharing with CSIS is exceptional. It's a very different world today.

Public Safety committee  I think my response would be more around a lot of the work that's been done in recent years on crime reduction. It really focuses on frequent offenders or chronic offenders. How do we interrupt that? In some of the cases that have already been cited here, it's more about the ri

Public Safety committee  Yes—

Public Safety committee  There have been targets apportioned across the organization. Some of that relates to such things as the administrative efficiencies I spoke about earlier. For instance, in compensation we used to have pay and benefits offices in each region of the country. We're now going to one.

Public Safety committee  It's fair to note that in Canada police resources have increased in the past decade in terms of head count. Probably now, because of economic reality and constraint, it will start to go down. That will be an outcome, I think. Perhaps more important relative to your point is that

Public Safety committee  That's right, yes.

Public Safety committee  Thank you for the question. The situation looks different in many different jurisdictions, and that relates to demographics, moneys invested in the health system or mental health supports, and so on. Generally mental health, and responding to mental health, has been a concern of

Public Safety committee  For instance, in the Halifax Regional Municipality they have rapid response teams, so if the police are called to an incident or come across a case exhibiting signs of psychological distress, those teams are mobilized. They're on the scene very quickly and they work hours that ar

Public Safety committee  As with most things, I think there's often always an ebb and flow. I will comment very briefly on mental health and other calls for service that the police receive. When you look at the crime rate over the past decade, you will see that it has gone down quite noticeably, but ca

Public Safety committee  As you know, we just renewed or actually created a new agreement for policing services. It's based on the premise of a cost-sharing arrangement that brings benefits to both the federal government and the province and/or the municipality. The numbers generally frame up as follow

Public Safety committee  In terms of basic training, a certain percentage goes back to the jurisdictions, to the provinces, that pay a share of those costs. In terms of training generally—ongoing general police training, re-qualification for firearms, use of force, supervisory training, and so on—those,

Public Safety committee  I think the Internet has been very empowering for society generally, and with it come different types of crime, whether it's Internet fraud, Internet-facilitated fraud, or something as tragic as child exploitation. It's certainly changing the dynamic in how we allocate resources